Officials in Portland, Maine, are considering a provision in the city’s ordinance to bar all employees from cooperating with federal immigration officials. If enacted, the prohibition would be stricter than a Maine law set to take effect in the summer.
It’s the latest measure as towns and states across the nation look to either increase or thwart local police and jail administrators’ partnerships with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through the 287(G) program. That’s happening in places like St. Charles County, Missouri, which has a new agreement as of March 31, and Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, where a commissioner said the body’s majority will not approve any 287(G) agreements.
Maine does not have any active agreements, according to ICE. As of April 1, there are 1,604 agreements with state and local police departments for federal immigration enforcement, a 16.1% increase from Feb. 4.
Several sheriffs in Maryland criticized Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, for signing a law to terminate existing and bar future agreements with ICE. One told Straight Arrow News in February that it built relationships before they were needed.
“The reason that sheriffs like it is because everything is controlled and things are safer with no one going into homes,” Washington County, Maryland, Sheriff Brian Albert said in February.
ICE has promoted the voluntary program as a way for local and tribal law enforcement to assist the agency in locating, detaining and transferring unauthorized immigrants. It uses four formats: jail enforcement, task force, tribal task force and warrant service officers.
Portland officials considers ban on employees’ cooperation
Unbiased. Straight Facts.TM
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Maine does not have any active 287(G) agreements.
In Portland, city officials are considering a limitation active in two other towns to extend beyond law enforcement, and include all public employees, according to the Portland Press Herald. No information is available on whether the city’s eight-member council will approve the ordinance at its April 13 meeting.
If the Portland City Council adopts the ordinance, Portland would be the third city in the state with stricter legislation. Lewiston and Rockland bar employees and city resources from being used to “assist, cooperate with, or facilitate any federal agency in any immigration enforcement operation,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine.
Similar language is used in Portland’s draft ordinance that the city council is considering. The city’s current law prevents police and city employees from inquiring about a person’s immigration status. Mayor Mark Dion said in a Jan. 14 statement that the Portland Police Department doesn’t cooperate with ICE.
Maine law to bar cooperation on immigration enforcement
All three ordinances would predate a new law Maine’s legislature passed — LD 1971 — to prohibit state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal civil immigration enforcement.
It became a law after Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, didn’t act on it before the legislature adjourned for the year. It goes into effect on April 15.
Mills wrote in a Dec. 15 op-ed in the Portland Press Herald that she spent 10 days reviewing the bill and felt it would confuse law enforcement on what they can do, but said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been “weaponized by the president.” She repealed a 2011 executive order from then-Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, that requested enhanced cooperation between the state and federal officials on immigration enforcement.
“LD 1971 is imperfect, and we should not need it, but the times call for it,” she wrote. “We cannot turn a blind eye to ICE’s unacceptable actions, and so I have chosen to allow LD 1971 to become law.”
Bill dies in Idaho Senate to require partnerships
In Idaho, lawmakers sought to do the opposite. They sought to require law enforcement to sign agreements with ICE. The state House passed the bill 41 to 27 with two lawmakers absent on March 6, according to the legislature.
The state Senate passed a similar bill, 37 to 29. But it failed to advance after senators said the bill’s process violated Senate rules. The Idaho Capital Sun reported on Thursday that senators pushed the legislation ahead by replacing entire contents of one bill with a completely different one, a process referred to there as “radiator capping.”
Despite its passage, Republican Britt Raybould, representing Rexburg, told the news outlet it didn’t sit well with her that legislators would “allow and encourage” a federal override of local law enforcement’s discretion.