CUMBERLAND COUNTY, ME - As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has taken its deportation roadshow to Maine, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is removing illegal alien detainees from the Cumberland County Jail after county Sheriff Kevin Joyce complained about one of his correctional officer recruits being detained by ICE. Joyce claimed that the recruit is “lawfully” authorized to work in the U.S, the Maine Morning Star reported.
Joyce publicly questioned the priorities of ICE after the recruit was detained last Wednesday night. According to Joyce, the recruit completed paperwork stating he was lawfully authorized to work in the U.S. and passed a background check, claiming he had a “squeaky clean record.”
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That statement was laughed off by DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who said the sheriff’s office employing the illegal alien took “sanctuary city to a whole new level” in a statement issued Friday night.
The fact that the sheriff’s office hired the illegal alien is forcing DHS to no longer house other people who are in the country illegally at the jail. “We could not, in good conscience, continue to partner with a law enforcement organization that flagrantly violated our nation’s immigration laws,” the statement read.
The dispute came as ICE has increased enforcement activity in Maine. Most of those detained during the operation have been shipped out of state after being apprehended, and some have been held in local jails because Maine doesn’t have a dedicated federal ICE facility.
That has gotten the attention of illegal alien advocates in the state, with Ruben Torres, advocacy and policy manager for the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition, complaining that, “Folks are having issues with being able to locate their loved ones.”
Last week, the University of Maine School of Law’s Refugee and Human Rights Clinic began receiving calls from illegal alien detainees that they were being moved. The clinic has been providing legal support to over 300 people held in the Cumberland County Jail during President Trump’s second term.
As of Friday morning, all illegal alien detainees had been removed from the facility, although one person the clinic has been helping is still showing as being detained at the facility, according to ICE’s detainee locator, the Morning Star reported.
That system shows that detainees have been sent to the Federal Correctional Institution in Berlin, New Hampshire, the Donald W. Wyatt Detention facility in Rhode Island, and the Plymouth County Correctional facility in Massachusetts. There are, however, some questions that remain about where female detainees were sent, although it is believed they may have been sent to Louisiana.
The Morning Star reached out to the Cumberland County Jail for comment; neither DHS nor ICE responded.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills has “demanded” transparency from the Trump administration about where detainees are being taken, but the administration has provided as much support to that “demand” as Democrat Maine officials have been giving ICE.
As of Wednesday, Cumberland County hadn’t received any new bookings for illegal alien detainees. Before the removal, there had been 64 immigration detainees in the facility. There were nine new bookings in January.
ICE has concentrated its efforts in Maine, specifically in Cumberland and Androscoggin Counties, including Lewiston, although ICE agents have also been operating in other areas.
One illegal was booked at the Androscoggin County Jail last week; he was subject to local charges lodged by the Lewiston Police Department. At Two Bridges Regional Jail in Bath, it has typically held the second-most immigration detainees since President Trump was inaugurated last January, but had no new immigration-related bookings since the ramped-up ICE operations in Maine, intake supervisor Corporal Aaron Smith said.
Currently, five ICE detainees are housed at Two Bridges, but have been there for an average of 301 days. All were transferred from other facilities to the jail.
According to attorneys providing legal assistance for illegal alien inmates at Cumberland County Jail, a majority were not Maine residents and had not been initially detained in Maine. Many are initially transferred to the facility and then quickly shipped out, according to the legal assistance attorneys.
Legal experts complain that moving illegals out is allowed, but complain that it “creates chaos” and makes it harder for them to advocate for the illegal aliens and for families to maintain contact.
The Cumberland County Jail has been under increasing pressure from pro-illegal alien criminal advocates to end its contracts with federal agencies that allow such detentions. While the sheriff’s office doesn’t have a direct contract with ICE, it does have one with the U.S. Marshal Service that has been in effect since July 2010. The contract provides that the jail is given a daily rate to house federal detainees, including illegal aliens.
The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners delayed its decision; the Maine state legislature is now considering a bill to terminate the contract.
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