AUGUSTA, ME – A new law that went into effect in Maine earlier in July aims to limit state and local police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, while two other laws are placing similar communication restrictions on civilians employed in various fields, such as library clerks and even landlords.
On July 29th, a new law limiting the means and manner in which state and local law enforcement in Maine can cooperate with agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) went into effect, with said legislation mirroring numerous other iterations adopted in what the Trump administration has dubbed as sanctuary jurisdictions.
The “ICE Out of Policing” act, as it’s being referred to locally, will prohibit state and local police from contacting federal immigration authorities for assistance with translation services during encounters with non-English speaking individuals, as well as prohibitions on information sharing in the interest of civil immigration enforcement.
The aforementioned legislation also impacts cooperation between jails and state detention facilities from sharing information about detainees with federal immigration officials as well as instructions to not honor immigration detainers sans extreme circumstances like standing final orders of removal or serious felony charges/public safety concerns.
A second law which also took effect on July 29th in Maine reportedly prohibits employees at public schools, state colleges, public libraries, healthcare and child-care facilities from granting federal immigration authorities access to employee-only areas or records without a judicial warrant.
One of the more novel laws which are amongst the anti-ICE pieces of legislation that came into effect in Maine is directed toward landlords, which now compels property owners and their agents – such as property managers – to not disclose any identifying information regarding their tenants to federal immigration authorities. Landlords who defy the aforementioned law would be subject to civil penalties equal to “actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater,” which would be paid out to the impacted tenant who were reported to ICE.
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