Maine’s new law will limit state and local law enforcement agencies’ cooperation with federal immigration officials when it takes effect on Wednesday, putting a hard stop on some of the routine handoffs that have fed civil immigration enforcement for years.
Who Gets Handed Over
Sue Roche, executive director for the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, said she was aware of more than 50 incidents last year where state and local police contacted immigration officials, leading to arrests. That number hangs over the new law like a receipt from the old regime. Roche said, "The vast majority of people who have been handed over to ICE or Border Patrol by Maine’s law enforcement were people in lawful immigration processes who had no criminal record."
That’s the machinery the law is aimed at. The "ICE Out of Policing" law restricts state and local law enforcement agencies, including jails, from assisting federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement. Agencies will be prohibited from reaching out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents for translation services if they encounter a person who does not speak English, and they generally may not provide personal information for civil immigration enforcement, though the law includes exceptions for criminal investigations and certain legally permitted information exchanges.
The law also restricts local and state agencies from holding people for ICE based solely on civil immigration enforcement. Jails generally will be prohibited from notifying ICE about nonpublic inmate release dates or honoring civil detainer requests, subject to exceptions involving serious crimes, outstanding warrants, final removal orders and certain public-safety concerns.
What the Institutions Are Doing
The policing measure became law without Mills' signature in January. Mills signed the schools, libraries and healthcare measure in April, while the tenant-privacy measure became law without her signature later that month. The timing matters because these aren’t sweeping breaks with the system so much as narrow limits on how much local institutions can be used as extensions of federal immigration power.
Another law taking effect on Wednesday generally prohibits employees at public schools, state colleges, public libraries, healthcare facilities and child-care facilities from voluntarily allowing immigration officers into nonpublic areas or granting access to protected records without a judicial warrant or other applicable legal authority. A third law restricts landlords from disclosing tenants' personal information without consent, including information related to immigration status, while preserving exceptions for warrants, subpoenas, emergencies and certain legitimate housing or legal purposes.
Several Maine cities, including Portland, Lewiston, Waterville and Rockland, have already adopted their own laws restricting local police from communicating with ICE and Border Patrol. Local governments across the country have also sought to pass similar legislation. The Maine State Police announced in December that it would begin following the policing restrictions before the law took effect. Some agencies continued contacting immigration officials anyway. That’s the gap between paper rules and the habits of enforcement.
Pressure From Above, Trust From Below
Scott Stewart, president of the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, warned that limiting cooperation could expose Maine agencies to federal funding cuts or increased enforcement. There it is: the quiet threat that keeps local institutions in line, the federal purse and the federal boot working together.
Immigrant rights advocates said the new laws will improve community trust in Maine officials to ensure public safety, regardless of immigration status. The ACLU of Maine, Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and civil legal aid provider Maine Equal Justice held a news conference on Tuesday about the new laws targeting ICE operations, according to the Portland Press Herald. That’s the closest thing in the article to organized resistance: advocates, legal aid, and community groups trying to carve out space from a system that has treated immigration status as a pipeline to punishment.
The law’s supporters are trying to block some of the most direct channels between local institutions and federal immigration enforcement. The exceptions remain broad enough to remind everyone who still holds the keys. But the new restrictions do put limits on how easily police, jails, schools, libraries, healthcare facilities and landlords can be turned into informants for the immigration apparatus.
Fox News Digital has reached out to ICE for comment.