This piece is part of a series covering the ICE Out of Maine laws. See more here.
Our public records investigations show that Maine jails and law enforcement have long collaborated with federal immigration operations. This undermines community trust and uses our local resources to support the president’s mass deportation agenda.
But Maine has an answer: On July 29, three new ICE Out laws will take effect, creating new protections for all Maine people. One of the laws, ICE Out of Policing, will sharply limit the ways state and local agencies can assist or interact with federal immigration operations.
ICE Out of Policing makes clear that our state, county, and municipal law enforcement officers cannot participate in federal immigration operations.
The law ensures that local resources are spent on local public safety priorities – not to do the federal government’s bidding. And as illustrated below, this law ensures that all people in our state can access public safety services when they need them – without fear of unrelated immigration consequences.
Separating Maine Jails and Law Enforcement from Mass Deportation
As the law’s sponsor recognized, before this law was passed “local law enforcement [was] diverting Maine’s public safety resources to engage in civil immigration enforcement . . . causing widespread and growing harm.” This diversion primarily occurred in two ways:
First, local jails across Maine detained non-citizens for ICE or CBP.
This detention happens under a formal contract or when jails honor “detainers.” Detainers are requests from ICE or CBP to continue holding a person until federal immigration agents can take them into custody, prolonging someone’s detention when they should otherwise be released. This has occurred across Maine: six jails had or have formal contracts with ICE or CBP, and at least four jails honor detainers.
Detainers are not judicial warrants, are not approved by a judge, and are essentially informal, non-binding requests. Detainers raise serious constitutional concerns because they lead to imprisonment without due process and without meeting the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
Jails have engaged in these practices despite strong public disapproval, undermining local trust and support. If people think their local police or sheriff might be acting as a deportation agent, they are less likely to call 911 in an emergency, report a crime, or serve as a witness in court. This undermines community safety for all.
When jails honor detainers, they also expose our communities to significant financial and legal liabilities. ICE and CBP can be slapdash when issuing detainers, violating people’s civil rights and leading to costly court cases. Earlier this year, ICE issued a detainer to Two Bridges Regional Jail, only to hastily rescind it when they realized they were targeting a U.S. citizen. Jails in other parts of the country have incurred significant financial liability when they detain U.S. citizens for federal immigration agents.
Second, law enforcement agencies throughout Maine have regularly contacted ICE or CBP when they encounter a suspected non-citizen, and have often continued to detain them until federal immigration agents can arrive.
This type of cooperation can occur when a person calls 911 and police believe, for whatever reason, that the caller is not a citizen. Our investigations show that officers have routinely done things like hold someone on the side of the road for hours to turn a simple speeding ticket into a roadside immigration operation, or respond to a medical emergency only to call federal agents instead of medical support.
This is precisely what occurred when a group of friends vacationed on a lake in Oxford County. When one member of the group drowned, his friend called 911, and an Oxford County sheriff’s deputy arrived. After learning that the men predominantly spoke Spanish, he called Border Patrol, which took several members of the group into custody. And because the deputy asked other law enforcement agencies to assist Border Patrol’s efforts, this single incident ultimately involved at least seven different Maine law enforcement officers from four different agencies – a massive waste of local resources spent to support Trump’s deportation machine, all triggered by someone simply seeking life-saving assistance.
These communications also occur during traffic stops. There, an officer pulls a car over and then, because the officer suspects someone in the car is not a citizen, contacts ICE or CBP. Officers may justify this by saying they needed federal agents to act as translators (although there are a number of other translation options available to officers, many of them already in use in police departments across the state). Officers have also stated that they need federal immigration authorities to tell them whether a person is lawfully present in the United States – but immigration status has nothing to do with a traffic violation.
The officer then continues to detain the driver and passengers until federal immigration agents arrive. This practice is rampant throughout Maine. In 2024 and 2025, at least 34 law enforcement agencies did this at least 70 times, turning at least 80 people over to federal immigration agents. These extended detentions waste public resources, as officers often spend hours waiting by the side of the road for agents to arrive – time that is not spent performing any other aspect of their work. These stops may also violate the state and federal constitutions when people are held on the side of the road longer than the Fourth Amendment allows, and when officers stop someone based on their race.
New Law: ‘ICE Out of Policing’
When this new law takes effect, all of the above practices will be barred. ICE Out of Policing explicitly prohibits law enforcement from detaining anyone under any circumstances for immigration purposes – whether that is at a jail or on the side of the road. The new law also explicitly forbids law enforcement from calling federal immigration authorities to act as translators.
As ICE grows ever more rogue and its death toll rises, this law has only become more important. By compelling law enforcement to end these risky, unnecessary practices, ICE Out of Policing will shore up public trust, and increase everyone’s ability to access public safety services – a move that makes us all more secure in our communities.
Join the Fight to Get ICE Out of Maine
While the state of Maine only has the authority to regulate what is under its own jurisdiction, ICE Out laws will make every community safer.
However, these protections will only work if they're fully implemented. A wide range of public officials oversee many of the local systems affected by these laws, including county commissioners, mayors, police chiefs, superintendents, and sheriffs.
