Federal agents this week launched a new immigration enforcement operation in Maine, the latest front of the Trump administration’s widening mass deportation campaign, Department of Homeland Security officials said Wednesday.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Maine started Tuesday, DHS officials said, noting that deportation officers had detained individuals from Angola, Ethiopia, Guatemala and Sudan with criminal histories. Officials at the agency said they had dubbed the effort “Operation Catch of the Day.”
A DHS official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, told CBS News that Somali immigrants are among those being targeted by ICE as part of the operation.
There’s an established community of immigrants from Somalia in parts of Maine, including Lewiston, the state’s second largest city. Refugees and immigrants from other African countries, including the Republic of the Congo, have also settled in Maine in recent years, though its population remains overwhelmingly White.
Immigrants from Somalia have been a frequent target of President Trump, who often describes them in harsh and derogatory ways. To partially justify its massive immigration crackdown in the Minneapolis area, the Trump administration has cited a fraud scandal in Minnesota implicating members of the state’s Somali community.
“We’re cracking down on more than $19 billion in fraud that was stolen by Somalian bandits. Can you believe that Somalians turned out to be higher IQ than we thought?” Mr. Trump said during a speech in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday. “We said, these are low IQ people. How do they go into Minnesota and steal all that money?”
In a statement, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the administration launched the operation in Maine to target people in the U.S. illegally who have also committed crimes. She accused Democratic state leaders, including Gov. Janet Mills, of not cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
“Governor Mills and her fellow sanctuary politicians in Maine have made it abundantly clear that they would rather stand with criminal illegal aliens than protect law-abiding American citizens,” McLaughlin said.
The operation has already sparked criticism from local leaders. David Morse, the mayor of the Portland suburb of Westbrook, said ICE had conducted arrests in his community on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“At least one peaceful US citizen observer from Westbrook was targeted for intimidation by a masked federal law enforcement officer this morning,” Morse wrote in a social media post. “This is outrageous behavior from a federal authority, and I stand by our citizens’ rights to peacefully observe and/or protest.”
The ICE operation appears to have been telegraphed earlier in the week by the U.S. attorney in Maine, Andrew Benson.
“In the coming days, if Maine citizens seek to exercise their rights to assemble and protest, it is vital that these protests remain peaceful,” Benson said on Monday. “Anyone who forcibly assaults or impedes a federal law enforcement officer, willfully destroys government property or unlawfully obstructs federal law enforcement activity commits a federal crime and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Scrutiny of ICE’s operations and tactics has escalated in recent weeks following the deployment of thousands of immigration officers to the Minneapolis region, where local leaders and residents have accused federal agents of stopping U.S. citizens and acting too aggressively when conducting arrests. Protests there intensified after an ICE officer shot and killed Minnesota mother Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, on Jan. 7.
