Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement surge into Maine has ended just a week after it began, Sen. Susan Collins announced Thursday.
She said she got that assurance directly from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whom the Maine Republican had been lobbying to pull back the extra federal forces.
Ms. Collins said both U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection will continue their regular activities, but the surge won’t continue.
“I appreciate the secretary’s willingness to listen to and consider my recommendations and her personal attention to the situation in Maine,” the senator said.
DHS did not immediately respond to an inquiry seeking comment.
The department had announced the surge as a response to what it called “sanctuary politicians” in Maine.
Officials said they made about 200 arrests.
Homeland Security has said it targets the “worst of the worst,” but Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, said some of the 200 arrested “have no criminal record.”
“The reported end of ICE’s ’enhanced operation’ in Maine does not end the pain and suffering that they have inflicted on communities across our state — people who have been terrorized, mothers who have been separated from their children, businesses who have been threatened, all by their own government,” Ms. Mills said in a statement.
The latest action in Maine comes as the Trump administration is eyeing a drawdown of personnel in Minnesota, where some 3,000 ICE and CBP personnel have been deployed.
This month’s killing of two U.S. citizens engaged in anti-ICE protests has forced the Trump White House into a rethink.
But border czar Tom Homan said the drawdown is not a retreat.
“We are not surrendering the president’s mission on immigration enforcement,” he said.
