State lawmakers heard several hours of testimony Thursday in support of a bill that aims to restrict access by federal immigration agents to schools, hospitals or day care facilities in Maine unless they have a warrant.
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump rescinded a federal policy that actively discouraged immigration enforcement around such "sensitive locations." Under the new guidance, immigration agents are expected to use their own discretion and "common sense" when operating around such areas. As a result, federal law enforcement have detained noncitizens around churches, schools and hospitals as well as in courthouses.
Rep. Eleanor Sato told a legislative committee that many new Mainers and people of color are afraid to go to work, the doctor or send their children to school because of an immigration crackdown. Sato, a Gorham Democrat, said more than 1,000 students in Portland public schools were absent last Friday and that the impacts extend throughout the community.
"It is truly devastating to see the terror and fear in our communities," Sato said.
Sato introduced a bill, LD 2106, requiring staff at schools, hospitals, child care facilities and public libraries to turn away federal immigration agents from nonpublic areas unless they had a court-issued warrant. She said the bill is narrowly tailored to only affect federal immigration enforcement and would not prohibit agents from arresting criminals — the supposed target of the nationwide crackdown — or enter such an area under special circumstances. Entering the country illegally or overstaying a visa is a civil violation.
"This legislation only restricts voluntary consent for entry in the absence of a valid judicial warrant signed by a judge — a right that we all can exercise under the Fourth Amendment to the Maine and U.S. Constitutions," she told fellow members of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee. "By strengthening due process, we would be improving public trust."
Thursday's hearing was held just hour after U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican, announced that Trump administration officials told her they have ended the immigration enforcement surge in Maine, although "normal operations" will continue. Federal officials have said they detained more than 200 people in recent weeks but have only publicly identified a small number who have criminal records.
Since the nationwide immigration enforcement began, the Trump administration has also reportedly issued guidance to agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that they can forcibly enter a person's home with an administrative warrant rather than a court-issued warrant signed by a judge. Critics say that is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment's protections against warrantless or unreasonable search and seizure.
Alicia Rea, a policy fellow and attorney with Maine ACLU, described the bill as offering guidance and "reaffirming our independence and what our rights are — that valid judicial warrants mean something still in the state of Maine and that the Fourth Amendment really means something to us."
Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who formerly served as the state's attorney general, did not testify in person but submitted written testimony in support of the bill. Mills wrote that the bill "comes at an important moment," despite Thursday's news that the federal immigration crackdown was ending in Maine.
"As I have said, if the federal government has warrants, it should show them," Mills wrote. "Therefore, I strongly support a change to state law prohibiting any federal agents who do not have a valid judicial warrant from entering nonpublic areas of our public schools, institutions of higher education, health care and child care facilities or public libraries. The bottom line is this: while the federal government ignores the constitutional rights guaranteed to us all, Maine will defend them — and this bill accomplishes that."
Several dozen people testified in support of the bill, LD 2106, and no one opposed it during the first several hours of in-person or online testimony. But some lawmakers — particularly from the Republican side — questioned how the bill could be enforced given that federal law typically supersedes state law.
And Republican state Rep. Donald Ardell of Monticello, a former federal officer and investigator who worked part of his career in immigration enforcement, said the bill could impede the diverse work that agents conduct. As an example, Ardell suggested that the bill could prohibit immigration agents from even coordinating with a school or child care facility for the care of a child after a parent has been detained.
Ardell also blamed the current tensions over immigration enforcement on bad actors and on politicians, not on the aggressive tactics of immigration agents.
"Were our immigration officers permitted to conduct their duties in a safe, sane and orderly fashion, the sense of this would be quite different," he said. "The chaos on some of America's streets was not initiated by immigration enforcement but by uncontrolled and often childish displays witnessed in its opposition, a fire stoked not by public safety but by politics."
