LEWISTON, Maine — Immigrants who are in the U.S. legally should not have anything to worry about as immigration enforcement escalates in Maine, Donna Desjardins said Wednesday.
“If you’ve come in legally and you’re not a criminal along with it, then you have nothing to worry about,” Desjardins said while walking into Simone’s Hot Dog Stand for lunch Wednesday. “I think it’s a good thing that they’re cleaning out the cities.”
Desjardins was one of 20 people who talked to a Bangor Daily News reporter in Lewiston and Auburn on Wednesday, the second day of intensified immigration enforcement sweeps of southern Maine, showing a profound split in the area that has been a center for immigration from Somalia and other African countries since the early 2000s.
Tuesday marked the start of heightened enforcement, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement saying it arrested nearly 50 people in Maine, some with serious criminal records. A surge of enforcement has been expected in Portland and Lewiston since the Democratic mayors of both cities released statements previewing it last week. They condemned the escalating activity on Wednesday.
“This council doesn’t stand apart from our immigrant communities, but rather, we stand with them,” Portland Mayor Mark Dion said in a news conference at which he urged people to respect law enforcement but document their activity.
Other voices were stronger. Portland City Councilor Wes Pelletier, a progressive, called the activity “war of terror” in his city. Republican candidates for governor applauded the activity, with real estate agent David Jones shooting a video in Lewiston’s Kennedy Park saying that agents were in the city to “bring law and order” to the city.
The rapid change in Lewiston has been a source of tension in city politics. A decade ago, the city’s Republican mayor won a hotly contested election while campaigning largely on welfare. The surge in federal enforcement comes after a far larger one in Minnesota, where there were dozens of welfare fraud prosecutions brought against members of the Somali community.
A similar but smaller amount of scrutiny has come in Maine, where an immigrant health care provider was suspended from the state’s version of Medicaid last month over suspected interpreter fraud. That was flagged as a wider problem in a report authored five years ago for Maine police by a federal investigator.
Lewiston City Councilor Susan Longchamps said she may not be the most vocal official in the city, but she knows there are a lot of people working behind the scenes to make sure the community is safe and that people are in the U.S. legally.
“My family came from Mexico,” Longchamps said. “But I also stand on making sure that you are here legally.”
One woman who provided a fake name outside the downtown Auburn Hannaford, said she was born and raised in Lewiston but moved to its twin city about 15 years ago. She called Lewiston unrecognizable, and she said she is disappointed that many immigrants have not assimilated.
She and others in Lewiston and Auburn said they doubted that law-abiding immigrants would be targeted by ICE. The agency has advertised some of their notable arrests by noting those with serious criminal records, but it appears they have also arrested asylum seekers who have been working in Maine. One said in a court filing that he had no criminal record.
There was skepticism about the federal surge in the Lewiston area on Wednesday. Outside Rolly’s Diner just across the Androscoggin River in Auburn, Lorraine Thibeault of Lewiston said she feared it was making the state less safe.
“I also think that it’s a scary thing for legal migrants that are here to have this happen the way it is,” Lisa Bryant of Hebron said outside Walmart.