Portland city officials warned that the human impact of the federal immigration raids will be accompanied by costs to businesses and damage to the city’s economic life.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents launched “Operation Catch of the Day” in Maine this week, targeting what they called the worst criminal illegal aliens and making arrests. A top ICE official told Fox News yesterday that 50 arrests had been made out of 1,400 targeted individuals in Maine.
Portland Mayor Mark Dion used a Wednesday press conference to condemn ICE’s enforcement actions in other communities. He was joined by members of the City Council, including April Fournier, an at-large Council member, after spending much of the day out in the community.
“We’re not only going to see the social impact in what we all feel when these operations are happening in our neighborhoods, in front of our schools, in front of our grocery stores, we’re also going to see an economic impact,” Fournier said.
For example, the raids may lead to the disappearance of a family’s primary breadwinner and disrupt the lives of teachers, school bus drivers, or students working in the cafeteria.
“These are just such critical members of our community,” she said.
ICE didn’t disclose the planned scope or duration of the operation, releasing mugshots of four alleged “criminal illegal aliens” — from Sudan, Ethiopia, Angola and Guatemala — who were arrested in the initial sweep.
Reading through the terse descriptions, Dion — a former sheriff — took issue with the lack of details about the individuals and their circumstances in ICE’s summary.
“If we’re going to talk about this situation, let’s talk about facts,” he said. “If we’re going to provide guidance, let’s be calm, let’s be leaders. If ICE has an issue with criminal aliens, let them actually be criminals.”
Asked by Mainebiz what the city is doing to reassure and protect businesses, Dion said that officials were working with the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce to get the word out to employers about their rights and steps they can take to protect employees.
The Chamber sent an email to members on Wednesday with concrete suggestions of how employers can prepare for ICE enforcement activity, protocols to follow when enforcement officials arrive and contact numbers to call.
The guide recommends staying calm and acting professionally when ICE agents arrive, consulting legal counsel before providing documents or answering questions and limiting access to public areas in the absence of a valid judicial warrant. It also urges employers to designate one point of contact to interact with ICE officers.
Business reaction
With social media posts about raids in Portland and Lewiston adding to tensions, some businesses in downtown Portland are displaying signs on their windows that ICE isn’t welcome. They include Fish & Bone, a seller of food, toys and other items for cats and dogs.
“We want our team to feel prepared and safe,” Colleen Young, the store’s operations manager, told Mainebiz on Wednesday.
“We want our community to know where we stand, and that this is a safe space,” added Young, who oversees a team of seven employees.
Young said the store had also posted signs in private areas and had distributed “pocket guides” to employees so staff members know what to do if something happens, she said.
“There’s so much worry, and the more we can do to make sure that our team feels prepared, the better off we are,” she said.
A few blocks away, the FLYN shop on Fore Street — which sells animal-themed merchandise created from paintings by its owner — posted a sign on its door that reads “Private Property: Absolutely NO I.C.E.” just below its “Open” sign.
Store manager Amber Gorski, who works there with three other employees, said she printed the “NO I.C.E.” sign from the Internet.
She said she put the sign up “because of all that I’ve been seeing going on and the news everywhere else.”
“I feel like they’re harassing people, and I just want people to feel safe and comfortable,” she said. “It feels crazy how much they’re doing and not legally, not the right way.”
Gorski said that while she hasn’t felt unsafe or threatened, she is concerned about community members.
“It just worries me for a lot of our immigrant community, people who lived here their whole lives, people who are legal citizens, people who are refugee seekers, people who are trying to do the right thing,” she said. “We don’t have an easy system for them.”
At the same time, “I do feel like Maine is kind of working as a community and pulling together to put up a stand against racism and everything that’s going on — which gives me hope,” she said.
