ILAP Testimony in Support of LD 1971: An Act to Protect Workers in This State by Clarifying the Relationship of State & Local Law Enforcement Agencies with Federal Immigration Authorities
Good afternoon, Chair Senator Carney, Sponsor Representative Dhalac, and members of the Judiciary Committee. My name is Lisa Parisio, and I am the Policy Director at the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, or ILAP. I am here today to urge you to support LD 1971, which is needed to protect the rights and safety of Maine’s residents, our workforce and economy, and future.
I. About ILAP & Subject Matter Expertise:
ILAP is Maine’s only statewide immigration legal services organization, and we provide legal assistance to people across Maine who would otherwise not be able to afford an attorney. As the only organization of our kind in the state, we have a unique vantage point over how the federal administration’s mass deportation policies and strategies are harming Maine’s residents, and our state as a whole.
II. Local Law Enforcement in Maine Are Currently Diverting Our Limited Public Safety Resources for No Legitimate Public Policy Purpose:
For the federal administration to carry out its agenda of deporting at least one million people a year – which is broadly and indiscriminately targeting all immigrant communities – it needs the public safety resources of local law enforcement. Because the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the states from being forced to hand over their resources to the federal government for purposes like this, states must voluntarily divert their resources. An absence of guardrails in state law prohibiting public safety resources from being spent on civil immigration enforcement provides this, allowing individual law enforcement agencies and even individual officers to use our state public safety resources for civil immigration enforcement instead of matters of legitimate public safety.
Having the guardrails in place proposed in LD 1971 – including prohibiting law enforcement from needlessly inquiring into immigration status and prohibiting law enforcement from holding people in jail for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) past their release dates – would have no impact on normal police work. Local law enforcement, of course, have the ability to execute criminal warrants or respond to crimes regardless of a person’s citizenship or immigration status. Additionally, having guardrails has no impact on the ability of federal immigration officers to do their job – federal immigration officers can carry out immigration enforcement anywhere in the United States.
While LD 1971 would have no negative impact on Maine law enforcement’s work, not having it place will continue to harm our state, as local law enforcement are currently heavily engaged in civil immigration enforcement. For individuals, being placed federal immigration custody at this time may result in incarceration in a detention center and life-threatening deportation without due process – including to places like Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, a notorious work prison in El Salvador where the U.S. government currently has an arrangement to send people.i Other consequences include the ongoing destruction of public trust and immigrant communities becoming even more afraid to report crimes.² ILAP’s clients have already reported these types of fall outs in Maine – sharing that they did not call the police when they wanted to for their own safety and that they are scared to continue serving as witnesses in court. Consequences also include increased racial profiling, waste of taxpayer dollars, and economic harms as immigrant communities are afraid to go to work, apply for jobs, and may relocate to places that prioritize the public safety of all residents.³
Using the resources of local law enforcement to do civil immigration enforcement also has no legitimate underlying public policy basis. Such use of resources is based on a false narrative that there is some kind of link between being an immigrant and criminality. No such link exists. We know this by common sense – because immigrants are simply human beings – and because of the numerous studies that have been done to prove this.
These include:
A comparison of crime data to demographic data from 1980 to 2022 showing that as the immigrant share of the population of the U.S. has gone up, crime has fallen. This study also shows that there is no statistically significant correlation between the immigrant share of the population and the total crime rate in any state.⁴
An analysis of policing and crime data in cities that received a significant number of migrants since the spring of 2022, showing no link between crime and an influx of immigrants. This analysis also shows the number of immigrants at the U.S.–Mexico border in recent years has not corresponded with an overall increase in crime.⁵
An analysis of incarceration data in the United States, which shows that undocumented immigrants are 33 percent less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the United States.⁶
A study of criminal convictions versus immigration status, showing undocumented immigrants are 47 percent less likely to be convicted of a crime than citizens born in the U.S.⁷
Public safety data reports from cities that have received large numbers of immigrants in recent years, showing that crime has decreased.⁸
III. Maine Law Enforcement Are Assisting Immigration Officers in Targeting Maine’s Residents and Workers, Actively Harming Maine’s Workforce and Economy:
Studies show that over the last decade, 70 to 75 percent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests in the interior of the U.S. have been facilitated by local law enforcement.⁹ This facilitation is currently happening in Maine. Local law enforcement in Maine are acting without the guardrails of LD 1971, diverting our state’s resources, and causing serious and lasting harm to individuals, families, communities, Maine’s workforce, economy, and future.
The following stories illustrate why LD 1971 is needed to specifically protect Maine’s workforce:
Andres¹⁰ is a 17-year-old young man from Lewiston who was on his way to his first day of a new job in construction when Maine State Police pulled over the car he was just a passenger in. He had no criminal record. Maine State Police needlessly inquired into his immigration status and for that reason alone, turned Andres over to immigration officials. He remains incarcerated in a detention center months later.
Jacob is 22 years old and lives in Portland. He currently has protection from deportation through a process for young people who are victims of abuse, neglect, or abandonment. He has been working hard to stabilize his life and has a job taking care of people in Maine who have developmental disabilities. Recently, Jacob’s cousin, who is in a lawful process seeking asylum, was detained. Since he found out, Jacob hasn’t reported to work, terrified of leaving his home and this happening to him.
Sarah is in her 30s and lives in Auburn. She was previously the victim of a crime. Because she was brave enough to come forward and report it to the police and assist in the investigation, she is eligible for a visa, which is currently pending. Sarah works in the food services industry in Maine. She recently got a great promotion but turned it down because it would involve her driving to Augusta and she is too terrified that police would pull her over on her longer commute and she would be detained and deported.
In addition to these impacts on Maine resident workers, our state’s economy depends on the many immigrant workers who travel into our state to do short-term or seasonal work. Given the levels of enforcement happening in Maine, and that people with valid work permits and who are in lawful immigration processes are being targeted, attorneys in other states are advising their clients not to go to Maine to work.¹¹
ILAP’s clients have also reported to us that they are not pursuing college and adult education out of fear of enforcement, leaving them unable to develop professionally and reach their potentials – great losses for them and Maine’s future.
IV. The Provisions in LD 1971 That Prohibit Maine Law Enforcement from Detaining People Based on Hold Requests Are Needed to Protect the Rights and Safety of Maine Residents
ICE hold requests to local law enforcement are another way local law enforcement needlessly divert public safety resources. Hold requests are non-mandatory requests from ICE to jails asking them to detain people for an additional 48 hours past their release date for the purpose of giving ICE additional time to decide whether to try to take them into their custody. These holds have raised serious constitutional concerns as people are frequently imprisoned by local law enforcement without any criminal charges pending or probable cause of any violation. Accordingly, these holds open municipalities and counties up to the risk of litigation and damages liability.
One of these stories is currently unfolding here in Maine. Patrick is a 23-year-old young man living in Portland. As a child in his home country, he experienced severe child abuse and was abandoned by his parents. As a teen, he witnessed two friends killed by police in front of him. As a 17-year-old, he made it to the U.S. by himself and then to Maine, searching for security, stability, and a better life. Unfortunately, given the extreme trauma he has endured in his life, Patrick struggles with depression and frightening flashbacks and he turned to alcohol to try to alleviate his symptoms. Patrick was being held at a Maine jail related to this alcohol use when he realized he was being held past his release date and reached out to ILAP for help. Patrick was never given a copy of the detainer, which would be required under LD 1971, and the jail refused to tell him or his ILAP attorneys what was happening. The jail eventually handed him over to ICE. Had LD 1971 been in place, prohibiting law enforcement from voluntarily holding people past their release date for ICE¹², Patrick would be free. Now, he is at risk of life-threatening deportation.
V. Conclusion:
These examples demonstrate the impacts of mass immigration enforcement in Maine, facilitated by local law enforcement, which will worsen if the guardrails in LD 1971 are not put in place. This does not serve Maine. Not only are individual lives and families destroyed, public trust in law enforcement – which is crucial for the safety of all of us – is further eroded, and Maine loses invaluable and essential members of our workforce and our communities.
Passing LD 1971 is crucial to protect the rights and dignity of Maine’s residents and the hope of a prosperous economy and safe future for all of Maine.
Thank you.
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¹ Vega, Celia, U.S. sent 238 migrants to Salvadoran mega-prison; documents indicate most have no apparent criminal records, CBS News (April 6, 2025), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-records-show-about-migrants-sent-to-salvadoran-prison-60-minutes-transcript/.
² For e.g., The 287(g) Program: An Overview, American Immigration Council, (Jan. 20, 2025), https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/287g-program-immigration.
³ Id.
⁴ Debunking the Myth of Immigrants and Crime, American Immigration Council, (Oct. 2024), https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/debunking-myth-immigrants-and-crime.
⁵ What Crime Data Says About the Effects of Texas Busing Migrants, The Marshall Project, (Oct. 2024), https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/02/17/new-york-texas-immigrants-crime-fears.
⁶ On the association between undocumented immigration and crime in the United States, Oxford Economic Papers, (January 2021), https://academic.oup.com/oep/article-abstract/73/1/200/5572162?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
⁷ Criminal Immigrants in Texas in 2017: Illegal Immigrant Conviction Rates and Arrest Rates for Homicide, Sex Crimes, Larceny, and Other Crimes, The Cato Institute, (Aug. 2019), https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-research-policy-brief/criminal-immigrants-texas-2017-illegal-immigrant.
⁸ For e.g., NYPD Announces December 2023, End-of-Year Citywide Crime Statistics, NYPD, (Jan. 4, 2024), https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00098/nypd-december-2023-end-of-year-citywide-crime-statistics.
⁹ State Map on Immigration Enforcement 2024, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, (Nov. 8, 2024), https://www.ilrc.org/state-map-immigration-enforcement-2024.
¹⁰ All names in this testimony have been changed to protect identity.
¹¹ Snider, Ari, Lawyers say Border Patrol in Maine is arresting people who are in lawful immigration processes, Maine Public Radio (May 8, 2025), https://www.mainepublic.org/courts-and-crime/2025-05-08/lawyers-say-border-patrol-in-maine-is-arresting-people-who-are-in-lawful-immigration-processes.
¹² There are a few exceptions in LD 1971, but the facts of this situation do not fit an exception.