When Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched “enhanced” actions in Maine and other states this winter, the Department of Homeland Security pledged that the agency was going after the “worst of the worst,” suggesting that ICE would rid the U.S. of dangerous criminals.
In January, ICE launched the offensively named operation “Catch of the Day” in Maine, with a supposed list of 1,400 targets. When ICE ended its enhanced operations at the end of the month, it said it had arrested about 200 people.
New data obtained by the Deportation Data Project, shows that the agency arrested 11 people with criminal convictions in Maine. Eleven.
Most of the people who ICE detained in Maine were held on immigration violations, which generally are civil, not criminal, matters. Twenty-five people had pending criminal charges.
According to a 2011 memo, ICE detainees can be categorized into three threat levels based on the severity of a previous criminal conviction. Only 14 people detained by ICE in Maine in January were recorded as having a “threat level” associated with their case, according to the data.
Four detainees were tagged as the most serious threat level, which relates to an aggravated felony conviction, according to the memo. Two people were classified due to a less serious felony conviction and five people were considered the lowest threat for a misdemeanor conviction.
Notably, no one from Maine’s Somali community was listed in the data released this week. President Donald Trump, and some Maine politicians, have targeted Somali-Americans, accusing them of fraud. Trump called Somalis “garbage.”
At least a quarter of people arrested during Operation Catch of the Day went on to challenge their detention in federal court. Many of those detained during the January operation have been returned to Maine.
Families were ripped apart. Communities terrorized. Mainers were ripped from their cars, mothers hustled away from their children.
Immigrants who were legally in the United States were sent to detention centers out of state. Many were forced to pay significant sums of money to return to their homes and families.
This harassment and lasting damage was done in the name of arresting 11 people with criminal convictions, only four of whom were tagged at a serious threat level. Few, if any of them, among the so-called “worst of the worst.”
This is shameful. But, sadly, it is not surprising.
ICE operations under President Donald Trump have become a spectacle rather than an effective way to enforce our country’s immigration laws. Obviously, it would be much more effective, safer and less expensive to locate and arrest the actual “worst of the worst,” as previous administrations have long done. That, however, would not have made for dramatic videos and photo ops for administration officials wanting to look tough.
It would, however, have saved Mainers from being terrorized, Maine businesses from losing money and communities from living in continued fear. In Minnesota, it could have prevented the killing of two civilians who were observing immigration operations.
This data reiterates that ICE doesn’t need more money. It will receive an additional $45 billion from this summer’s big beautiful bill, most of it to build immigrant detention centers. Its budget has grown more than 10-fold over the last decade.
ICE needs a more targeted mission. It needs more oversight and accountability, and its agents need to be better trained.
