PORTLAND (WGME) — A Cumberland County corrections recruit is free and training again after ICE took him over the winter.
The arrest on Fox Street in Portland in January was captured on video. It happened during a five-day sweep in Maine when ICE claimed to be going after the “worst of the worst.” Federal data later showed that just 11 of the nearly 200 people detained in Maine had prior criminal records.
Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce said the recruit, Emanuel Ludovic Mbuangi Landila, has since been released and is finally getting ready to graduate from the academy.
“Well he’s back, he’s back working for us, he’s at the academy now, and we anticipate he’ll graduate from the academy on May 4 and be working here after that,” Joyce said.
After his arrest in January, Joyce publicly called ICE’s operation “bush-league policing,” saying agents left Landila’s car with the lights on and window down on the side of the street.
Joyce says Landila had no criminal record, calling him “squeaky clean,” and said he had all the right federal paperwork good through April 20-29.
CBS13 reached out to the Department of Homeland Security about this arrest at the time, and the agency never responded.
