To the editor:
I love my state. I grew up in Madawaska until middle school, then moved to central Maine and now live in Portland. I have always felt safe. We often forget to lock our doors and we trust our neighbors.
That safety is now shattered.
ICE terrorized our community. Homeland Security says they arrest “dangerous illegals,” but there’s a lot they don’t say. I am all for arresting dangerous criminals. I don’t support “open borders” or allowing people into our country without a vetting process. They don’t say that our immigrant neighbors and coworkers in hospitals, schools, restaurants, social work and elder care went into hiding. Adults didn’t work; children didn’t go to school. ICE roamed streets and detained people of color regardless of clean records or legal status.
Native Mainers delivered food and medicine to immigrant families, were followed by ICE agents and threatened with arrest. I know personally a U.S.-born white social worker who answered her phone to a sobbing father with no criminal history as ICE surrounded his home, separated from his daughter. The social worker was later followed by ICE into a grocery store and asked whose side she was on.
ICE has been instructed to violate our First and Fourth Amendment rights by using advanced spyware including facial recognition, license plate scanners, location tracking, phone hacking and social media analysis to identify anti-ICE sentiment, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
The Supreme Court gave ICE the right to detain people based on their appearance, according to National Public Radio. I’m proud of my French heritage, and it’s chilling to think ICE could target me for speaking French.
The next time you sit down with a friend, neighbor or family member who voted for the other party, tell them you do agree on these: our rights to free speech, due process, celebrating our heritage and the right to safety from Big Government. It’s the American way and the Maine way.
Megan Michel
Portland
