While ICE Operation Violates Maine’s Traditions of Trust and Safety, Susan Collins Says: ‘Welcome to Maine!’

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Masked federal agents fanned out across Maine this week in a sweeping ICE operation, sending shockwaves through local communities, frightening families, and forcing schools and neighborhoods into emergency precautions and lockdowns. All across the state, Mainers have openly condemned the operation, rejecting the aggressive and deadly tactics used by ICE in communities across America, and making clear that ICE and its unjust actions have no place in Maine. Senator Susan Collins has remained silent. 

In response, North Star PAC, released the following statement: 

“These heavy-handed and dangerous ICE tactics have no place in Maine. The Pine Tree State has deep roots of community, and is a place where everyone is considered a neighbor — just like in so many other communities across our country. But today, families are being terrorized by masked federal agents carrying out Trump’s political intimidation campaign. Ripping through towns and cities in this way undermines civil rights, shatters public trust, and frightens people who have done nothing wrong. It’s cruel and fundamentally un-American.

“At a moment like this, Maine deserves real leadership — the type of leadership that values keeping communities together and safe, not ripping them apart. Yet Senator Susan Collins refuses to condemn the ICE operation unfolding in her home state. While Mainers continue to make clear that ICE’s hostile tactics are unwelcome, Senator Collins — who frequently invokes Maine’s values of decency, restraint, and respect — has remained silent in Washington as those very values are put to the test. That silence amounts to complicity.”

“While real Mainers are telling ICE to ‘hit the road,’ Collins may as well be opening the front door to them — it’s time for Collins to hit the road as well.”

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