Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed an executive order Wednesday intended to establish a new migrant resettlement office, telling the Portland newspaper the administration’s goal is to attract 75,000 new workers to Maine.
The governor announced the goal as part of the press strategy for rolling out an executive order that will eventually create the “Office of New Americans,” a state office that will assist with migrant resettlement and integration throughout the state.
Mills told the liberal Portland Press Herald newspaper that the goal of attracting 75,000 migrant workers to Maine is part of her plan to supply businesses in Maine with “New Mainers” to fill job vacancies.
“New Mainers” is a euphemism that progressives and left-wing nonprofits in Maine have adopted to refer to migrants, refugees, asylum applicants, and illegal aliens who have settled in Maine. Some newspapers in the state have adopted the term as well.
It’s unclear whether Gov. Mills intends for those 75,000 new workers to come exclusively from foreign-born migration. Her office hasn’t clarified what it meant and her communications aides did not respond to inquiries Thursday.
The plan will be crafted by the governor’s advisors and delivered to her next year, so right now it’s not clear exactly how the migrant resettlement office would be funded, how expensive it would be for taxpayers, or whether it would be a cabinet level agency.
Republican lawmakers quickly panned the idea, questioning Mills’ prioritization of current and future migrants over the needs of Maine citizens. Some noted the governor’s refusal to support a bipartisan plan that would create a new cabinet level agency for child protective services.
“I hope the governor corrects her statement about adding 75,000 asylum seekers to the state of Maine,” House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) told the Maine Wire.
“Her office has grossly mishandled the asylum seeker situation,” Faulkingham said. “How does she propose increasing the population of the state by five percent when her solution for a few hundred asylum seekers is hotels and basketball stadiums?”
The eye-popping 75,000 number is a population much larger than Maine’s largest city of Portland — and Mills wants the mass immigration scheme executed by 2029.
Regardless of where exactly those new residents hale from, there will be logistical challenges to surmount for the state and local government.
To put that 75,000 number further into context: Piscataquis County had 17,165 residents in 2021, Aroostook County had 66,859, and the population of Bangor is just over 30,000.
The last time Maine experienced in-migration of such a magnitude was in the post-World War II Era. From 1945 to 1950, U.S. Census figures show an estimated 117,000 people moved to Maine.
In more recent years, Maine’s population has grown far slower. Census figures show that from 2000 to 2021, Maine’s population increased by just 10,000 people, with deaths outstripping births and net in-migration weak.
Since the first waves of Somali asylum seekers began arriving in Maine during the Baldacci Administration, in response to “sanctuary” policies at the state and local level and easy access to government assistance, the state has never had a system or database in place to track how many foreign nationals have settled.
The entire foreign-born population of Maine is currently only 50,000, according to the governor’s office. Those numbers appear to come from the American Immigration Council, which bases their estimates on U.S. Census figures and community survey data. The real number of migrants currently living in Maine may be far higher since the state has never adopted practices to keep track.
Over the past five years, as migrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, and Haiti have flocked to southern Maine and joined the General Assistance rolls in the Greater Portland Area, the municipalities providing those welfare and housing benefits have pointedly declined to track how many foreign nationals are receiving assistance. But regardless of the actual number of foreign-born migrants now residing in Maine, that number has been attained only after more than two decades of sanctuary city policies in southern Maine attracting migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.
Mills’ audacious goal — some might say ludicrous — is to bring 150 percent more migrants to Maine in a quarter of the time it took the first 50,000 to arrive. It’s a vast re-settlement operation to consider for an administration that has struggled mightily to find a humane way to deal with the 5,000-10,000 migrants that have arrived unexpectedly in Maine since 2019. How will this be accomplished in a state that can barely manage payroll systems, can’t keep its nursing homes open, has thousands of disabled residents on waitlists for MaineCare coverage, has schools with plummeting test scores, has crumbling infrastructure it can barely maintain, and sometimes struggles to pay its school lunch ladies on time? Such an undertaking seems like a tall order for a state government that has trouble with more basic core functions. By the way, have you tried to book a doctor’s appointment lately? Our hospitals aren’t exactly function at peak performance.
In New York City, which has far superior municipal services and emergency housing systems compared to Maine’s largest cities, nearly 100,000 migrants have arrived and relied on public assistance, according to the office of Mayor Eric Adams. That level of migration to the city by homeless and jobless migrants has reached crisis levels, with hundreds of migrants openly sleeping on the streets this week. The city has even explored turning Central Park into migrant housing.
The problem that New York City is facing is the same problem Maine will face if it tries to fix Maine’s workforce shortage through a centrally planned mass migration strategy: housing. Whether Mills’ migrants come from Switzerland or Sudan or South Dakota, they’ll need places to live. Right now, those are hard to come by.
Maine is in the middle of an unprecedented housing shortage, a shortage that has been severely exacerbated by the pandemic-driven surge in legal migration of some 35,000 mostly well-to-do Americans and the couple thousands migrants claiming asylum.
According to housing inventory metrics tracked by the St. Louis Federal Reserve, Maine had 2,439 houses available for sale in June — down from nearly 14,000 at the end of 2016.
On MaineListings.com, there are currently 1,422 active residential listings for less than $300,000.
At the same time the available supply of housing has shrunk, prices for available homes have increased sharply.
That increase in home prices has been driven by a pandemic slow-down in new construction, increased demand in Maine, more short-term rental activity (ie AirBnB), and also large financial firms increasingly buying up single and multi-family homes.
Those same dynamics have also driven up housing costs for renters.
According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, real estate, rental, and leasing earnings in Maine are near record highs.
Renting a single-family home in Maine can run as high as $3,000 to $4,000 per month in southern Maine — and that’s if you can find an opening.
According to data tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau, Maine’s rental housing vacancy is also very low. Just 4 percent of rental units were open to renters in 2022, down 11 percent in 1994.
If 75,000 “New Mainers” enter the housing market, Maine’s high real estate and rental prices will continue to climb, growing what is already a serious challenge for individuals and couples living in Maine and hoping to buy a home or find a rental.
Mills didn’t say where exactly the 75,000 migrants she wants to attract to Maine are supposed to live. But that’s a question her “Office of the Policy Innovation and the Future” as they endeavor to create the Office of New Americans and make good on her lofty goal.
Related:
Rep. John Andrews (R-Paris) joined WVOM’s George Hale and Ric Tyler Show to talk about Gov. Mills’ plan to resettle 75,000 migrants in Maine by 2029 Thursday morning.
NO NO NO… a thousand times NO! What? This woman is out of her Marxist mind! I don’t think Portland has a 75,000 population. Mills’ path for Maine’s ruination is perfectly clear. Show me any sane Mainer who logically supports this destruction.
Democrats spell D.O.O.M. (Democrats Obliterate Our Maine)
Stop the Democrats from their doom! VOTE the Mills ilk out!
One side claims we’re committing cultural and financial suicide and the other side says we’re being enriched from these “New Mainers”. Let’s look at what FAIR’s numbers have to say about the cost.
https://www.fairus.org/issue/publications-resources/fiscal-burden-illegal-immigration-united-states-taxpayers-2023
I may not be an analyst but when a New Mainer (leave it to Leftists to manipulate the language) is unskilled, can’t speak English and needs housing, food, clothing and free medical care, I just don’t see the logic of their needs taking precedence over our own citizens.. Call me a racist, a xenophobe or Islamophobe but I’ve never heard a single person from these resettlement organizations state specifically how that approach is a benefit rather than a liability to our state or country.
Dysfunctional, fiscally irresponsible and unsustainable. Those are the terms that only begin to describe Mills’ “so-called” plan. Young Mainers cannot find affordable housing because all the old cheap spots are being taken by refugees and asylum seekers. Its the100% guaranteed rent the landlords jump on, all paid for by our tax dollars. They dont have to work because they also get free utilities, cable and phone, free pay checks ($600/week), free food(EBT), free clothes, free education and automatic (no-credit needed) approval for auto loans backed by the government. How does that fit into the hard-working Maine taxpayer’s agenda?
Everything old is new again. Democrats have always supported sIavery so this action should be no surprise. I would be nice if the governor for once would be honest and call it what it is; The new sIave class.
Abort your unborn children, sterilize your youth, euthanize the old. Replace the native population with foreign born population.
Commissar Mills , with the full support of other Communist DemocRat elites & their media toadies, has repudiated her/its oath of office!
First, let’s just look at the health issue here. Although we have sought information from the Maine CDC, my husband and I have yet to learn the truth about whether those who have moved into Portland and soon into Brunswick have even been vetted for serious illnesses such as TB, polio and leprosy. Reports from other areas of the nation are indicating that illegals coming into the country are carrying and reintroducing disease that has been eradicated in the United States. Tuberculosis (TB) can be contracted by just breathing air that a carrier has recently coughed or sneezed into. What does this say for children and those immuno-compromised, let alone healthy adults? The Preamble to the Constitution says that one reason “We the People” established the Constitution was to “promote the general welfare.” Is the Mills administration working to “promote the general welfare” with its stand on illegals, abortion and the ridiculous artificial landscapes its solar panels have created to satisfy their ritualistic promise of a “green” Maine?
The woman has lost her mind and is out of control. She is turning Maine into a 3rd world state. Maybe that is her overall plan. Then she will try to set herself up as Grand Pupah for life.
I wonder how many she is going to take into the Mills compound in Farmington.
Zero that’s how many. It is the Socialist way. I’ll spend your money and use your resources not mine. That is the first lesson taught in Socialist school.
Insanity. Clearly she is not interested in her constituents but other interests. No one in their right mind thinks 75000 3rd world no nothing’s will do anything but disintegrate Maine.
So the estimated 50,000 foreign born immigrants already in Maine…have they assimilated into our society or will Maine become the new South Africa? This is a conversation that needs to happen.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/video-goes-viral-of-south-africas-black-marxists-leading-over-90000-in-a-song-about-murdering-white-farmers
This move by Mills seems to follow exactly the Cloward-Piven strategy to overwhelm the systems at local and state levels, thus laying the groundwork for federal guaranteed income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy
There will be more and more people living in tents surrounded by waste if her proposal manifests. How many tents will fit on her property? Oh wait…her property belongs to the taxpayers. There might be an epidemic of frostbite during the first winter of such a manifestation. Let’s pray it doesn’t happen!
You are missing something. She’s not saying “75,000 migrants” but “75,000 workers”. When you factor in wives and children, you’re talking about 300,000 or more. That’s something like a quarter of the state’s population. It would absolutely destroy Maine. The only consolation is that it’s so logistically absurd it’ll never happen.
As the saying goes, ” you get want you vote for!!” and that is what all these Democommunists are getting. i do not see one of them taking into their home any of the ILLEGAL ALIENS coming into the state. Let’s face facts here since all the NY, MA, RI, NJ and CT communists moved to the state Maine has slide right into the sewer. None of them came into the state of Maine to embrace the way of life, but to change it to their liking.
This will be great. Look what Somalis have done for Murderopolis, I mean Minneapolis.
The more Mainers allow her and her pals at state and local levels to get away with, the worst is yet to come.
I know business that have tried to hire the (illegal) immigrants and they don’t want to work.
They spend the entire time on their (free) phones and refuse to listen to instruction.
One business owner told me one of the immigrants came in claiming to look for work and when told they were hiring said they only wanted to work 3 hrs a week and then asked the business owner to sign the paper to prove they were looking for a job.
The Portland Public Library is full of them all day, every day.
Why would they want to work?
Between housing, food, health care, etc they are making about $65,000 a year. That’s according to a PPH article.
That’s about the average income in Maine. Maybe a bit more.
Welfare is now about the biggest industry in the state and General Mills wants to expand it even more.
Next the liberals will be pushing for non-citizens to vote in all elections despite the Constitution.
It’s all to solidify permanent power.
I wonder how long after retirement she moves to FL?
I’m not living with Africans and other third worlders. We have a right to keep our communities the way they are. Forced diversity is dangerous. Keep poking the bear Deomocrars and see how it ends. Maine will have a civil war within its borders. Dirty and bloody.
There’s not enough affordable housing for people who live and work here now. There’s a housing crisis. Short-term rentals are making it impossible for Mainers who work in tourist hotspots to find a place to live near where they work that’s affordable. We need to focus our efforts on the people that are here already people we set quotas on more people to bring in when so many are housing insecure.
Mass immigration from anyone’s society into anyone else’s society is a bad idea, because:
1. It spreads disease.
2. It leads to ethnic conflict. (See what happened to Donald Giusti in Lewiston)
3. It is irreversible.
4. It increases crime.
5. It lowers the standard of living.
6. It makes the maintenance of distinct populations impossible.
7. It changes the character of the receiving area.
Just look at what mass immigration did to Sweden.
Surely Janet Mills will take a migrant family into her own home and show everyone how it’s done. This should apply immediately and should continue after she is out of office.
Move em to where the governor lives
Move them to where the politicians who want this live
So skilled, they had to swim across the Rio Grande to get here.
New Mainers to replace the old ones.
If American Samoa is able to restrict immigration to ethnic Samoans, under Title 41, there is absolutely no justification for forcing genocidal non-white immigration on white states that isn’t malicious.
Why don’t the Governor get some of thes people that are able bodies off welfare and make them go to work instead of being on the “Dole”. . This has also reached epidemic proportions.
And yet, she got another term.
How about them Sharia loans to the Muslins. Boycott any bank who is offering them.
We can enforce our laws. Only legal immigrants allowed.
So some of these refugees will include the Boers in South Africa who are being raped and killed on a daily basis, right? Oh, wait, no–this program is exclusive to brown people. I moved to Maine to escape “Diversity” and trust me, YOU DO NOT WANT THAT COMING HERE!!!
Seems that Maine’s governor and government needs to go, one way or another. That’s all I’m gonna say, her and anyone helping her, needs to go.
Giving aid to illegal aliens, and yes these people are ILLEGAL, they entered the country without documentation. Asylum seekers do not travel thousands of miles across an ocean, travel through multiple countries, that are free from any oppression, just to get to the USA. These illegals are here for one reason – MONEY and whatever they can take from citizens of the United States and in particular Mainers. There are laws against providing aid to an enemy (foreign or domestic) and these should be upheld.
WE THE PEOPLE need to remind this government that WE THE PEOPLE can and will remove them from office. Mills can be impeached along with other elected members of the State!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalergi_Plan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany_Must_Perish!
They are not welcome here
Telling you Maine is corrupt. Just wait!!!!
“New Mainers” huh? I’m retired Army, served my country 23 years. Grew up in Michigan and came to Maine after I left the Army because I wanted 4 seasons after years down south but didn’t want to go back to the Detroit area. I am told I am a “from away” and can never be a Mainer because I wasn’t born here. Been paying property tax in Maine for 13 years now and counting.
Moved to maine 13 yrs ago to get away from people of color approaching me for money every time I came out of a store. Often times scary people being very aggressive if I said no. When I leave the state I can’t wait to get back here. A wave of peace comes over me the minute I return.
I hate to see the way things are changing here and the idea of 75000 more illegals coming here is very disturbing to say the least.
Hope all those “good lib women” supporting this get used to the idea of being a “new Mainer’s” CAPTIVE OF THE RIGHT HAND.
Taxpayers money for the world. We pay for them in their country and here. These asylum seekers should all be deported by the next president. They are taking all our resources in all communities. We are to relaxed 😌 and a fool. Let them come here and take everything right in front of us. Jobs and housing and we sit and look stupid. All over the state they are getting free housing, rent paid for one year. Many are working and got cars 🚗 and living better then many of us.
All on taxpayers money 💰. Here we are walking around with are head low looking ashamed. You should be ashamed of yourself. People who was living in the worst country in the world for poverty. Now cross the boader over night and living better then most Americans. They claim they were abused in their country to get here. Many Americans have been abused too 😳. They use many accuses to get here. Once here that all goes away and then they say I want to work.
Taking all Americans jobs. Then we got these government officials saying we need them here to work. 90% of the signs up seeking work been up since the virus started 2 yrs ago. We kind of people are we to let are country just be taken away from us and be quiet 🤫. I seen in Sanford four asylum seekers pregnant 🤰. One already has 3 babies.
One lady from Maine said to me. They suffered a lot to get here. I said the veterans suffered a lot and being homeless. The homeless people are be treated the worst by our government.
As one asylum seeker said to me. They love us here and hate your own people. I said what do you mean by that. He said, “Look they give us a place to sleep in a motel or apartments and let you people sleep 😴 in the streets.”
Wow
Janet Mills is a traitor to this state and nation. She needs to be removed from office immediately. This vile plan to import useless garbage to destroy Maine is preposterous. NO MORE. Don’t let it happen.
It’s mind boggling how fast the illegals are getting housed once here, when our own citizens are put on 5 year waiting list , shameful! There are 237 tents now in Portland and growing, being moved from one area to another, now settled around the bridge from South Portland to Portland, it’s a welcome to Portland sign! All of these tents sending a message to the world that we take care of others before our own, and our politicians do not lead by example and before long we will have the same chaos that is going on in other cities! You politicians knew what was coming now for 3 years and from the information I have been getting and seeing none of you prepared or planned ! I blame media for not reporting on the border crisis and trying to minimize the situation from day one! We are now living in uneasy times in AMERICA!
Janet Mills, I would like to know just what kind of attractive jobs you have in mind, do these jobs offer enough to make a living without having to rely on government assistance? Any training involved in these jobs? Are they mostly minimum wage jobs? Where are they now and exactly what are they? If they are new jobs starting well above minimum wages , by this I mean enough to make a living who gets hired first?
You people voted her in, now you reap what you sow.
the city of Portland has been decreasing in population since about 1920 when it was 75,000, to about 60,000 around the 90’s. the only reason Portland has a population of 65,000 in 2024 is because of the migrants who have been coming there for around ten years now. otherwise, if they were never imported by the democrats and liberals the population would likely be around 50,000 and the rental price for a 1 bedroom in the city would be around $600 or $700 per month. just saying, woke politics are expensive.
Found the governors’ position fascinating. Just cancelled a vacation to Portland. When I heard her speak I thought it was Portland Oregon! Is the great state of Maine so hurting that it must have unvetted, potentially dangerous migrants just to survive? I am all for controlled Immigration but you don’t know who is coming in!
Yes! Yes! Yes! REMOVE all the drug people from stoney ridge rd, brooke way, barker ridge rd, levenseller rd, chemo pond rd, rocky ledge rd in eddington, as well as clarks hill, mann hill, haha dude rds in holden and replace them with ANYBODY ELSE ANYBODY AT ALL who will understand and comply with the slogan, “IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING”
Stop voting for democrats that simple. Wake the hell up