The Wells Police Department became the first local Maine law enforcement agency to join a partnership program with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Wednesday, empowering the department to work as immigration enforcers.
Wells Police Chief Jo-Ann Putnam confirmed to the Maine Morning Star that Wells applied to participate in ICE’s 287(g) program two weeks ago, and their application was accepted.
Wells is participating in the Task Force Model portion of the program, which “serves as a force multiplier for law enforcement agencies to enforce limited immigration authority with ICE oversight during their routine police duties.”
All officers participating in the program must have at least two years of experience and must be U.S. citizens. Officers trained by ICE for participation in the program will be able to arrest people based on immigration violations.
Putnam told the news outlet that the program will allow them to quickly deal with immigration-related offenses because they will no longer be required to wait for an ICE agent to arrive before a situation can be dealt with.
“We’re looking at it as a tool for us and for the officers on the road to help them do their job better,” said Putnam, “and be able to make arrests at two o’clock in the morning and be able to deal with it and not have to wait for what possibly could be several hours for an ICE agent to get here, because what that does is that takes time away from them doing their regular duties of patrolling the town of Wells.”
Currently, the consolidated Monmouth-Winthrop Police Department has also applied to participate in the program, and their application remains pending.
Though these agencies are the first in Maine to apply for the program, numerous other agencies across the country and throughout New England are already participating in the program. According to the Maine Morning Star, some Maine sheriffs are considering signing up, though no other Maine agencies have pending requests.
Why are the sheriff’s holding back on co-operation with ice? Especially with all the drugs and human traffic on this northern border? Do you suppose Janet is threatening their pension plans? Why won’t the L/A police talk to Steve Robinson about their experiences w/Janet as DA? Hmmm…
Good for the Wells Police Chief to step up to the plate and help out Tom Homan accomplish what 80% of the American citizens have mandated. Common sense.
Bravo. Correct move. Continue and don’t listen to Maine government.
Outstanding !
Keep up the good work .
It’s about damn time we started to clean our State up after Janet Mills and her liberal cronies have trashed it out with all these ILLEGAL ALIENS .
Good going, Wells.
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“required to wait for an ICE agent to arrive before a situation can be dealt with”.
In the words of Lil John….
AH WHHAAT!?
Thank you wells police!!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸💪🙏
Alright wells PD!
Now the rest of the police departments in Maine need to step up behind wells.