The Winthrop and Monmouth Police Departments both rescinded their applications for an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) partnership program on Saturday that would have allowed local police to detain people on suspected immigration violations.
“The Town of Winthrop has rescinded its application to participate in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program that uses local police officers to detain people suspected of being illegal immigrants due to the liabilities that could involve,” said the town in a statement on its website.
“Under the program, ICE would not reimburse the Town for officers’ time and overtime as they carried out federal functions nor for the related use of local resources such as patrol vehicles. ICE reserves the right to assign and/or collocate officers with ICE agents to assist with criminal investigations. That could divert officers from their local duties,” the town’s statement added.
Winthrop expressed concerns that participating in the program could lead to costly lawsuits against the town.
The towns would have joined Wells in ICE’s 287(g) program that allows a local department to serve “as a force multiplier for law enforcement agencies to exercise limited immigration authority with ICE oversight during their routine police duties.”
The program allows participating local departments to quickly deal with illegal immigrants without the delays involved in waiting for ICE agents to arrive.
While Winthrop and Monmouth appear to have distinct police departments, they are both headed by Chief Paul Ferland, and the decision to withdraw was made simultaneously for both towns. The towns are currently considering consolidating the departments.
Ferland claimed that the Monmouth department has encountered roughly a dozen illegal immigrants in the past 18 months.
The Maine Wire reached out to Ferland, asking whether he faced outside pressure to rescind the applications, but he did not immediately respond.
