The Bangor City Council voted during a workshop on Friday to advance a proposed ordinance aimed at restricting city cooperation with immigration enforcement, despite serious concerns from the city solicitor.
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“I think that this is between the state and the government, and that Bangor doesn’t need to interject itself where we may face consequences that are unexpected. And if it ain’t broke, why fix it, when we have bigger issues,” said Councilor Carolyn Fish during the meeting.
“There’s no way that legal could give approval for these ordinances as written to go forward,” said City Solicitor David Szewczyk.
The council held a workshop to discuss multiple topics, but the most controversial issues were the two proposed ordinances to restrict city support for ICE activities: one from Councilor Michael Beck and one from Councilor Susan Faloon.
Councilor Beck presented his proposal as a way to shield taxpayers from spending resources on federal immigration enforcement and to protect the city from possible civil lawsuits incurred through its cooperation with law enforcement.
“This is not a refusal to follow the law. The ordinance explicitly requires compliance with all federal and state laws,” said Beck, “It simply ensures that our police are not deputized to do the federal government’s job for them.”
His proposal would add language to ensure that no city employees cooperate with immigration officials except when required by law, and to prohibit officials from entering into agreements with ICE or allowing agents to access city property.
It also bars city employees from giving out information such as custody release dates unless required by law.
The ordinance would continue to allow local law enforcement to collaborate with ICE during enforcement based on serious crimes in addition to immigration violations.
City employees would be barred from requesting information on immigration status unless required by law or ordinance.
When checking identification, city employees would be barred from treating a person differently based on their immigration status.
“No person shall be subjected to greater scrutiny or different treatment based on immigration status or on the presentation of non‑U.S. identity documents,” says the proposed ordinance.
This would apparently require city employees to allow illegal immigrants to access services intended for citizens and lawful residents, as it prevents them from treating people differently based on immigration status. That may even extend to allowing illegal immigrants to vote in municipal elections.
Bangor Police Chief Mark Hathaway said during the meeting that the department has no issues with the language of the ordinance as proposed. He believes that the ordinance would not change anything about how the department operates.
Councilor Fish expressed concerns that the city could lose federal funding as a result of the ordinance and that moving forward with it would be a waste of valuable city resources.
Szewczyk warned against the proposals and said that, even without an in-depth analysis, he had already identified multiple areas of legal concern with both proposals.
He highlighted a provision in Beck’s proposal that prohibits law enforcement from spending time responding to ICE or Customs and Border Protection-related inquiries.
“That one in particular could be a phone call, receiving a phone call from ICE. As soon as an officer picks up the phone, that officer is expending time to respond to what might be some sort of inquiry from federal law enforcement,” he said.
Employees found to be in violation of the ordinance would be subject to investigation.
Despite Szewczyk’s concerns, the council voted 5-4 to move the proposal forward to a first reading at a regular meeting, after which it will be sent to a committee for further work and revisions.
Falloon’s proposal would prohibit law enforcement from wearing masks and would also bar the city from hiring anyone as a law enforcement officer who served as an ICE agent after January 20, 2025, the date of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Szewczyk believed that the new hiring standards were illegal, discriminatory, and arbitrary, violating both federal law and existing city ordinances.
The council voted not to move Faloon’s proposal forward in a 4-5 roll call.
