The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners voted on Tuesday to terminate its federal agreement allowing ICE to house immigration detainees in the Cumberland County Jail in a 3-1 vote, reversing a prior November decision.
[RELATED: Cumberland County Commissioners Vote to Keep ICE Contract Despite Outcry…]
“We have not stopped ICE, and we have not stopped the Border Patrol. The only people who can stop ICE and the border patrol are the people who sit in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and they can only do that by reforming the budget and reforming the archaic immigration laws which we have,” said Commissioner James Cloutier.
Cloutier also baselessly claimed that U.S. immigration law is mostly based on race while advocating for terminating the county’s agreement with ICE.
Commissioner Stephen Gordon opposed the measure, claiming that it would only prevent the county from being reimbursed for housing detainees, rather than actually prevent ICE from housing them in the jail.
“To not take into account the unintended consequences of imposing these costs in the form of greater property taxes on the economically challenged citizenry is unjust, and in my mind totally preventable,” said Gordon.
Despite his objection, Gordon also expressed a belief that ICE acts in a “morally unjust” manner.
Ultimately, the commissioners voted 3-1 in favor of ending the county’s ICE agreement, with Commissioner Tom Tyler absent.
Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce told CBS13 that he is disappointed in the decision because the county’s jail funding has been built around federal revenue, which will now be jeopardized.
He explained that, during Operation Catch of The Day, the January ICE surge in Maine, the federal government was paying $150 per day per detainee.
The vote marks a significant departure from the results of a November vote on the same issue, when commissioners voted 3-2 in favor of maintaining their contract with immigration authorities.
Cloutier is a f#cking Marxo-fascist democrat scumbag terrorist.