For more than two decades, Troy Jackson argued that government had failed American workers by allowing foreign labor to take jobs, suppress wages and make it nearly impossible for Maine loggers to compete. Today, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee says immigrants are being unfairly blamed for Maine’s problems, supports bringing immigrant workers into the state and wants to abolish ICE. So, what happened between the Troy Jackson who blocked logging roads over foreign labor and the Troy Jackson who now wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement?
In the fall of 1998, long before Troy Jackson became one of Maine’s most powerful Democrats, he was a logger from the northernmost reaches of the state fighting a battle that would ultimately launch his political career.
Jackson and other Maine woodsmen believed Canadian workers were taking jobs that should have gone to Americans and helping large landowners keep wages artificially low.
Their frustration eventually spilled onto the logging roads.
Jackson helped lead a blockade on land controlled by Seven Islands Land Company, part of a larger fight over the employment of Canadian workers in Maine’s North Woods.
Contemporary reporting from the Bangor Daily News described Jackson as one of three blockade leaders who remained after other protesters departed. Jackson and the others were reportedly warned that they would need permission before returning to Seven Islands property or risk trespassing charges.
Jackson wasn’t backing down.
And neither was his argument.
“I am not anti-Canadian, most are decent, hard-working people, but the fact remains that they have our jobs and are keeping prices down,” Jackson wrote in a Bangor Daily News op-ed in December 1998.
“The Labor Department seems to be more interested in protecting Canadian workers than the Americans they were hired to protect.”
Twenty-eight years later, Jackson is running for the United States Senate with a decidedly different message.
He has condemned politicians who blame immigrants for the economic problems facing Mainers. He has characterized those who do so as “powerful bigots.” He has spoken positively about bringing immigrants into Maine and connecting them with workforce training.
And his Senate campaign goes considerably further.
Jackson wants ICE abolished.
The transformation didn’t happen overnight.
Jackson’s own words and public record trace an evolution spanning nearly three decades, from a logger demanding that government protect American workers from foreign competition, to Maine Senate president still challenging the federal government over foreign labor in 2020, to a Democratic Senate candidate in 2026 calling for the dismantling of the country’s principal interior immigration-enforcement agency.
The Maine Wire reviewed Jackson’s statements and public positions stretching back to the blockade that helped launch his political career.
They leave a question Jackson may have to answer as he campaigns for the U.S. Senate:
What changed?
1998: ‘They Have Our Jobs’
Jackson’s fight over foreign labor wasn’t a minor episode from his life before politics.
It was central to his entry into politics.
Maine loggers had become increasingly frustrated by competition from Canadian workers, whom they believed enjoyed economic advantages that allowed landowners to obtain labor at costs American loggers couldn’t match.
Jackson emerged as one of the most outspoken figures in the dispute.
After the blockade, he laid out his argument in unmistakable terms.
“I am not anti-Canadian, most are decent, hard-working people, but the fact remains that they have our jobs and are keeping prices down,” Jackson wrote.
Jackson’s criticism wasn’t limited to employers.
He blamed government.
“The Labor Department seems to be more interested in protecting Canadian workers than the Americans they were hired to protect,” he wrote.
Jackson’s argument contained two principles that would define his position for years: foreign workers were undercutting American workers, and government had an obligation to stop it.
1999: ‘No One in Washington or Augusta Can Hear It’
Jackson continued pressing the issue after the blockade ended.
In January 1999, he again took to the Bangor Daily News, this time directing his frustration toward political leaders in Washington and Augusta.
“I can remember in elementary school debating the question, ‘If tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’” Jackson wrote.
“I’m still not sure of the answer, but one thing I am sure of is that, if a landowner has a Canadian fell a tree in the forest, no one in Washington or Augusta can hear it.”
The frustration would become a foundation of Jackson’s political persona.
Government, in Jackson’s telling, had stopped listening to working people.
And the logger from Allagash was going to make it listen.
2000: Jackson Warns About ‘Cheap Foreign Labor’
Two years after the blockade, Jackson’s argument had become even more explicit.
Foreign labor wasn’t merely taking jobs, Jackson argued. It was driving down wages.
“The state and federal government use the excuse that this is the free market system and there is nothing they can do,” Jackson wrote in a February 2000 Bangor Daily News op-ed.
“What they don’t say is that if there are only a few landowners to work for, this could be a monopoly or they’re subsidizing them with cheap foreign labor, helps to drive down wages.”
Jackson specifically invoked immigration law.
“Immigration law says foreign labor cannot have adverse effect on American workers or working conditions,” he wrote.
Jackson complained that foreign workers were supporting contracts that paid less than prevailing wage rates and questioned how American workers could possibly compete.
“What is the chance of people actually working for less money than the state says you have to pay and what kind of union would negotiate a contract for less money than the employer already had to pay?” Jackson asked.
“Where do I sign up for that?”
His criticism again centered on the government’s obligation to American workers.
Jackson argued that federal officials were interpreting immigration law in a way that defeated its purpose.
“This contradicts the very law that is supposed to protect U.S. workers,” Jackson wrote.
“The rate that a Canadian worker with subsidized equipment, social health care, and a favorable exchange rate is surely less than an American with none of these benefits.”
Jackson’s position couldn’t have been much clearer.
American workers deserved protection from foreign labor that could undercut their wages.
2003: Migrant Workers and Maine’s Changing Woods
By the early 2000s, the labor debate in Maine’s forests was no longer exclusively about Canadians.
Migrant workers, including Hispanic workers, were becoming increasingly common in the forestry industry.
A May 2003 Philadelphia Inquirer story examining migrant labor in Maine’s forests reported that migrant workers represented roughly one-eighth of forestry jobs in the state.
The national press also began examining whether those changes were contributing to deteriorating wages and working conditions.
Jackson remained a prominent voice in that debate.
In January 2003, The New York Times quoted Jackson describing just how dramatically compensation had fallen.
“I did exactly the same job in 1986 and I was paid $165 an acre, had to bring my own car but I got travel pay,” Jackson said.
“Now they’re doing it for $75 an acre, they buy their own saw and don’t have any benefits.”
Jackson’s target was often the employer rather than the individual foreign worker.
But his economic argument remained consistent: a supply of workers willing or able to work for substantially less money was making it harder for American woodsmen to survive.
2014: ‘You Couldn’t Compete’
Sixteen years after the blockade, Jackson was still telling essentially the same story.
By then, he was no longer simply a logger protesting in the North Woods.
He was an established Maine politician.
Yet Jackson’s explanation of what happened remained remarkably consistent.
“My ancestry’s out of Canada, but the simple fact was that you couldn’t compete with them when they already had health insurance,” Jackson said in 2014.
“They didn’t have to worry about workers’ comp. And they were bringing home a dollar of American money and exchanging it for a dollar fifty of Canadian.”
Jackson wasn’t arguing that Canadians were bad people.
He was arguing that the economics made fair competition impossible.
For American workers, he said, “you couldn’t compete.”
2019: ‘We Couldn’t Compete’
Twenty-one years after the blockade, Jackson revisited the dispute in his own words.
By then, he had risen all the way to president of the Maine Senate.
But when Jackson wrote about the 1998 confrontation in a Bangor Daily News op-ed, his interpretation of what happened had not substantially changed.
“Canadian loggers could work for less due to the exchange rate and their national health care system,” Jackson wrote.
“We couldn’t compete.”
Jackson accused landowners of exploiting those differences.
“Landowners pitted workers against each other to grow their profits,” he wrote. “They were getting away with breaking the law regarding hiring foreign workers — again.”
Jackson then summarized what the protesters had wanted from government.
“The Canadian government looks out for its citizens; all we wanted was our government to do the same.”
That sentence is particularly important when examining Jackson’s political evolution.
As late as 2019, Jackson was still publicly defending the principle at the heart of the blockade: the American government should protect American workers when foreign labor threatens their jobs or wages.
2020: Jackson Takes the Fight to the U.S. Department of Labor
If Jackson’s earlier comments could be dismissed as the rhetoric of a young logger during a bitter labor dispute, his actions in 2020 make that explanation considerably more difficult.
Twenty-two years after the blockade — and while serving as Maine Senate president, Jackson was still fighting the federal government over foreign workers.
In September 2020, Jackson filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor alleging that federal officials were failing to properly enforce laws governing H-2A workers.
According to Jackson’s own press release, the complaint alleged that the Department of Labor allowed companies to use H-2A workers in violation of federal cabotage laws and permitted their employment even though “qualified, willing and able U.S. workers” were available.
The underlying principle was virtually identical to the one Jackson had articulated in 1998.
American workers should not lose employment opportunities because employers can access foreign labor.
This wasn’t ancient history.
It was six years ago.
2026: A Very Different Troy Jackson
Today, Jackson’s language surrounding immigrants and immigration sounds dramatically different.
As he campaigns for the U.S. Senate, Jackson has condemned politicians who blame immigrants for Maine’s problems.
He has called such rhetoric “despicable.”
Jackson has argued that “powerful bigots” want working people blaming immigrants rather than focusing their anger on Wall Street, private equity and corporate greed.
He has also spoken positively about immigrant labor.
“Having immigrants come to Maine I think is a good thing,” Jackson has said while discussing efforts to bring immigrants into the state and connect them with training programs.
That alone doesn’t necessarily contradict Jackson’s earlier position.
Maine’s economy has changed substantially since 1998. The state faces an aging population and workforce shortages in numerous industries. A politician could reasonably support immigration generally while opposing specific foreign-worker programs that he believes suppress American wages.
But Jackson’s transformation extends beyond welcoming immigrants.
His U.S. Senate campaign is now explicitly calling for the abolition of ICE.
“Dismantle and abolish ICE,” Jackson’s campaign platform states.
Jackson has described ICE as a “rogue agency” and called for “inhumane” detention facilities to be closed.
His criticism intensified following the July 13 fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero during an ICE operation in Biddeford.
Jackson joined anti-ICE demonstrations and has called for federal immigration officers who violate the law to face consequences, including arrest where warranted.
The logger who once complained that government wasn’t doing enough to protect American workers from foreign labor is now campaigning against the federal agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws inside the United States.
The Two Positions Aren’t Exactly the Same
There is an important distinction that shouldn’t be lost in the politics surrounding Jackson’s record.
The Canadian workers at the center of Jackson’s original fight were not necessarily comparable to people illegally entering the United States.
Much of Jackson’s historical criticism involved Canadian workers and later workers employed through legal temporary-worker programs such as H-2A.
ICE, meanwhile, has a much broader immigration-enforcement mission.
Jackson’s old position therefore cannot fairly be reduced to “Jackson opposed immigrants.”
His writings show a more complicated argument.
Jackson repeatedly targeted landowners and employers whom he believed were using foreign labor to reduce costs. He also blamed state and federal officials for failing to enforce labor protections.
Even in his blunt 1998 declaration that Canadian workers “have our jobs,” Jackson explicitly wrote that he was “not anti-Canadian.”
The distinction matters.
It also makes the unanswered question more interesting.
Jackson’s old argument was fundamentally about government’s responsibility to protect American workers from the economic effects of foreign labor.
Does he still believe that?
What Changed Between 2020 and 2026?
The chronology makes one point particularly difficult to overlook.
Jackson’s foreign-labor position didn’t disappear in the 1990s.
He defended it in the 2000s.
He repeated it in 2014.
He reaffirmed the principles behind the logging blockade in 2019.
And in 2020, as Maine Senate president, he formally challenged the federal government over foreign workers allegedly being used despite Americans being available for the jobs.
Six years later, Jackson is running for U.S. Senate telling voters that immigrants are being scapegoated for their economic problems, praising immigration as good for Maine and promising to abolish ICE.
That narrows the most interesting period of Jackson’s evolution considerably.
What happened between 2020 and 2026?
Did Maine’s worsening workforce shortage change Jackson’s view of immigrant labor?
Did his experience in state government alter his understanding of immigration?
Does Jackson still support restrictions on temporary foreign-worker programs when Americans are available?
Would a U.S. Sen. Troy Jackson continue demanding that the Department of Labor prevent foreign workers from undercutting American wages?
And how does he reconcile that position with his campaign’s call to abolish ICE?
Those questions deserve answers precisely because Jackson’s fight over foreign labor wasn’t peripheral to his political career.
It helped create it.
From Republican Logger to Democratic Senate Nominee
Jackson’s political evolution extends beyond immigration.
He began his political career as a Republican, later became an independent and eventually a Democrat.
His positions on major social issues have also changed during his decades in public life.
Jackson’s supporters may view those changes as evidence of a politician capable of evolving as he encounters new information, new people and changing circumstances.
His critics are likely to see something different: a politician whose positions have evolved alongside his rise through an increasingly progressive Democratic Party.
The immigration question offers Maine voters an unusually well-documented record from which to judge for themselves.
There is no need to speculate about what Jackson believed in 1998.
He wrote it down.
There is no need to speculate about whether he continued believing it years later.
He repeatedly said so.
And there is no need to speculate about where he stands today.
His Senate campaign says it plainly:
“Dismantle and abolish ICE.”
From the Logging Road to Washington
There is an irony to Jackson’s political journey that would have been difficult to imagine during that blockade in 1998.
His path toward potentially becoming a United States senator began, in no small part, because Jackson believed Washington wasn’t listening.
Foreign workers were competing with Maine loggers. Wages were being driven down. Employers were taking advantage of the system. And government, Jackson believed, wasn’t protecting its own citizens.
“The Canadian government looks out for its citizens,” Jackson would later write. “All we wanted was our government to do the same.”
Nearly three decades later, Jackson is asking Maine voters to send him to the very Washington he once accused of failing American workers.
He remains a politician who says working people are being exploited by powerful interests.
He still rails against corporations.
He still talks about workers being pitted against one another.
He still presents himself as the Allagash logger who got into politics because government wasn’t listening to people like him.
But his rhetoric about foreign workers has changed.
His rhetoric about immigrants has changed.
And his prescription for federal immigration enforcement has changed dramatically.
Perhaps Jackson’s worldview evolved.
Perhaps Maine’s economic circumstances changed.
Perhaps he believes there is no contradiction between protecting American workers from exploitative foreign-labor programs, welcoming immigrants to Maine and abolishing ICE.
If so, Jackson has an opportunity to explain that distinction.
Because the central question isn’t whether Troy Jackson held different views 28 years ago.
The historical record shows that his concerns about foreign labor persisted much longer than that, including a federal complaint filed just six years ago.
The more revealing question is what happened afterward.
What happened between the Troy Jackson who stood on logging roads demanding government protect American workers from foreign labor and the Troy Jackson who now wants to abolish ICE?
As Jackson campaigns to represent Maine in Washington, voters deserve to hear his answer.
Troy Jackson is a logger same as Elizabeth Warren is an indian.
Another Democrat Party Robot who will say and do anything he’s told to , in order to maintain Democrat Party control of the population .
Whether Augusta Maine , or Washington DC , democrats want to tear it all down and “ build it back better “ ( where have you heard that before ? ) in their utopian wet dream of justice and economic equality for all . They will take it from you and give it to them . They will open the gates again and spend us into oblivion .
Troy Jackson will do NOTHING for Maine .
He will talk loud and swagger around with his “ solidarity” tee shirt and play the lumberjack from the woods while “ standing up to Donald Trump “ …..Whoopie !
Meantime back in Augusta …..his Democrat friends and allies will be driving Maine right off the proverbial cliff .
November will decide the future of this state and this country .
Choose Wisely .