After a federal immigration enforcement surge began in late January, the Maine attorney general’s office set up an email tipline to collect information about potential civil rights violations and improper use of force amid reports that federal agents had smashed the car windows of people they detained and left them running in the street, followed observers home, and labeled one observer a “domestic terrorist.”
The Maine Monitor asked for the tips as part of a public records request to understand the types of concerns people were raising about agents’ treatment of immigrants or observers during the two-week operation in which agents detained about 200 people, only 11 of whom were recorded as having a criminal record.
The tipline received about two dozen submissions related to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity that the attorney general’s office deemed too sensitive to release to The Monitor, according to Danna Hayes, a spokesperson for the office. She said she could not provide more details about these complaints under state laws that protect the identities of informants and that keep information confidential ahead of legal proceedings.
The tipline remains open for the foreseeable future.
“[W]e do continue to get credible, relevant concerns intermittently and want concerned individuals to have an easy way to report to us. We are also in contact with organizations collecting similar information since we know some might not feel most comfortable sharing sensitive information with law enforcement agencies,” Hayes wrote to The Monitor.
The rest of the 98 submissions to the tipline between Jan. 26 and Feb. 26, which the state released, largely had nothing to do with potential ICE abuses. People wrote in to report on those they suspected to be immigrants. They wrote in to say ICE agents were doing a good job. One person sent a picture of feces, another an ice-fishing meme.
Two Maine people have since joined a federal class action lawsuit claiming the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its subagencies retaliated against them for lawfully observing and recording federal immigration enforcement operations. A Maine man also filed a notice of claim against the same federal agency, requesting $7.5 million in damages after he said ICE agents threatened to pull him out of his car and arrest him if he continued to drive behind and watch enforcement vehicles.
The attorney general’s office announced the email tipline in an apparent attempt to tee up its own legal response to the action. But the tips that are currently public show what can happen when an email address is widely publicized. (Before providing copies of the tips to The Monitor, the attorney general’s office redacted the names and email addresses of private citizens.)
“My Ice wasn’t cold enough at the Irving in Freeport,” wrote one person.
“I witnessed federal law enforcement actually enforcing the law. What the hell is going on here,” wrote another.
“Ice is causing problems at my house it is hanging from the eves and it may damage my shingles,” wrote a third.
Others applauded ICE. “The good men and women in ICE are to be welcomed here in Maine. If I see them here in Sedgwick, I will offer them a cup of hot coffee and cup cake,” someone wrote.
Fifteen emails came from people making unrelated complaints. One person tried to submit a complaint about Meta for disabling the person’s Instagram account for violating its standards.
Only a handful of the complaints made public raised concerns about immigration agents, though they mainly asked for legal advice or forwarded information reported in news outlets.
About 39 of the emails were listserv notifications where someone signed up the tipline email to receive updates and notices from various government agencies, including from the city of Bath and the state of New Hampshire. Hayes said someone at the office had to unsubscribe from each one.
“Unfortunately I have heard anecdotally that the spamming is consistent with other tip lines/reporting portals,” Hayes told The Monitor.
The Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition also receives calls from people expressing racist comments or “general meanness” to its hotline, which launched in the fall and receives between 80 and 200 calls per day, Senior Program and Community Engagement Manager Hunter Cropsey said. Some callers misunderstand the hotline’s purpose — to connect people with resources and track potential immigration enforcement sightings — and instead call to report their neighbors to immigration officials.
Bad faith callers account for less than 10 percent of all calls, Cropsey said, and volunteer operators curtail disruptions to the hotline by not picking up anonymous calls. They document and block bad faith callers who do not anonymize their numbers.
“There are many, many more Mainers out there who are trying to help their neighbors and help their community stay fed and safe,” Cropsey said. “That is really the thing I choose to look at.”
Staff reporter Rose Lundy contributed reporting.
