ICE’s Scarborough facility increased personnel for security, Pingree says

More U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel have been deployed to the Scarborough field office to boost security, said U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree. 

Local ICE officials informed Pingree’s office last week that additional personnel had been assigned to the facility to cover gaps in overnight security. 

“ICE has cited the growing number of protestors — and armed protestors specifically — as a reason for deploying more personnel to the facility,” Pingree said in a statement. “Mainers deserve to know what’s happening in their communities and I’m continuing to monitor the situation closely. Maine has endured too much chaos and violence at the hands of this rogue, unaccountable agency already.”

How the Scarborough ICE facility is feeding the nationwide detention apparatus

An unnamed spokesperson for ICE would not confirm the added personnel nor reason for the increase, citing operational security and safety. Instead, the spokesperson said in an email that ICE has been delivering on President Donald Trump’s promise to arrest and deport people who are in the country illegally, including murderers and rapists. 

The vast majority of people held in ICE custody during Trump’s second term have had no criminal convictions. There have also been hundreds of instances where U.S. citizens were mistakenly detained or questioned. 

ICE agents have also killed at least five people during Trump’s second term, including Biddeford resident Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who was not the intended target of the ICE operation, had a pending asylum case and a valid work permit, according to his family and lawyer. 

Protests were held at ICE’s Scarborough facility after the fatal shooting in July, and volunteers are now regularly stationed outside the building to track the agency’s operations. Observers flagged that a new armored vehicle arrived at the facility on Monday, and the hotline run by the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition also received reports of several new vehicles arriving that day. 

“We encourage community members to stay calm and informed,” Ruben Torres, MIRC’s director of advocacy and policy, said in a statement. 

Scarborough residents called for Maine’s congressional delegation to review the local ICE facility and consider alternatives following the Biddeford shooting. 

It had been set up as an administrative facility in 2021. Intended for routine check-ins, it only has three small, short-term holding cells.

But more detentions have happened there this year, including overnight, often just the first stop for people being detained in multi-state stays. 

Historically, ICE had detained people in local jails in Maine. But last January ICE pulled its detainees from the state’s largest jail, and later others, in a rebuke to the sheriff, after he criticized the detention of one of his employees.