Maine Researchers Testify in the State Legislature on Immigration Enforcement

"LD 2106 provides a common-sense approach to this issue by ensuring due process, preserving institutional mission, and investing in our communities."

"When immigration enforcement is visible in or near schools, hospitals, daycares, and libraries, families become afraid to access essential services....Maine cannot afford these harms."

"Without this restriction on government agents, more and more patients will reduce engaging with the health care system, endangering their own health and adding to the burden of advanced disease the system must deal with."

"We do not want individuals feeling trapped in their homes due to fear of racial profiling by ICE agents; fear that they might be unlawfully arrested, despite their legal status in the U.S."

"All children deserve access to safe, supportive schools where they can learn without fear. They and their families should not have to keep children out of school for fear of their safety."

"If we want Maine to grow and thrive, we must be known as a place where families of all points of origin feel safe putting down roots."

"By ensuring the safety of students at school, LD 2106 would help to protect both US citizen children, like my daughter, and students from immigrant and refugee families."

"LD 2106 is a measured and practical approach to setting clear guidelines for effective, responsible and reasonable law enforcement."

"Until now, the campus was a safe place for foreign students. This bill will help to keep it a safe place for current students, faculty, and their families."

"My research centers on development, gender, war and reconciliation and I am seeing the long used playbook of Peruvian and other Latin American authoritarian regimes used here in our own communities."

"LD 2106 requires the same judicial oversight in sensitive public spaces that is already expected in many other contexts."

"Families are making the tough decisions of keeping their kids home, rather than being dropped off from school, as well as canceling important medical appointments."

"Our students are experiencing tremendous disruption to their learning through absence as well as the constant stress of worry."

"I have nightmares about armed agents storming into my classroom...I am not trained in the level of de-escalation needed if masked men with guns arrive. What would you have me do?"

"Over and over, research has shown that students learn best when they feel safe, emotionally and physically, in school."

"Current federal policies have severely damaged the image of the U.S. and will tragically result in fewer international students seeking to study in Maine or elsewhere in the U.S."

"Maine is experiencing chronic workforce shortages driven by an aging population. Immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are essential to addressing these shortages."

"LD 2106 provides guidance that sensitive community spaces need to have a valid judicial warrant before they can be sites of immigration enforcement. "