By Irene Rotondo
masslive.com
PORTLAND, Maine — All detainees at the Cumberland County Jail in Portland, Maine have been transferred out of the facility amid an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdown on the state, with some moved to Massachusetts, according to immigrant advocacy groups and local media.
Male detainees at the prison were kept in the region, while all female detainees were transferred to Louisiana, the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refuge Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition told MassLive.
The removals of the 50 people at the prison unfolded suddenly late Thursday, reports read from WMTW News 8, Portland Press Herald, Maine Morning Star, The Maine Monitor and other outlets.
Several detainees were brought to a federal correctional facility in New Hampshire, a detention facility in Rhode Island and the Plymouth County Correctional Facility Massachusetts, Morning Star reported.
Anna Welch, a University of Maine School of Law professor who runs a legal aid clinic working with detainees at Cumberland , told the outlet people called their legal counsel in a panic as the transfers began and described the process as “very chaotic.”
The Cumberland jail is where many people detained in Massachusetts by ICE have been brought, including a Lynn teenager arrested after she pushed her brother during an argument over a cellphone and a Canton mom detained at Boston Logan over a decades-old minor marijuana charge.
The transfers come just hours after Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce sharply criticized ICE agents for what he called “bush‑league policing” during the arrest of one of his corrections recruits on Wednesday night, WMTW reported, when he said agents left the recruit’s car running and unsecured on a Portland street. Joyce told reporters he did not request the removals at Cumberland and had no issue continuing to hold ICE detainees at the jail.
A York County Jail corrections officer was also detained by ICE on Thursday, following a routine immigration appointment in Scarborough, according to Maine Public.
ICE has not announced why the Cumberland County detainees were moved, has not said where they were taken and has not responded to request for comment from the outlets.
The removals come as ICE activity surges in Maine, with more than 100 people detained across the state under “Operation: Catch of the Day,” Joyce told reporters. The sudden transfers have compounded uncertainty for families, attorneys and immigrant‑rights groups who say loved ones have become difficult or impossible to locate through ICE’s online system.
“Folks are having issues with being able to locate their loved ones,” said Ruben Torres , advocacy and policy manager for the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition , Morning Star reported.
The jail’s role as a federal detention site has long been politically charged, The Press Herald reported. The county receives $150 per detainee per day from federal authorities, a financial incentive Joyce has defended in the face of community protests and previous attempts by county commissioners to end the jail’s contract with ICE, according to the outlet.
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