News Center Maine - About 26 percent of inmates currently held at the Cumberland County Jail are reportedly immigration detainees arrested by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. According to a report presented to county commissioners Monday night, the jail is holding about 100 ICE detainees—twice the number held in 2024.
...About 100 people attended Monday night's commissioners' meeting to demand that the board end the county's cooperation with ICE.
Citing national reports claiming due process violations by the agency, several speakers urged commissioners to sever ties with an organization they say puts their communities in danger.
"You can't do everything," Todd Chretein said, addressing the board. "But what you can specifically do as a county commission is say the hundred, we now hear, the hundred ICE detainees who are held just a few hundred yards from here, we will not cooperate with that ICE machine any longer, and we will sever that relationship with the Cumberland County Jail."
Roughly 3,000 people have signed a petition calling on the jail to cut ties with ICE. Organizers say they plan to keep showing up at meetings until the contract is ended. County commissioners did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Cumberland County Jail officer detained by ICE had applied for asylum