Not even local police officers in Maine are immune from President Donald Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement busts.
According to The Associated Press, ICE agents "arrested Old Orchard Beach Police Department reserve Officer Jon Luke Evans, of Jamaica, on July 25, as part of the agency’s effort to step up immigration enforcement. Officials with the town and police department have said federal authorities previously told them Evans was legally authorized to work in the U.S."
ICE alleged, however, that Evans overstayed his visa and unlawfully tried to buy a gun while he was undocumented.
The move triggered a dispute between ICE and the Old Orchard Beach police, the report continued: "Police Chief Elise Chard has said the department was notified by federal officials that Evans was legally permitted to work in the country, and that the town submitted information via the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify program prior to Evans’ employment. Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin then accused the town of 'reckless reliance' on the department’s E-Verify program."
The conflict appears to have ended with Evans agreeing to leave the country voluntarily, with ICE telling reporters a judge has agreed to accept his voluntary departure, "and that he could leave as soon as that day," avoiding forcible deportation.
The Trump administration's massive increase in immigration enforcement has led to extensive controversies, from the fact that many of the detainees are being shipped out of the country with little or no due process, to the fact that some of them appear to have been politically targeted, like students who were involved in anti-Israel protests.
In other cases, immigration officials have arrested people performing vital work for their communities, including a Russian researcher at Harvard whose work on imaging could massively improve cancer screening, and who faces persecution in her home country due to her criticism of the invasion of Ukraine.