Maine Sen. Susan Collins is rejecting calls from the states Democratic governor to dismantle Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the wake of a fatal shooting involving an ICE agent.
The clash erupted after Gov. Janet Mills urged the states congressional delegation to reform or abolish the federal immigration agency following the death of 25-year-old Colombian national Joan Sebastian Durn Guerrero in Biddeford, as reported by Just The News. Mills pressed the delegation not simply to share our grief, to express concerns or offer condolences, but to act now to require ICE to respect the rule of law and honor our collective security. She further escalated her demands, declaring, Before more families are robbed of a loved one, this violence has to end ICE needs to be fundamentally reformed, and if not, then it is time to abolish it.
Collins, a Republican facing reelection this November, responded in a letter Thursday, saying she shared her heartbreak for the people of Maine regarding this tragic shooting and agreed that we need answers as to what transpired. She stressed that the shootings in Maine and Texas in less than a week have raised serious questions and demand immediate action.
To that end, Collins said she and the rest of the states delegation had already moved to secure an independent review of the incident. This is why I, along with the entire Maine delegation, called for a thorough, full, and impartial investigation by the independent Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General into the shooting, she wrote.
Collins also noted that she and independent Sen. Angus King have appealed to the Justice Department to ensure federal scrutiny remains above politics. They wrote a letter to the Department of Justice requesting that it cooperate with state and local law enforcement to ensure that federal investigations into this shooting remain impartial and comprehensive.
At the same time, Collins has supported a temporary halt to ICE traffic stops, a pause already ordered by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin after the Maine shooting. President Trump and Mullin have both defended ICE in the aftermath, underscoring the agencys central role in border and interior enforcement even as investigations proceed.
Collins argued that many of the reforms Mills is now demanding such as body cameras for ICE agents and tighter oversight were not only anticipated but actively advanced by President Trumps first term. Those proposals, she said, were blocked by Democrats in Congress who preferred to weaken enforcement rather than improve accountability.
But Collins said many of the proposed reforms Mills requested in her letter including body cameras for ICE agents and increased oversight had been called for previously by the Trump administration, but rejected by Democratic legislative leaders, she said. As she put it bluntly, Inexplicably, congressional Democrats rejected these reforms and instead chose to excise funding for ICE and U.S. Border Patrol from the annual appropriations process.
Pushing back hardest against abolition rhetoric from Mills and other Maine Democrats, Collins emphasized that ICEs Homeland Security Investigations arm is on the front lines against cartels, human trafficking, drug smuggling, child exploitation, and forced labor. While it is clear that ICE needs to improve its performance, it is important to remember that the work ICE does to protect our country goes far beyond immigration enforcement, she wrote.
For Collins, the answer is reform and proper resourcing of law enforcement, not dismantling the very agency charged with confronting some of the most brutal criminal networks on earth. Eliminating ICE would make our country less safe and endanger the lives and welfare of countless individuals, she warned, underscoring a core conservative view that public safety and the rule of law depend on strong, accountable federal enforcement not on defunding it after a tragedy.
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