A report from the roadside across from ICE’s Maine headquarters
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “Operation Catch of the Day” terror campaign in Maine officially ended last winter, but ICE never takes days off.
So neither do we.
On July 13, ICE agent David Brouillette shot and murdered Johan Sebastián Guerrero in the street in Biddeford. Since then, I and others have been organizing to occupy the space outside the entrance to ICE’s Maine headquarters, an office and detention facility at 40 Manson Libby Road in Scarborough, not far from The Holy Donut on Route 1.
It hasn’t been easy.
Last winter there were rapid-response chats among hundreds of people concerned about ICE’s secret-police raids and abductions. The larger chat had 999 people and needed an overflow chat to include more.
Then, in mid-June, federal prosecutors in Minnesota indicted and arrested 15 people accused of what lead prosecutor Daniel Rosen called “organized lawless behavior” during protests following Border Patrol’s killing of VA hospital nurse Alex Pretti in late January. In the federal government’s view, rapid-response actions were now akin to a criminal “conspiracy” to “disrupt the execution of federal law,” Rosen said. (On Aug. 13, the New York Times revealed undercover government agents infiltrated and surveilled online meetings and group chats on Signal among Minnesota activists planning anti-ICE demonstrations after Pretti’s murder.)
Suddenly, those involved in previous chats found the forums had changed, gone dead or been deleted. People were rightfully afraid and concerned that we no longer had a way to observe, track and spread information about ICE operations in our communities. After Johan’s murder a month later, via many private DM’s and by meeting people in person at protests, we created new chats and coalesced around a new goal: shutting down the ICE detention facility in Scarborough.
On Tuesday, July 14, the day after Johan was killed, there was a large protest outside ICE’s Scarborough headquarters. It got rowdy due to the provocations of a right-wing agitator, but what a local TV news station called a “clash” was just some angry shouting and cursing.
Over the following days, smaller groups of anti-ICE protesters and observers showed up outside the facility. On one occasion, the driver of an ICE transit van carrying detainees weaponized his vehicle and struck and injured an observer, then left the scene without stopping. Charges have been filed against the driver with the Scarborough Police Department, which knows the driver’s identity and has spoken with him about the incident. The case remains active.
That’s not the typical scene across the road from ICE’s office and three-cell jail. It’s actually a very quiet, safe and welcoming place to be (for those secure in their citizenship). We love when people stop and chat, and we would love it even more if more of them stayed and helped to document ICE operations there.
There are at least two people sitting across from the facility every day, recording ICE’s movements and keeping track of the number of detainees arriving there from morning to night. Sometimes our gathering grows to about 10 people, but that’s been rare. We are not an organization. We are a group of local residents who connected over our shared frustration about the lack of direct action at this secret-police headquarters.
Our cars are parked, legally, on the side of Manson Libby Road across from the office building ICE leases there. There’s often a tent set up, there are plenty of chairs, and we always have water and snacks to share. Occasionally we play music, hold signs, or speak through a megaphone. Mostly we are there to document operations and detainments, and to assist families and released detainees.
The number of detentions is alarming and rising, and no one is hearing about it. We initially estimated that agents had a quota of two arrests per day, but by mid-August we were consistently seeing three, four or five detainees driven to the facility daily. Including Saturdays. Including Sundays. Like I said, ICE doesn’t take days off.
On Aug. 21, a Friday, we observed nine detainees brought to Scarborough — the highest verifiable daily total since we started counting.
Agents chain detainees with handcuffs and leg shackles during transport into and out of the office. Sometimes we can hear iron clanking and echoing in the still air above the marsh behind us. We’ve also begun seeing visitors arrive for routine immigration appointments and leave wearing bulky ankle monitors.
One day we heard shouts from the back of the building: “Stop resisting!” Then we witnessed several agents running in and out of the facility, looking rather frantic. There’s a small barbed-wire-fenced area in back that we can’t see regardless of where we’re stationed along the road. We believe ICE hides its rougher activities from view back there, a concealment that also makes it impossible to tally the total number of daily detainees.
On Aug. 22, ICE put a black tarp on the black chain-link fence, also topped with barbed wire, that encloses the small parking lot and transport van entrance next to the building. We had previously been able to see, and count, detainees moved between vans and the office through that fence. No longer.
Vans are also now being driven directly inside the facility through a garage door. We suspect this is also an effort to keep detainments secret, but a step the agents were loathe to take, as it appears the office building is not designed to safely ventilate vehicle exhaust.
We have reached out to many different news outlets, as well as local politicians, about what we’ve seen so far. But word never seems to get out.
On a hot day in early August, a man drove to the office with his two small children and entered through the front door used for routine immigration appointments. We try to make note of every visitor who uses the public entrance — to make sure they all come out by day’s end.
About 45 minutes later, a woman with an infant was dropped off by an Uber. She seemed to be in distress.
Moments later, the two little kids who’d entered with the man walked out the front door, alone. The man had been unexpectedly arrested during his appointment and locked inside the office. Myself and another woman approached the mother to get more information. We invited her to sit in the shade with us across the street to sort out what happened. We had bubbles for the kids.
We found out the father had arrived for an asylum check-in, a process that usually takes only a few minutes, which is why he’d brought his kids along. The woman was told he’d be transferred somewhere out of state by the end of the day. She was confused; we were all confused. Her kids were crying. The mother doesn’t drive or work outside the home. She takes care of the three children and her husband was their sole provider.
ICE gave her very little information, no resources, and no way to get home with her children. Because we were there, we were able to get her and her kids home, get her husband’s car home, and connect her with groups to help with legal assistance and other, more immediate support.
On Aug. 25, the Portland Press Herald published a story about this family. The father, 42-year-old Jonas Manywa, is a nursing assistant who cares for seniors who’ve served in the military, their spouses, and Gold Star parents at Maine Veterans’ Homes in Scarborough. He and his wife and first daughter, members of a Tutsi minority group, sought refuge from ethnic violence and death threats in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and arrived here in 2022.
They live in Scarborough, and the Press Herald reported that Manywa offered to drive to his home with ICE agents so his children wouldn’t have to see him chained and incarcerated. “But the agents put him in handcuffs as they watched,” the paper reported, confirming the account his wife gave us. His three-year-old daughter, Eliana, “was pulled away as she clung to her father’s neck.”
Manywa was transported in shackles to the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Massachusetts and incarcerated there that same day. ICE indicated they wanted to swiftly deport him to Cameroon, a country Manywa has never visited and where he also fears he’d be promptly killed, the newspaper reported.
This wasn’t the first time our little group provided resources, a ride, or emotional support, and it sadly won’t be the last. We’re effective, but we need more people.
Given all the public outrage toward ICE these days, I didn’t think we’d be lacking on-the-ground support. We’re not asking for all your spare time, just some of it. Maybe you have a free day or a free hour or two each week during which you can gather with us.
Sometimes people drive by and shout, “Get a job!” We all have jobs. Some of us have kids. Some of us have two jobs, pets, appointments, other obligations. We all agree that ICE is a massive threat to our community and our country. Everyone has some time.
The best hours to come by are between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., when ICE is most active, though lately they’ve been working late. The day they covered the parking lot fence with black tarp, we observed detention activities until 9 p.m., and some transfers took place in the middle of the night.
What responses do we get from ICE agents and staff at the Scarborough post? Almost none. There are a few who are very shy, or ashamed, and try to hide their faces or look away. Most of them look haggard, bitter and demoralized, as one would expect of people forced to spend long hours doing cruel and detestable work. There’s one guy who likes to stop right in front of us and wave. He has a rosary hanging from his rearview mirror, which is insane to me, because what about this is Christ-like?
Some people don’t understand why it’s important to bear witness and document this agency’s activities. How is this helping?
Beyond the practical and emotional support we provide people like Jonas Manywa’s family, we are building community here, connecting with each other, with local residents, and with organizations and business owners. ICE observers throughout Maine document agents’ activities on our streets. They relay information to folks outside the Scarborough facility so we know when a detainee is coming in and from where they were taken. This gives us a better chance to reach people in the detainee’s community who can promptly provide more assistance.
On Aug. 28, Jonas Manywa was released from ICE custody and returned home to his family in Maine. Although the government wanted to require that he wear a humiliating and stigmatizing ankle monitor, his legal defense successfully argued against that, according to our source.
ICE didn’t release Jonas because it recognized its mistake, and ICE certainly didn’t keep his family fed and housed during the weeks he was behind bars. The legal and financial assistance volunteer groups like ours help provide can be the difference between life or death for ICE’s victims.
Yard signs, bumper stickers and memes have never freed anyone. This is what it looks like to actually resist. Please join us.
Others Ways to Get Involved
Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project
ILAP “advances justice for Maine’s immigrants through free immigration legal services, community outreach, and advocacy.” ilapmaine.org, (207) 780-1593
LighthouseME
A new website, built and managed by the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition in partnership with Presente! Maine, to “illuminate the way through transparent information on the issues immigrants face in our state, resources offering support, and policies that will help us all thrive.” Operates the Maine Immigrant Defense Hotline: (207) 544-9989 to report ICE sightings, get connected to resources and information, or become a hotline volunteer. lighthouseme.org
Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition
A nonprofit network of over 100 organizations “dedicated to the advancement of legal, social, and economic outcomes for immigrants in the state of Maine.” maineimmigrantrights.org
Project Relief
A Black immigrant-led mutual aid and racial justice collective based here in Maine. Founded by immigrants in 2019 to “protect immigrant families, fight systemic racism, and build community power through mutual aid, legal defense, housing support, and food access.” projectreliefme.com
— compiled by Chris Busby
