Maine has become the latest flashpoint in the national fight over immigration enforcement, after Republican Sen. Susan Collins announced that the Department of Homeland Security had ended what she described as “enhanced” ICE operations in the state. According to Collins, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem personally confirmed that large-scale enforcement actions had concluded and that no new operations of that scope are currently planned.
Collins, who has long positioned herself as a critic of aggressive immigration crackdowns, framed the development as the result of sustained pressure on the Trump administration. In a public statement, she said she had urged DHS leadership to reconsider ICE’s approach in both Maine and Minnesota, arguing that enforcement needed to be scaled back in the wake of recent unrest and the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti during a federal operation.
While DHS declined to confirm operational details, the department emphasized that immigration laws would continue to be enforced nationwide as they are every day.
The announcement highlights the tension between federal enforcement priorities and state-level political pressure, even from within the president’s own party. Collins made clear that while enhanced operations had ended, ICE and Customs and Border Protection would continue their “normal” activities in Maine, the kind that have been ongoing for years.
She also insisted that she remains committed to combating illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and transnational crime, presenting her intervention as a recalibration rather than outright opposition.
That framing, however, clashes sharply with recent events on the ground. Just last week, ICE launched Operation “Catch of the Day” in Maine, an enforcement push explicitly aimed at illegal immigrants with criminal convictions.
According to DHS, those arrested included individuals charged with aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and crimes involving children. Roughly 200 illegal immigrants were taken into custody during the operation, a figure that federal officials cited as evidence of the seriousness of the threat posed by criminal aliens in the state.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has gone even further than Collins, openly demanding that President Trump withdraw ICE agents from Maine altogether, cut the agency’s funding, and haul Secretary Noem before Congress.
DHS officials responded bluntly, accusing Mills and other sanctuary-minded politicians of prioritizing criminal illegal aliens over law-abiding citizens. From the administration’s perspective, Operation Catch of the Day was not an overreach, but a necessary response to years of lax enforcement and local resistance.
