After Collins Comments on ICE in Maine, Platner Explains How to Actually Fight 'Authoritarian Overreach'

With public support plummeting for President Donald Trump's deployment of masked, armed federal immigration agents as the administration is expected to next target Maine, Republican Sen. Susan Collins issued a brief statement to the Bangor Daily News saying she didn't "see the rationale" for the expected arrival of US immigration and Customs Enforcement, but had little else to say about what she would do to protect people in her state.

"The difference between Sen. Collins and me is that I would do something about it," said Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate who is running to challenge the six-term senator in this year's election.

Platner is currently out of the country on a brief hiatus from his Senate campaign as he and his wife pursue in vitro fertilization in Norway, a topic he's discussed openly with voters as he's brought attention to the exorbitant cost of IVF in the US compared to Europe and called for the Medicare program to be expanded to everyone in the US.

As reports mounted of an impending major ICE deployment in Maine, Platner called on constituents to "protect our neighbors from authoritarian overreach, however we can."

"As many of you already know, it sounds like ICE is coming to Maine... This means that us Mainers are going to have to rise to this moment and protect our communities and our neighbors from the authoritarian overreach that we just saw bring about the tragedy in Minneapolis," said Platner in a video posted on social media, referring to an ICE agent's fatal shooting of Renee Good last week.

Platner has spoken out on the campaign trail about his vehement opposition to Trump's deployment of federal agents to cities including Chicago, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. He said in October at an event that as a senator, once Democrats win back control of Congress, he would "haul all of these people and the ones that made them do it in front of a Senate subcommittee, make them take their masks off."

Last month, Platner spoke at a rally in Lewiston, Maine, where hundreds of people gathered to express solidarity with the state's growing Somali population. The event was held after Trump referred to Somali people in the US as "garbage." Somali community members in Minnesota have been a primary target of ICE and other federal agents in the state in recent weeks, following a fraud scandal in which some people within the diaspora were charged and convicted.

This week, Trump denigrated Somali people in Maine, saying they have perpetrated "scams" in the state. The Maine Monitor reported that immigration authorities were seen in Lewiston last month at Gateway Community Services, a healthcare provider that serves immigrants for which the state suspended payments after it alleged interpreter fraud had taken place there.

On Thursday, Platner directed Mainers to the Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition, which has a hotline for people to report ICE sightings and has compiled information about residents' rights when they are approached by ICE agents, ways to support detainees, how people can prepare their families for potential detention or deportation efforts by the government, and how to record ICE arrests and actions safely.

Portland, Maine Mayor Mark Dion and Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline had been scheduled to hold a press conference Friday morning but it was canceled due to safety concerns. Both Democratic mayors issued statements on Wednesday warning Maine residents to know their rights in the event that they are stopped by ICE and called on people to look out for their neighbors.

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who is also running in the US Senate primary, also said state police had been directed to coordinate with local law enforcement in cities including Portland and Lewiston, where police do not work with ICE.

Collins' only other comment to the Bangor Daily News on Thursday was that she supports "the deportation of individuals who have criminal charges against them." Department of Homeland Security data has shown that a large majority of people detained by ICE in recent months have had no criminal convictions.