'Rot in Hell!' 'F*ck You, Nazis!': Mainers React With Fury as Horrors of ICE Operations Multiply
"ICE is just kidnapping people," said US Senate candidate Graham Platner. "We all need to turn out."
As the Trump administration continues to insist it is targeting violent criminals as it ramps up immigration enforcement operations in Maine—while releasing details about just a small fraction of the more than 100 people federal agents have reportedly arrested so far—residents in the state are expressing growing anger over the operations that have seen their neighbors, friends, and coworkers hauled away in unmarked cars by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In at least two cases in Portland on Thursday, ICE agents pulled drivers out of their cars and left the vehicles running in the street.
A crowd gathered as agents detained a Lyft driver near the University of Southern Maine, with residents calling the masked officers "Nazis" and demanding, "If you're so proud, show your face!"
"Rot in hell!" one person yelled, while others said, "Fuck you, Nazis!"
PORTLAND, MAINE- Near University of Southern Maine, these are ICE Agents snatching a Lyft driver right out of their car and leaving the car in the middle of the road blocking traffic. pic.twitter.com/4Oo6OofDrc
— Maine (@TheMaineWonk) January 23, 2026
Another man, identified by the Maine Monitor as Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz, was cut off by an unmarked car with tinted windows while driving in downtown Portland Wednesday morning. Carvajal-Munoz, a civil engineer from Colombia, is in the US on a work visa according to his colleagues, and earned a master's degree from University of Maine.
The agents moved rapidly, trying to pry open Carvajal-Munoz's window before smashing it and pulling him out of the car, hauled him into their vehicle, and drove away.
“In less than two minutes, they smashed his window and dragged him out of the car,” an eyewitness, Jesse Smith, told the Monitor. “He was compliant. He wasn’t resisting or anything.”
A background check system from TransUnion found that Carvajal-Munoz has no criminal record, despite the Department of Homeland Security's persistent claims that ICE is targeting the "worst of the worst" violent criminals—a claim the agency's own data does not support.
The agents left Carvajal-Munoz's car running with the window smashed and the engineer's belongings and keys in the passenger seat. A passerby drove the vehicle into a nearby parking lot.
Another incident on Wednesday evening, in which several ICE agents stopped a corrections officer recruit in his vehicle and detained him, provoked outrage from Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce.
The man's record was "squeaky clean," said Joyce at a press conference where he explained the recruit was hired in 2024 after an extensive background check that is standard for his office's staffing procedures, complete with fingerprinting and a polygraph test. He is eligible to work in the US until 2029, as verified through a federally required I-9 form.
In a video of the arrest, he was heard telling the officers he could prove his identity if they allowed him to get his ID as they handcuffed him and ignored his pleas.
The Sheriff in Cumberland County in Maine said that ICE took one of their black Corrections recruits that’s a U.S citizen & you can & him telling them who he is and where his ID his & they piled on him instead! They all need to be arrested! Now everyone is seeing what’s happening pic.twitter.com/y8m1qgcdY0
— Suzie rizzio (@Suzierizzo1) January 22, 2026
“Every indication we found was that this was an individual trying to do all the right things," Joyce said, adding that ICE later inexplicably claimed to him that the recruit was in the US illegally.
The sheriff also criticized the agents' methods during the arrest.
"There were five to seven ICE agents there," said Joyce. "We've arrested some dangerous people on the back roads of Cumberland County with three or less deputies, yet this was a show of force or a show of whatever they were trying to do."
Of the agents' decision to leave the recruit's car running in the street, Joyce added, "Folks, that's bush-league policing."
Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce had some harsh words about ICE detaining one of his corrections recruits. He described the agents' actions as "bush league policing." https://t.co/ZfnNF4Vq6K pic.twitter.com/v2ucdT73xI
— WMTW TV (@WMTWTV) January 22, 2026
Joyce was one of more that 10 sheriffs who attended a meeting last year with border czar Tom Homan to learn about the Trump administration's alleged plan to remove violent criminals from the streets.
“The book and the movie don’t add up,” Joyce said.
Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner addressed the recent arrests in a video he posted on social media from the Copenhagen airport as he travels back to Maine from Norway, saying, "Our home is under attack" and calling on state leaders to allow law enforcement to directly act to protect Mainers from ICE.
"ICE is just kidnapping people," he said. "People who are here legally, including local law enforcement. I'm sick and tired of hearing that legally, there's nothing that law enforcement in Maine can do to protect citizens from these thugs. I very much urge our state leadership to empower local law enforcement to do what it's supposed to do, which is protect our communities. Right now our communities need protecting from the authoritarian overreach of ICE. And if they aren't going to do that then we all need to turn out."
Maine has been invaded by a masked secret police force.
They have taken people who are here legally. They have taken people with no criminal records. They have taken a local police officer.
Even local law enforcement are not safe from ICE.
Our home is under attack. pic.twitter.com/iqZHs2Ovbp
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) January 23, 2026
A rally is planned in Lewiston on Saturday, and Portland residents are planning to gather Friday evening to protest ICE's surge in the state.
Mainers have taken cueseng from communities in cities such as Minneapolis and Chicago, where ICE has been met with strong shows of resistance to the Trump administration's anti-immigrant enforcement in recent months.
Back Cove Books in Portland reported Thursday that it was ordering a second shipment of free whistles for community members to warn neighbors when ICE is in the vicinity or conducting an arrest, as it was "very quickly running out" of its first shipment in just one day.
Businesses across the city have placed signs designed by a local artist declaring "NO ICE" in their windows.
And about 75 protesters banged pots and pans outside a hotel where they believe, based on reports, that ICE agents are staying in Portland on Thursday night.
Panagioti Tsolkas, communications manager for the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition, told Common Dreams that the group has trained hundreds of volunteers to help verify reports of ICE operations. Other local groups have reported huge numbers of residents volunteering to deliver groceries to immigrants and people of color who don't feel safe leaving home.
"This community is engaged and not just lowering their heads or turning away," Tsolkas said. "Maine also really values itself as a welcoming place. And that culture has been developed, especially with the refugee resettlement program and population. That's part of the reason that Maine is being targeted, is because it has a history of being a welcoming place and accepting place."
Despite stereotypes about Maine being "remote and cold," he added, "I think [what] people are hearing and seeing is that people in Maine really pride themselves as being a place that has a welcoming value as a core principle."
