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shenna bellows
As Communities Say 'ICE Not Welcome,' Maine Halts Undercover License Plates for Federal Agents
"Maine is our home," said Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner, "and we’re not going to let ICE agents terrorize our communities without resistance."
Jan 19, 2026
As residents of Maine continue to prepare for and speak out against an anticipated surge of federal immigration agents operating in their communities, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows over the weekend suspended the issuance of undercover license plates requested by the US Border Patrol.
With Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and others continuing to terrorize Minneapolis, people in Maine have been on high alert since last week, when reports indicated that Maine was next on the target list of President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“These requests in light of rumors of ICE deployment to Maine and abuses of power in Minnesota and elsewhere raise concerns,” Bellows said in a written statement on Saturday.
"We have not revoked existing plates but have paused issuance of new plates," she added. "We want to be assured that Maine plates will not be used for lawless purposes."
"Those wielding Trump's fascist agenda to divide us will fail because in Maine we stand with and will always protect our immigrant neighbors." —Shenna Bellows, Maine Secretary of State
Use of unmarked vehicles has been a hallmark of ICE and Border Patrol operations during Trump's second term, with agents—many of them masked—using the cars to swoop into work sites, bus stops, retail locations, and residential neighborhoods to target people they claim are in the country unlawfully.
"ICE’s lawless tactics are not welcome in Maine," Bellows said in a social media post last week. "In the United States, people cannot be taken off the street by masked agents, thrown in unmarked cars, and disappeared. That’s kidnapping, not law enforcement. Those wielding Trump's fascist agenda to divide us will fail because in Maine we stand with and will always protect our immigrant neighbors."
Ryan Guay, a supervisory deputy for the US Marshals Service District of Maine, told the Portland Press Herald he was surprised to learn of the change and warned that not having "covert status" would negatively impact the ability of federal agents to operate safely in the state.
“This is a drastic change from historical precedent that gives us great concern,” said Guay, who added that next steps were being explored. “I’m engaged with our national office and offices around the country to kind of figure out what to do, as this is not a common occurrence at all,” he said.
On Friday, the ACLU of Maine, where Bellows once worked as executive director, released guidance for community members fearful of the increased presence and harassment by federal agents.
“The ACLU of Maine condemns this agency’s brutal, unlawful, and unprecedented assault on communities across the country,” said ACLU of Maine executive director Molly Curren Rowles. “Every person in the United States has the fundamental freedom to speak out, move around our communities, and gather together. ICE’s reckless actions and lack of accountability are making all people less safe and threatening our basic constitutional rights. This should not be a politicized issue. The United States is not a place where civilians face masked, armed troops and agents in our streets. If we believe in the vision of this country as the ‘Land of the Free’ then we all must get involved to support the rule of law and demand that Congress stop ICE funding and bring the agency under control.”
Large protests against the arrival of more federal agents took place in downtown Portland, the state's largest city, on both Saturday and Sunday. Both Portland and Lewiston, the second largest city in the state, have large refugee and immigrant communities, putting residents in those communities on heightened alert.
Graham Platner, running in the Democratic primary for US Senate, said in a video posted to social media over the weekend that it's vital for Mainers to care for their vulnerable neighbors and understand their rights when it comes to interacting with federal immigration officials.
"Maine is our home, and we’re not going to let ICE agents terrorize our communities without resistance," said Platner.
Maine is our home, and we’re not going to let ICE agents terrorize our communities without resistance.
What to expect in the coming days, and what you can do about it: pic.twitter.com/9N1hIyvcug
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) January 17, 2026
Jacob Ellis, an organizer of weekend protests in Portland, said the message people in the city most want conveyed to ICE agents is this: “You are not welcome here. You will never be welcome here.”
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Maine Judge Defers on Trump Ballot Decision Until Supreme Court Ruling
"Ultimately, we're happy with the court's decision to leave the secretary's ruling intact: that Trump is an insurrectionist and that the 14th Amendment applies," said one of the Mainers who sought his removal.
Jan 17, 2024
A Maine judge on Wednesday declined to weigh in on former President Donald Trump's challenge to his recent removal from the state's Republican presidential primary ballot, citing the looming U.S. Supreme Court decision in a similar case.
The U.S. Supreme Court—which has a right-wing supermajority that includes three Trump appointees—has agreed to hear a case out of Colorado, whose state Supreme Court last month barred the twice-impeached former president from this year's primary ballot. The justices plan to hear arguments in Trump v. Anderson on February 8.
Colorado and Maine are the only states that have determined the GOP front-runner should be barred from the ballot, but other initiatives are underway elsewhere. The lawsuits and applications to state election officials all rely on the 14th Amendment, which prohibits anyone who took an oath to the U.S. Constitution and then engaged in insurrection from holding office.
In response to petitions from Maine voters, Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows disqualified Trump in December, noting that he, "over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power."
Trump—who on Monday won Iowa's Republican presidential caucuses, despite the 14th Amendment fights and his four ongoing criminal cases—appealed Bellows' decision, which led to Kennebec County Superior Court Judge Michaela Murphy's deferral on Wednesday. Murphy was initially appointed by a Democratic governor and then reappointed by a Republican.
"Maine's primary election is March 5, 2024, and the agreement by all the parties to stay the secretary's decision until Anderson is decided is important," Murphy wrote. "Unless the Supreme Court before that date finds President Trump disqualified to hold the office of president, eligible Maine voters who wish to cast their vote for him in the primary will be able to do so, with the winner being determined by ranked-choice voting."
One of the Mainers behind a petition to remove Trump, Democratic former Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling, said Wednesday: "Ultimately, we're happy with the court's decision to leave the secretary's ruling intact: that Trump is an insurrectionist and that the 14th Amendment applies. We'll decide next steps soon."
Murphy's move followed a similar decision by the Oregon Supreme Court, which last week deferred to the nation's highest court in a 14th Amendment case.
Free Speech for People, the group behind the Oregon case, called that decision "disappointing," adding: "While it is certainly possible that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. Anderson may resolve some or all of the issues in this case, it is also entirely possible that the U.S. Supreme Court may resolve that case based on particular details of the Colorado proceeding or that it may issue an order that does not resolve this case."
"Furthermore, no one knows when that decision will issue," the group stressed. "Waiting until the U.S. Supreme Court issues its order only compresses the time that the Oregon Supreme Court may have to resolve the issues that may remain if the U.S. Supreme Court does not fully resolve all the issues in this case."
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Trump Appeals Removal From Maine Primary Ballot
"This is part of the process," the secretary of state responded. "I have confidence in my decision and confidence in the rule of law."
Jan 02, 2024
Attorneys for former U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday filed an expected appeal in the Maine Superior Court after the secretary of state barred the Republican front-runner from the state's 2024 primary ballot in response to formal legal challenges from voters.
Trump's presidential campaign had vowed to fight against Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows' determination last week that he is not qualified to serve as president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution after inciting the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
In the Tuesday filing, Trump's team argues that Bellows "was a biased decisionmaker who should have recused herself and otherwise failed to provide lawful due process," lacked legal authority to consider the federal constitutional issues presented by the challengers, and "made multiple errors of law and acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner."
Bellows pointed out to The Associated Press on Tuesday that she had suspended her decision until the courts rule on any appeal.
"This is part of the process. I have confidence in my decision and confidence in the rule of law," she told the AP of Trump's appeal. "This is Maine's process and it's really important that first and foremost every single one of us who serves in government uphold the Constitution and the laws of the state."
The battle in Maine comes as the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to hear a challenge to Trump's eligibility in Colorado, where the state Supreme Court kicked him off the primary ballot last month, also citing the 14th Amendment.
The Colorado Republican Party asked the nation's highest court to weigh in on the case, which was launched by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and law firms representing GOP and unaffiliated voters.
As the Colorado voters' legal team filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, CREW president and CEO Noah Bookbinder said in a statement that "Donald Trump's unprecedented actions on January 6, 2021 unquestionably bar him from Colorado primary ballots under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, as determined by the Colorado Supreme Court."
"Today's brief underscores that Section 3 applies to former presidents, that our clients had the right to bring this challenge under Colorado state law, and that the First Amendment does not allow a state party to list disqualified candidates on the ballot," he added. "It is crucial that the Supreme Court take up and review this case quickly so that Colorodans and the American public have complete clarity on Donald Trump's eligibility before casting their ballots."
While Trump appointed three current members of the U.S. Supreme Court—Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—congressional Democrats have called on conservative Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from the Colorado case and any similar ones, given that his wife, Ginni Thomas, participated in the far-right effort to overthrow the 2020 election.
Both Bellows and Colorado Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold have faced threats because of Trump's disqualifications.
Laurence Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, and Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor who is now of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy, defended Bellows' decision in a Tuesday opinion piece published by The Boston Globe.
"Bellows' decision enacted, in word and in deed, the too rarely remembered reality that the fair interpretation and faithful application of statutory as well as constitutional law is entrusted no less to executives than to judges—and that the U.S. system for electing presidents expressly empowers state legislatures to decide how each state's selection is to be made," the pair wrote.
"While we await that appeal and the Supreme Court's decision to review the Colorado Supreme Court's disqualification ruling, Bellows' decision stands as a paradigm," they added. "We are all witnesses to how a fearless public official exercises her delegated state authority in our Constitution's intricate federal system."
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