PORTLAND, Maine, USA (AP) — The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has stressed the detention of people it described as some of Maine’s most dangerous criminals during operations last week in the state, but court records present a more complicated picture.
According to federal authorities, more than 100 people were rounded up across the state in what ICE dubbed “Operation Catch of the Day,” a nod to the fishing industry, a pillar of the local economy. The agency said in a statement that it was arresting “the worst of the worst,” including “child abusers and kidnappers.”
Court records show that some of those detained were violent offenders. But they also reveal that others had unresolved immigration proceedings or had been arrested but never convicted of a crime.
Immigration lawyers and local officials say similar concerns have arisen in other cities where ICE has conducted raids, and many of its targets had no criminal backgrounds.
A high-profile ICE case involving serious crimes and criminal convictions is that of Dominic Ali, born in Sudan. According to the agency, Ali was convicted of unlawful detention, aggravated assault, assault, obstruction of justice, and violation of a protective order.
Court records show he was convicted in 2004 of violating a protective order and in 2008 of second-degree assault, unlawful detention, and obstruction of reporting a crime. In the latter case, prosecutors said he threw his girlfriend to the floor of her New Hampshire apartment, kicked her, and broke her collarbone.
“His conduct amounted to nothing less than torture,” said Judge James Barry in 2009 before sentencing Ali to five to ten years in prison.
Later, Ali was released on conditional parole under ICE supervision, and in 2013 an immigration judge ordered his deportation. There was no further information available from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and it is unclear what happened after that order.
Other cases were more ambiguous, such as Elmara Correia, a native of Angola, whom ICE highlighted in its public campaign report as having been “arrested previously for endangering the welfare of a child.”
State court records show that someone with that name was charged in 2023 with violating a law relating to learner’s permits for new drivers, but the case was later dismissed.
Correia filed a habeas corpus petition on Wednesday, and a judge issued a temporary emergency order prohibiting authorities from removing her from Massachusetts, where she is being held. Her attorney said she legally entered the United States on a student visa about eight years ago and has never been subject to expedited removal proceedings.
”Was she declared innocent or will it be enough for us to say she was arrested?” asked Portland Mayor Mark Dion during a news conference, voicing concern that ICE had not distinguished between detentions and convictions, nor explained whether sentences had been served.
Dion mentioned another person named in the release: Dany López-Cortez, whom ICE described as an “illegal alien” from Guatemala who had been convicted of driving under the influence.
ICE highlighted López-Cortez’s case among a small set of examples that, it asserted, reflected the kinds of detentions carried out during its operation. Dion questioned whether that DUI conviction, serious though common in Maine, should sit in the “worst of the worst” category in ICE’s public narrative.
Caitlyn Burgess, an immigration attorney in Boston, noted that her office filed habeas corpus petitions on Thursday on behalf of four clients detained in Maine and transported to Massachusetts.
The gravest charge they faced was driving without a license, Burgess added, noting that all had cases or petitions pending in immigration court.
“Habeas corpus petitions are often the only tool available to stop rapid transfers that cut off access to an attorney and disrupt ongoing immigration proceedings,” she said.
Lawyer Samantha McHugh said she filed five habeas corpus petitions on behalf of Maine detainees on Thursday and expected to file three more soon.
“Nobody among these individuals has criminal records,” McHugh, who represents eight detainees in total, said. “They were simply at work, eating lunch, when unidentified vehicles arrived and immigration agents raided private properties to detain them.”
Federal court records show that immigration cases that include criminal convictions can go unresolved or be reviewed years later.
Another detainee in Maine whose mugshot was part of the “worst of the worst” documentation is Ambessa Berhe.
Berhe was convicted of cocaine possession and assaulting a police officer in 1996, and again of cocaine possession in 2003.
In 2006, a federal appeals court in Boston overturned a deportation order against him and sent the case back to the Board of Immigration Appeals for reconsideration.
According to the ruling, Berhe was born in Ethiopia and was taken to Sudan by his adoptive parents. The family was admitted to the United States as refugees in 1987, when he was about nine years old.
ICE said that its campaign targeted about 1,400 migrants in a state of roughly 1.4 million people, of whom roughly 4% were born abroad.
