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Immigration was already a hot topic at the federal level ahead of this year’s U.S. Senate race in Maine.
But its significance ballooned after a surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descended on the Portland and Lewiston areas in January as part of President Donald Trump’s controversial deportation agenda. Six months later, an ICE agent fatally shot and killed a Colombian man living in Biddeford.
The Trump administration’s actions left no doubt about whether the issue would play a major role in the race between U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson.
As part of the Portland Press Herald’s look at the policy areas factoring into the high-profile contest, here’s a deep dive into how the two candidates view immigration.
Jackson answered the questions sent to his campaign, while Collins campaign spokesperson Blake Kernen answered on the senator’s behalf.
ICE’s actions in Maine
Collins, a 73-year-old Caribou native who first won election to the Senate in 1996, and Jackson, a 58-year-old former logger from Allagash who served in the Legislature from 2002 to 2024, clearly differ on ICE and whether the federal agency should exist.
A bevy of masked ICE agents moved into Maine in January as part of what the Trump administration described as “Operation Catch of the Day” to detain the “worst of the worst” criminals in the U.S. illegally. But people without criminal records and those going through the legal asylum process were among the more than 200 people arrested and seized from vehicles. The operation ended after a little more than a week, per a statement from Collins saying she asked the administration to pull back, though ICE agents continue to operate in the state.
Maine came back into the national — and international — spotlight on July 13, when an ICE agent with a checkered job and domestic abuse history shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old man from Colombia with a wife and 3-year-old daughter, not far from his home in Biddeford.
Loved ones and attorneys said Guerrero had moved to the U.S. a few years prior and was authorized to work while his asylum case was pending. Officials confirmed he was not the target of the operation ICE agents were conducting that morning.
State and federal probes into the shooting remain open, with no clear timelines. Both Collins and her Democratic colleagues have called for a transparent investigation into the matter.
Jackson said ICE’s “cruel tactics” led to Guerrero’s death. Collins, the Senate Appropriations Committee chair, responded to what she called a “tragic shooting” by pointing out she had supported $20 million for body cameras for federal agents and $2 million for deescalation training in a budget bill earlier that year. But the agents at the scene in Biddeford had no functioning body cameras, officials said. In August, Collins said all ICE agents in Maine now had body cameras.
The existence of ICE
Though she said “it is clear that ICE needs to improve its performance” following the July shooting, Collins said she supports the existence of ICE due to the work it does that goes “far beyond immigration enforcement.”
Before the fatal shooting, Collins cast a crucial vote in April to pass a Republican-backed measure giving $70 billion to ICE and Border Patrol. U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky were the only two Republicans to vote against the measure. Murkowski criticized the plan to fund the agencies for three fiscal years instead of one, which she said bypassed the normal appropriations process, which Collins helps oversee.
Collins’ July comments offered a look at her reasoning on funding ICE.
“Eliminating ICE would make our country less safe and endanger the lives and welfare of countless individuals,” Collins said in July.
Jackson, like Sullivan oysterman Graham Platner, whom Jackson replaced on the ballot in July after Platner’s swift downfall amid sexual assault allegations, has called ICE a “rogue agency” that must no longer exist after agents killed multiple people around the country this year.
“(ICE) needs to be dismantled because they give us nothing in this country but heartache and racism,” Jackson said earlier this year.
Funding ICE
Jackson and other Democrats have hammered Collins for that $70 billion vote.
“She had the ability to stop that $70 billion. She had the ability to stop ICE, and she didn’t, because she’s scared of Donald Trump, and she wasn’t going to push back,” Jackson said in August. “As chair of Appropriations, she could have done that, and she didn’t, and so we have a young family that doesn’t have a father today.”
Kernen said Collins “opposed immigration enforcement actions” that Trump pushed for, including ones that turned violent in Minnesota as well as in Maine, because they were “too broad in scope.”
“She believes that individuals who are in this country legally with pending asylum applications and who have not engaged in criminal activity should not be targets for deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Kernen said. “Enforcement should be targeted and focused on individuals who are here illegally and have committed crimes.”
Immigration-related policies
In terms of immigration-related policies they would advocate for if elected in November, Jackson said the country needs “comprehensive immigration reform, and federal law enforcement and immigration services that can be trusted — not masked raids and fear.”
Kernen said Collins is “a strong supporter of visa programs, like the H-2B and H-2A programs, that support Maine’s seasonal businesses and farmers.” She also noted Collins has supported Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, as she “does not believe it is fair to penalize individuals who were brought to the United States illegally at a very young age by his or her parents, as long as that person has no criminal record.”
The system to enter the country
Asked about what Congress must do, if anything, to fix or improve the system in which people enter the U.S., Jackson said immigration services “should be handled by a humane, civilian agency that respects due process and keeps families together; serious cross-border crime should be investigated by accountable federal law enforcement.” ICE should get replaced as well, he said.
“We need to secure the border, and we need to return immigration enforcement to a professional government agency that doesn’t target Black and brown people at the whim of Donald Trump,” Jackson said.
Collins, who reiterated her support for ICE earlier this year, believes “we should enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders,” Kernen said.
Kernen also noted Collins has cosponsored the Northern Border Security Enhancement and Review Act with Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. The legislation, which awaits a House vote after breezing through the Senate, would require the Department of Homeland Security to complete a threat analysis of the northern border every three years and update its northern border strategy based on the analysis.
Expanding or curtailing asylum
The Trump administration has worked to limit the ability of immigrants to claim asylum, the process in which people fearing persecution in their home nations are given legal protections in the U.S. Asylum approvals have reportedly dropped to their lowest in at least two decades, and the Trump administration has narrowed the scope of how someone can claim asylum or be approved for it.
Jackson noted Maine has a workforce shortage that asylum seekers can help ease.
“Asylum seekers who are in the country legally and following the rules should have access to work permits, which will help them to contribute to the communities where they l