Weeks after the fatal shooting of a Colombian immigrant in Biddeford, Maine, a series of state laws took effect Wednesday, that limit how local agencies work with federal immigration enforcement agencies.
The three laws restrict the cooperation of state and local law enforcement with federal agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They also bar the sharing of sensitive information by public schools, hospitals, and state libraries, as well as private landlords, according to a memo by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine.
Michael Kebede, policy director at ACLU Maine, said in a Tuesday press conference that the laws would “make Maine communities safer” by building trust in local law enforcement and “ensuring every person can call for help in an emergency, regardless of their immigration status.”
“People are more likely to report a crime, serve as a witness in court, and call for help if they know their police are not acting as deportation agents,” he said.
The act that addresses law enforcement cooperation effectively bans 287(g) agreements, a type of contract that formally allows local law enforcement to exercise immigration enforcement powers. (Such agreements are common in other states, though the only Maine agency to sign such an agreement with ICE, the Wells Police Department, withdrew from the program in October.)
Police are also now barred from calling in immigration authorities to traffic stops, and from assisting in Border Patrol stops conducted without a warrant.
The law also prohibits state jails from holding people arrested for civil immigration violations. Until earlier this year, the Cumberland County Jail served as a major holding center for immigration detainees in New England; those detainees were abruptly transferred out of state in January, after the local sheriff publicly criticized the ICE detention of one of his recruits.
Maine jails are also barred from communicating with ICE about individual release dates, and from holding individuals on an ICE detainer who are otherwise eligible for release.
Local law enforcement is still required to cooperate with federal authorities regarding specific criminal investigations.
The Maine Chiefs of Police Association did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday evening.
Another law taking effect Wednesday prohibits public officials, such as school administrators, from allowing immigration agents access to educational or health care records.
A third law bars landlords from using personal information of their tenants, such as immigration status, to threaten or blackmail them.
“Tenants have a right to feel safe and secure in their homes,” said Ben Gaines, legal director at Maine Equal Justice. “Homes have always enjoyed a higher legal standard for the protection of the privacy and safety people enjoy within them.”
Legislators passed the policing act by a narrow party-line vote in June 2025. Governor Janet Mills delayed signing the bill until December, allowing it to pass into law without her signature. Maine’s public safety commissioner directed State Police to limit their collaboration with immigration authorities shortly thereafter, despite the law not coming into effect until July.
Federal immigration enforcement efforts, though, have intensified in recent weeks, culminating in the fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old immigrant from Colombia, on July 13.
“That moment reminded all of us that the decisions and the role that government plays in our lives are not abstract,” said Ruben Torres, advocacy and policy director for the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, at Tuesday’s press conference. “They affect our neighbors, our families, and the trust that people place in the institutions that are meant to serve them.”
State officials in Maine have condemned the recent fatal shooting. In a law enforcement certification as part of a visa application for Durán Guerrero’s family, the Maine attorney general’s office cited the state’s criminal murder and manslaughter statutes as the basis of their investigation.
His family, through their attorney, have said they want to see state officials bring criminal charges against the agent responsible.
Camilo Fonseca can be reached at camilo.fonseca@globe.com. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports.