On Monday, May 12, the Rockland City Council will vote on an “Order Directing the Police Department not to Accept Grant Funds Without an Agreement”. As part of Operation Stonegarden the Rockland Police Department is expecting funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), however there is no clear documentation of what is expected in return, and standard terms and conditions for DHS awards have been updated to require compliance with requests for cooperation around immigration enforcement. This order helps ensure that City Council is able to appropriately monitor Rockland Police Department’s relationship with the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal agency responsible for the arrests and abductions of immigrants that has been splashed throughout the news. This order is an important part of the effort to ensure the protection of Immigrant’s Rights, and retaining local control by preventing the co-optation of local law enforcement.
ACTIONS:
Come to the Rockland City Council meeting on Monday (or Zoom in!). Tell City Council that Council and the public should have a say over the terms and conditions accepted as part of any grant from the Department of Homeland Security. The meeting is this Monday, 5/12 at 5:30pm at 270 Pleasant St., Rockland, ME, or by zoom.
If you can’t make it, email City Councilors via City Clerk Stuart Sylvester at ssylvester@rocklandmaine.gov. Ask him to share your email with city councilors and the city manager. Send to this group who is coordinating for strong policies in Rockland: mill.ken@proton.me
Tell a friend and get them to attend or email as well!
EVERYONE IS WELCOME: Rockland residents get to speak first during public comments, but after that, those who live elsewhere (and work, shop, hang out in Rockland) can speak as well. THE PUBLIC COMMENT PORTION STARTS OFF THE MEETING, AND YOU CAN MOST MAKE YOUR OPINIONS ON THESE ISSUES HEARD THEN.
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POINTS FOR CONSIDERATION (consider, research, choose a focus, and express in your own words):
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the office of Customs and Border Patrol is one of the federal agencies responsible for many of the arrests, abductions and deportations that is generating terror among immigrant communities throughout Maine. We should not take any agreement with DHS lightly.
A recent Maine Public release documents a surge in arrests by Border Patrol in Maine, including arrests of 39 people over a ten day period, and more arrests in the first four months than in the entirety of 2024.
According to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center "Over the last decade, 70-75% of ICE arrests in the interior of the U.S. have been handoffs from another law enforcement agency, be it a local or state jail or federal prison." Often these are for small insignificant offenses, like traffic stops, that would be a slap on the wrist for others. A recent arrest in Waldo County is a perfect example of this.
Customs and Border Patrol is in the process of ramping up the number of CBP agents in Maine, and will likely be more present than they have been in recent past, making these issues more prevalent.
At a recent Rockland City Council meeting several service providers, including local food security and education nonprofits, commented on how fearful immigrants, asylees, and refugees are becoming.
To date there has been no contract or agreement detailing what the City would be agreeing to by accepting Operation StoneGarden funds. The City and the public should be able to deliberate on accepting the award with ALL of the details to ensure that we will not regret accepting the funds.
Standard Department of Homeland Security Terms and Conditions require that recipients support Federal Immigration Authorities as requested, inlcuding 'requests for cooperation, such as participation in joint operations, sharing of information, or requests for short term detention of an alien" (page 4, item IX)
The City of Rockland turned the award down in 2020, prior to agreeing in 2024 without having seen a contract or agreement.
There is a notable lack of transparency around Operation StoneGarden at all levels, and no sense of what governments have accepted the funds and what they’ve been used for is hard to come by.
Other areas that accepted these awards have expressed regret in giving up power to federal authorities.
The award is only $10,000 compared to RPD’s $3M budget, but would grow in successive years, making it harder to say no to.
This award is specifically to support collaboration between RPD and Customs and Border Patrol, the primary immigration enforcement agency operating in Maine, and raises concerns over what local law enforcement might be compelled to do or support in spite of local sentiment.
Regular grant reports ask about how many people were encountered for ‘Immigration’.
Beyond the right to know what we are getting into with DHS, the City of Rockland needs a robust ordinance, and policies within RPD, to maintain local control and support and protect immigrants rights well into the future.