Sen. Collins pushes back on criticism over ICE funding, says eliminating it would make us less safe

(The Center Square) — Maine’s Republican Sen. Susan Collins is pushing back against demands from Democratic Gov. Janet Mills for members of the state’s congressional delegation push to “reform or abolish” ICE following this week’s fatal shooting.Mills wrote to the delegation earlier this week in response to the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Colombian national Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, calling on them to “not simply to share our grief, to express concerns or offer condolences, but to act now to require ICE to respect the rule of law and honor our collective security.”
“Before more families are robbed of a loved one, this violence has to end,” Mills wrote. “ICE needs to be fundamentally reformed, and if not, then it is time to abolish it.”
In a response to Mills Thursday, Collins said she shared her “heartbreak for the people of Maine” regarding this tragic shooting” and agreed “that we need answers as to what transpired.” She said the shootings in Maine and Texas in less than a week “have raised serious questions and demand immediate action.”
“This is why I, along with the entire Maine delegation, called for a thorough, full, and impartial investigation by the independent Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General into the shooting,” she wrote in the letter.
Collins said she and Sen. Angus King wrote a letter to the Department of Justice “requesting that it cooperate with state and local law enforcement to ensure that federal investigations into this shooting remain impartial and comprehensive.”
She has also called for a halt to ICE traffic stops, which were temporarily stopped by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin following the Maine shooting. Trump and Mullin have defended ICE in the wake of the incident.
But Collins said many of the proposed reforms Mills requested in her letter — including body cameras for ICE agents and increased oversight — had been called for previously by the Trump administration, but rejected by Democratic legislative leaders, she said.
“Inexplicably, congressional Democrats rejected these reforms and instead chose to excise funding for ICE and U.S. Border Patrol from the annual appropriations process,” she wrote.
Collins, who is seeking reelection this November, also pushed back against suggestions from Mills and other top Maine Democrats that the agency should be abolished, noting that ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations is tasked with combating cartels, human trafficking, drug smuggling, child exploitation, forced labor, and more.
“While it is clear that ICE needs to improve its performance, it is important to remember that the work ICE does to protect our country goes far beyond immigration enforcement,” she wrote. “Eliminating ICE would make our country less safe and endanger the lives and welfare of countless individuals.”

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