ICE watchers in Maine say they were threatened by federal agents

Summary

Liz Eisele McLellan of Westbrook keeps an eye out for federal immigration agents in Westbrook on Thursday. Eisele McLellan is a volunteer with a local ICE rapid response team. “Our goal is to make Westbrook as unwelcome to ICE as possible,” said Eisele McLellan. “It’s day three and it seems like it’s been a month.” (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer) WESTBROOK — As she drove around town on Thursday morning, Liz Eisele McLellan’s head was on a swivel, scanning the streets for any sign of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Every Connecticut and New Hampshire license plate, every car with tinted windows — especially gray Ford Explorers — and every driver wearing a mask made her suspicious. Her phone buzzed with messages from a group chat of 50 to 100 other community members who McLellan said have taken it upon themselves to follow and document immigration enforcement. It was a quiet morning compared to Wednesday, when it was impossible to drive down Main Street without seeing someone who was dressed like an ICE agent. “They were like locusts,” McLellan said. It was on Spring Street where she spotted a masked man driving a car with a Massachusetts license plate. “Right there,” she said, before swerving to make a U-turn onto Main Street. McLellan stopped at a red light and lost the car, but she barely had time to pause before a slew of notifications directed her to a new sighting. In the end, it was not, in fact, a quiet morning. Community members began preparing for potential ICE activity in Maine back in September. On Tuesday, when the federal operation began, they started driving around the city on a daily basis. There are similar groups in other communities all over Maine and the U.S. that are set up to monitor ICE activity, especially in the mornings and afternoons when children are going to school or coming home. Liz Eisele McLellan, of Westbrook, keeps her daughter’s lifeguard whistle around her neck in case she comes across federal immigration agents. She tr...