9 anti-ICE protesters arrested at Sen. Susan Collins' office in Portland, Maine
Police arrested nine people who were protesting against Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Sen. Susan Collins' Portland, Maine office on Tuesday afternoon.
The Portland Police Department said there were about 50 protesters on the eighth floor of One Canal Plaza, a downtown office building.
"The group was repeatedly told if they did not disperse, individuals would be charged with Criminal Trespass," the department said in a statement. "After several warnings, many of the protesters left the building, while nine remained and asked to be arrested."
The ages of the arrested protesters ranged from 31 to 65. They sang "we shall overcome" in the hallway outside the office and called on Collins to use her position as the Senate's top appropriator to end funding for ICE.
One of the protesters was Christine Dyke, lead minister of the Gorham First Parish Congregational Church. She told WGME-TV that ICE should end its latest deportation operation in Maine because it's creating fear in the immigrant community.
"They left their country out of fear and came here to make an asylum claim," she said. "Unfortunately they're finding the same problem here and it just saddens us and breaks our heart that we couldn't be the welcoming country that they thought that we were."
WBZ-TV has reached out to Collins' office for comment. Collins has been defending a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security that Democrats have been targeting in the wake of the fatal Alex Pretti shooting in Minneapolis.
On the Senate floor Monday, Collins said the majority of funding for the bill goes to non-immigration and non-border security operations.
"I hope we can come together in a constructive way to get this done and to ensure that we do not lurch into a dangerous and detrimental government shutdown," she said.