Dear MIRC Community,
Welcome to Friday and happy September!
As summer comes to an end, and you contemplate whether you remember the 21st night of September or if you want to be woken up when September ends; one thing is undeniable: We are entering a new season. Back to school is in full swing, Halloween products have started hitting the shelves, and for your humble narrator — who finds himself out-of-office! — and his friends, FOOTBALL SEASON IS BACK!
With that, let's get on to the MIRC Advocacy Update:
| Local |
| MIRC was honored to serve as a witness alongside ILAP, Presente, and the Duran Guerro Family on August 17th at the Congressional Shadow Hearing with Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), and Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA). You can watch the hearing here. You can also read Mufalo’s testimony and view the exhibits we introduced as evidence here. You can also find our analysis from updated data on ICE activity in Maine here, at LighthouseME. |
| Don’t forget to claim tickets for the Maine Immigration Forum on Sept. 17. We’re excited to announce our keynote speaker will be Mikey Lopez, soccer team captain of Hearts of Pine. Members are offered up to 5 tickets for their staff or volunteers. But tickets are going fast, so please don’t wait, as we expect to fill the venue capacity. |
| Our members' COA are currently recruiting board members! If you know people who are dedicated to improving their community and have capacity to serve on a board please fill out this form. |
| Save the date for October 24th! The Unitarian Universalist Church of Brunswick and Woodfords Congregational Church of Portland will host a concert to benefit The Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP) at 7 pm on Saturday, October 24th at the Woodfords Church. |
| Maine Mobile Health Program is going to be celebrating 40 years of Bringing Healthcare to Maine's Farmworkers. Join them on Oct 2 from 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM at 10 Dynamic Dr in Scarborough for an evening of food, music, silent auction, stories, and community as we honor four decades of providing mobile healthcare to Maine's agricultural workers. You can get your ticket here! (You can also join MMHP at the community soccer tournament in Belfast this weekend, Sept. 5. Tickets for that here.) |
| The Deering Center Neighborhood Association invites Portland residents to a Portland City Council Candidates Forum for the District 4 and 5 seats, on October 14 at The Light Church (corner of Pleasant and Brentwood). The District 4 candidates will be featured from 5 to 6 PM, and District 5 candidates will participate from 6:30 to 8 PM. |
| State |
| From friends of MIRC, the League of Women Voters: Join the League at 4pm on October 14th as we discuss our plans to support members of the immigrant community, voters with disabilities, and other communities facing voting barriers on Election Day. Join us to learn more about these efforts and how you can get involved. Reach out to scott@democracymaine.org with any questions, and we'll see you there! |
| Through public statistics, documents and more than a dozen interviews, the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram has learned more about how ICE has significantly grown its footprint in Maine. It’s the first significant growth in the state in at least a decade, and it has led some residents to feel like immigration agents are ever-present in their communities. |
| On July 30, our friends at the ACLU of Maine mailed to more than 100 Maine police departments, all 16 sheriff’s offices, and various state agencies, explaining what the new laws require, prohibit, and still allow. |
| The Bangor Daily News and Portland Press Herald reported on Tom Homans and other high-profile government officials' recent trips to Maine. Just before the trip, Homan told state representative Mike Soboleski that he came to Maine to meet with officials from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; in that same video Homan mentioned that “You’re going to see a lot more enforcement action in Maine… A lot of TPS people in Maine. They’re not going to be there much longer either.” Now Rep. Soboleski is announcing plans for a new ICE facility in Newport, ME. |
| MaineCare recently put out a translated Resource Guide on the Federal Changes webpage. |
| Federal |
| According to private prison company GEO Group, the U.S. government is now tracking nearly 54,000 immigrants through GPS-enabled ankle monitors as part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) electronic surveillance program. Early last year, just 17,000 immigrants were wearing such devices. The overall number of immigrants enrolled in the surveillance program remained flat at about 184,000. GEO Group executives said that a large number of participants were shifted from less invasive forms of surveillance, such as phone check-ins, to ankle monitors. Family and friends of Haitian-born Pierre Damas Bel, an Ohio college student and soccer player, say that his tragic death by suicide came just after he lost Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and was fitted with an ankle monitor by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. |
| ICE is moving to equip all officers with body cameras in the next two months, but the agency's policy gives it broad control over the footage made public. The rollout of cameras comes after the fatal shootings by officers enforcing the immigration crackdown has intensified pressure for the accountability that cameras could provide. The policy says ICE will release footage of shootings and other encounters causing death or serious injury only after determining “it is in the best interests of the agency” to do so. |
| From our friends at ILAP: Please be aware that USCIS has updated several procedures that went into effect August 21, 2026, and may significantly impact affirmative asylum cases at the Asylum Office. Below is the language that appears in the Alert section of the USCIS webpage on asylum. We are aware that many unrepresented asylum seekers were unable to pay their Annual Asylum Fee because the deadline to pay had passed and the online system prevented payment. Below is an important update shared on ASAP's webpage: “The most important thing to do is to keep checking the USCIS payment website every week to see if there is any change. Some people who previously received a “payment period expired” message are now able to pay the fee! Find instructions on how to pay.” |
| The Women’s Refugee Commission has to put together an issue brief titled “What You Need to Know about August 2026 Executive Orders on Birth Tourism and Birthright Citizenship” which goes over the two Executive Orders issued by the Trump administration on August 6th, 2026, on Birth Tourism and Birthright Citizenship. The brief summarizes the two EOs and identifies several significant harms they pose to US-born children. |
| Last month, a New York federal judge struck down the State Department policy that halted the issuance of visas to immigrants from 75 countries, nearly half the countries in the world. The court said that consular officers must conduct an individualized assessment of visa applicants and can refuse applicants only if they are found ineligible, and that the policy discriminates against applicants based solely on their nationality. |
| The Trump administration also announced plans to revoke visas from asylum seekers who initially entered the country for tourism or business. |
| A new dashboard titled The Detention Mortality Dashboard serves as a repository of official ICE custodial deaths from 2018 until now, with searchable case-level information, source materials, and an interactive map. This dashboard comes at a time when over 50 people have died in ICE custody since the start of the current administration, an alarming number that is currently increasing at the rate of roughly one every 9 days. |
| Refugee admissions into the United States are on track to hit an all-time low; just 10,258 refugees were admitted into the U.S. during the first ten months of fiscal 2026, mainly white South Africans, according to data analyzed by the Pew Research Center. |
| A new DHS Office of Inspector General report shows that fentanyl investigations and seizures dropped sharply in 2025 after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pulled agents to meet immigration enforcement quotas. |
| Thousands of lawfully present immigrants currently enrolled and who have paid into Medicare will lose coverage in early 2027. These newly ineligible immigrants include humanitarian immigrants such as refugees, asylees, Temporary Protected Status holders, and trafficking/domestic violence survivors.Advocates can submit comments on the proposed rules until September 14, 2026. Details on both sending individual comments and joining an organizational sign-on to a letter by Justice in Aging can be found here. |
Well, you can't say I didn't leave you without reading material to head into the weekend with! While we try our best to cover most of the news and stories from our Coalition, I probably missed some. Please feel free to share any highlights I missed, and you may see them featured in the next edition of our updates.
Before we head off to the weekend, don't forget to be a friend and tell a friend something nice; it could change their life!
Best,
-RT
Ruben Torres
MIRC Advocacy and Policy Manager