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Dear MIRC Community,
Happy Friday and welcome to August! With the first NFL preseason game kicking off last night and the Pumpkin Spice Latte drop date being revealed (August 26th in case you were wondering), all signs point towards fall creeping up on us. If you feel like you’ve been seeing fall merchandise at stores going up earlier and earlier, you’re not alone. Retailers have confirmed that they have been intentionally launching seasonal collections, like fall/Halloween, earlier to maximize profits. But don’t worry, the weather didn’t forget what season it’s in, and we have some more warm days coming up next week. But before we head into the weekend, let’s get on to the MIRC Advocacy Update:
| Local |
| We are proud to join We Are All America, refugee and immigrant leaders from the Refugee and Immigrant Leadership Table, and national partners as they convene the annual National Refugee Advocacy Days. This year, the Advocacy Days will be from Monday, September 8, through Friday, September 12, 2025. This week of virtual advocacy will empower directly impacted community leaders and grassroots partners to meet with members of Congress and advocate for just and humane refugee and asylum policies. In addition, there will be special training sessions to supercharge your advocacy skills as we fight for pro-refugee, immigrant, and asylum-seeker legislation. REGISTER HERE. If you have any questions about this opportunity, feel free to contact Ruben Torres at rto…@maineimmigrantrights.org! |
| Last week, both sides of a newly renovated duplex in Gray hit the market for just $218,000 each. By Friday, over 100 people had started the application process. The duplex is the inaugural project for “A Path Forward — Homeownership for ME,” an Avesta Housing program designed to open doors for moderate-income prospective homebuyers who’ve found themselves locked out of Maine’s hypercompetitive housing market. |
| The Portland Planning Board this week held its first workshop on Prosperity Place, a development proposing to build 50 units of affordable housing. It’s the first of two phases that the development team hopes will ultimately add 100 apartments in the next few years. The project is a partnership between Developers Collaborative and Prosperity Maine. |
| The Together Place recently lost its state grant earlier this year, roughly a $300,000 loss. That funding crunch has reduced the nonprofit’s budget by more than 40 percent. |
| The Biddeford mayoral race is beginning, with candidates picking up nomination papers last week. Mayor Martin Grohman announced his bid for reelection on July 24. He will be challenged by Councilor Norman Belanger, who announced his bid for election on July 22. |
| Old Orchard Beach Police Chief says that the Department of Homeland Security had cleared the officer who was arrested by ICE( after attempting to purchase a firearm) for employment. This comes after a corrections officer was arrested back in April. |
| Toolkit for Nonprofits Facing Investigations – Protect Democracy has launched a new toolkit to support nonprofits navigating politicized government investigations. Featuring concise primers on responding to congressional inquiries and subpoenas, the guide helps organizations stay mission-focused and legally protected. |
| Our friends at New Mainers Public Health Initiative recently published their April-June newsletter! You can catch up on all their news and programs here! |
| Maine Cooperative Development Partners is still taking applications on a first-come, first-served basis for 20 new affordable condominium homes at Dougherty Commons, located at 57 & 65 Dougherty Court in Portland, Maine. This high-quality housing opportunity offers energy-efficient, zero-energy-ready homes at prices accessible to working Mainers earning up to 100% of Area Median Income. |
| Our friends at Prebble Street recently published their latest newsletter! Catch up on some policy analysis and program updates here. |
| State |
| November seems far away, but it’ll be here before you know it. The Portland Press Herald does a deep dive on the four statewide referendum questions. You can familiarize yourself with the questions here. In case you want to learn more about who is funding the “big” questions on this year’s ballot, you can read more here. |
| Our friends at Democracy Maine have put out their State of Maine’s Democracy report, which examines and assesses the state of democracy in Maine using publicly available data, published reports, and research conducted by Democracy Maine. You can read a summary and download the full report here. Spoiler Alert: It also contains an analysis of county government! |
| Consumers who get health insurance coverage through Maine’s individual and small group marketplace could see increases ranging from about 8% to 32%, according to filings with the state Bureau of Insurance. |
| The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the jobless rate in Portland-South Portland fell from 2.8% in May to 2.2% last month. Lewiston-Auburn saw its unemployment rate fall from 3.5% to 2.9%. Bangor’s jobless rate held steady at 3%. |
| Friend of MIRC, James Myall from MECEP, was quoted recently in an article by Maine Public covering the issues faced by Mainers attempting to access Social Security offices. You can find the quote and full article here. |
| MIRC Members like to stay busy! Friends of MIRC Prebble Street and Disability Rights Maine were recently provided with their analysis on the local impact of the recent Executive Order on homelessness in an article by Maine Public. “It doesn’t help anybody find housing. It doesn’t help anybody get a job or reunite with family….” Read the full quote and article here. |
| Federal |
| Relevant Research is launching a new tool to provide up-to-date information about ICE’s immigrant detention centers across the country. Deportation Reports finally makes individual detention-center-level data available to the public in an easy-to-reference format. |
| Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has warned green card holders to always keep their proof of immigration status with them. “Always carry your alien registration documentation. Not having them when stopped by federal law enforcement can lead to a misdemeanor and fines.” |
| “Deep Dive into ICE’s Electronic Monitoring Program” breaks down the history of electronic monitoring since 2004, explaining the different technologies ICE uses, and provides an analysis of what the shift away from smartphone-based monitoring toward ankle monitors means for both immigrants and taxpayers. Key topics covered include: the misleading nature of “alternatives to detention” (which ICE admits is not actually an alternative to detention), the cost implications of switching technologies (potentially doubling daily expenses to over $500,000), and the industry connections between monitoring contractors and the current administration. |
| The Senate Appropriations Committee released and approved on July 24 its fiscal year (FY) 2026 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) spending bill, which provides annual funding for HUD’s vital affordable housing, homelessness, and community development programs. Overall, the bill would provide $73.3 billion for HUD, an increase from the flat funding provided in the previous fiscal year, and significantly more than provided for HUD in the House’s draft FY26 spending bill. The Committee approved the bill with a final vote of 27-1, demonstrating strong bipartisan support for increased HUD funding. |
| The Registry Bill, led by our friends at CHIRLA, was reintroduced last week in the House by Congresswoman Lofgren, Torres (no relation), Correa, Meng, Espaillat, and Chuy Garcia, and in the Senate by Senator Padilla and Durbin. Please reach out to Jose Arnulfo at jcab…@chirla.org from CHIRLA for any questions. |
| A group of 20 states filed a lawsuit on Monday challenging the administration’s demand that they share sensitive personal data of applicants for food assistance. The states expressed concerns that the information might facilitate deportation efforts, reports Kimberly Kindy of the Associated Press. |
| A federal judge temporarily blocked the administration from barring undocumented immigrants and many humanitarian arrivals from a range of federally funded services, including the Head Start preschool program and postsecondary career education, reports Brooke Schultz of Education Week. |
| New documents detail the administration’s plan to end birthright citizenship. The guidance includes various directions for verifying the parents’ citizenship or eligible immigration status to grant citizenship to the newborn. The children of asylees and refugees reportedly will be exempt from the policy. |
| A proposal by officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would amount to an indefinite pause on the U.S. government’s decades-old policy of allowing migrants with pending asylum claims to work in the country lawfully while their cases are decided. |
| A federal court ruling cleared the way for the Trump administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghanistan on July 21, affecting approximately 11,700 Afghan nationals. These individuals, many of whom assisted U.S. forces, have lived and worked legally in the U.S. since the country was first designated for TPS in 2022. With the designation now expired, former TPS-holders who have not already applied for asylum or other relief are vulnerable to immediate deportation to a country where they face retaliation by the Taliban. |
| Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will gain access to the personal data of all Medicaid enrollees through a formal agreement with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) signed on July 21. The agreement allows ICE officials to access names, addresses, birth dates, ethnic and racial information, and Social Security numbers for all Medicaid enrollees to “receive identity and location information on aliens identified by ICE”. |
| U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on July 18 that the H-1B visa cap for fiscal year 2026 had been reached, as the Trump administration simultaneously revives a plan to fundamentally alter the selection process. DHS submitted a proposal for a new “Weighted Selection Process” to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. This proposal would replace the existing lottery system that has been used when H-1B registrations exceed the annual limit of 85,000 visas. |
| The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ruled on July 18 that women cannot seek asylum based solely on their sex or sex and nationality, effectively ending three decades of legal precedent that allowed victims of gender-based violence to claim protection under U.S. asylum law. |
Phew! You made it to the end! Take a breath, there was a lot of information covered in this edition. While we try our best to cover most of the news and stories from our Coalition, I probably missed some. If you see something I missed, please feel free to share the intel, and you may see it featured in the next edition of our updates.
Before we head off to the weekend, find a moment to enjoy before August slips away into a moment in time. Oh! And don’t forget to be a friend and tell a friend something nice, it could change their life!
Best,
Ruben Torres, Advocacy, Communications, and Policy Manager