Maine Tells Border Patrol No on Confidential License Plates

A Maine official said Wednesday that she has declined a request for additional undercover license plates for U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicles, citing concerns about alleged abuses of power during immigration enforcement operations under President Trump.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said she will not approve the request for confidential license plates sought by the agency, according to the Associated Press. Bellows said her office has not revoked plates already issued but has temporarily paused the approval of new ones.

“We want to be assured that Maine plates will not be used for lawless purposes,” Bellows said. She added that when someone is pulled over by a vehicle using emergency lights, the license plate should clearly identify it as belonging to a legitimate law enforcement agency.

Amid heightened concerns over immigration enforcement, Portland Public Schools — the largest and most diverse school district in Maine — said it briefly kept doors locked at two schools on Tuesday. The district cited community anxiety fueled by reports and rumors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity. “This is an understandably tense time in our community,” the district said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Greg Bovino of the U.S. Border Patrol, who has overseen large-scale urban immigration enforcement efforts under President Trump, said more than 10,000 people living in the U.S. illegally have been arrested in Minnesota over the past year. He said about 3,000 of those arrests, made in the past six weeks, involved what he described as some of the most dangerous offenders.

Bovino defended the actions of his agents, saying their conduct has been “legal, ethical, and moral.” However, Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said immigration advocates have no independent way to verify the government’s arrest figures or the descriptions of those being detained.

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