The Rev. Allison Smith describes her arrest not as a moment of panic, but of calm.
“I felt like I was part of this wider community of faith and prayer and solidarity, and so I felt a great deal of peace … in the sense that I could risk arrest and be assured that I would be safe on many levels,” said Smith, of Cundy’s Harbor. “Tragically, that is not the experience of my neighbors and the families that have lost people.”
Smith leads the Congregational Church in Cumberland, part of the United Church of Christ. She and eight other clergy and leaders from various faiths were arrested on Jan. 27 for protesting outside the downtown Portland office of U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The nine faith leaders were charged with criminal trespass after refusing multiple warnings to leave the hallway and waiting area near the office, the Portland Press Herald reported.
The group had marched to Collins’ office, singing and praying, to urge the senator to oppose funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Their protest followed a recent surge in activity by department agencies, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
On Jan. 20, ICE launched “Operation Catch of the Day” in Maine, stepping up enforcement in the state. In Minneapolis, the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents have sparked nationwide protests and intensified debate about enforcement tactics.
“We really wanted her (Collins) to think about the morality of what we’re facing in this moment, (and) that our community members aren’t safe,” Smith said.
Ten families of recent immigrants to Maine belong to Smith’s congregation. All of them are here legally, she said, including some asylum-seekers with “incredibly harrowing stories” of escaping danger in their home countries.
“What’s so painful is that they expected this would be a country where they would be at least treated fairly,” Smith said. “But instead, right now … they’re actually not safe to drive to Walmart to work, or to Mid Coast Hospital, or to one of the assisted-living places in our community where they’re serving people from Harpswell.”
On Thursday, Jan. 29, Collins voted to advance a Department of Homeland Security spending bill that included full funding for ICE, drawing pushback from critics of its enforcement tactics.
But when the Senate couldn’t pass broader government funding that day, lawmakers agreed to separate DHS funding from other spending bills. The next day, the Senate passed a temporary DHS funding measure, 71-29, extending its funding through Feb. 13 while negotiations continue over immigration enforcement policy.
The stated purpose of ICE’s recent activity is to apprehend and deport immigrants believed to be in the country illegally, including those who have criminal convictions or pose a threat to public safety or national security.
But critics say ICE’s tactics have been overly aggressive, sweeping up law-abiding people and creating fear in immigrant communities. They accuse ICE of violating the civil and due process rights of both immigrants and protesters.
On the same day Collins voted for the funding bill, she said “enhanced” immigration enforcement operations by ICE in Maine had ended after she spoke with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, PBS News reported.
Collins said Noem told her there were no more ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations in the state, and that ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection would continue only the “normal operations that have been ongoing here for many years.”
Smith said it’s one thing to enforce immigration laws, but that differs from her perception of what has been happening recently in places such as Maine. She decried the “trauma and tragedy” of immigrants being taken far away from their children and other family members, not knowing if they’ll ever be reunited.
As such, Smith said she has no regrets about being arrested for protesting, which she described as an act of love.
“I felt like I was doing what God and Jesus would want me to do,” she said.
Editor’s note: The Rev. Allison Smith is married to Gregory Greenleaf, a freelance contributor who writes a monthly humor column for the Harpswell Anchor.
