WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has agreed to investigate a recent immigration sweep in Portland after Republican Sen. Susan Collins asked him for details during a budget hearing.

Ridge also promised to work with Collins regarding the problems experienced by Mainers living along the border crossing between Township 15 Range 15 and St. Pamphile, Canada.

The Maine residents haven’t been able to cross the border back into the U.S. at night and on Sundays.

Speaking about the Portland immigration sweep, Collins said: “There just seems to me that there has to be a better way for the department to pursue its very responsibility and to make sure that people are not here illegally, but to work more with the community.”

U.S. Border Patrol agents last month went to Portland’s airport, bus stations and train station in search of people who are in the country illegally. Agents also checked a resource center, Latino, African and Asian restaurants and markets.

Ridge said he was not familiar with details of the sweep, but added he would investigate the matter and report his findings to Collins.

“We don’t want to discourage the border patrol from doing their job,” Ridge said. “We also want to encourage them to do it in a way that is consistent with the standards of service of the border control, and that’s respecting the rights of individuals, be they legal or illegal.”

Collins raised her concerns about the U.S.-Canada border issue, pointing out that U.S. citizens who live on the American side of the border at remote T15-R15 have to go to Canada for such services as church, medical care and grocery shopping.

The U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, under Homeland Security, put in a supervised and gated border station at the crossing in May 2003. It became illegal for anyone to cross from Canada into Maine when the border station was closed, on weekends and between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. weeknights.

“The result is that these citizens are essentially locked in on the American side of the border” at night and on Sundays, Collins said.

Senators during Monday’s meeting said President Bush’s new budget would not devote enough money to domestic security.

The $47 billion that Bush proposes to spend in fiscal year 2005 to prevent attacks or respond once they happen, “truly does pale in comparison” to the $402 billion the Pentagon plans to spend, said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.

“We have a long way to go yet before we fulfill the promises that we made to the American people in those dark days following the 9-11 attacks to adequately secure the homeland,” Lieberman said.

The budget, covering domestic security expenses at a number of government agencies, would be a 14 percent increase from fiscal 2004’s $41.4 billion. That budget year ends Sept. 30.

But senators criticized cuts, including those in grants to states for training first responders, funding levels that would take 22 years to modernize the Coast Guard; and a $39 million cut in money to help hospitals develop the ability to respond to bioterror attacks.

Ridge defended priorities in the budget, noting a number of times that it takes into account current “fiscal and security circumstances.”