Ban sought on immigrant profiling

AUGUSTA – A coalition of 47 legislators is asking the governor to sign an executive order prohibiting state employees from inappropriately asking a person for his immigration status.

Sen. Ethan Strimling, D-Portland, said Friday the order is designed to address mounting concerns within Maine’s immigrant community regarding the current “random sweeps” conducted by federal agents. The freshman senator said he was distressed to learn a state worker at the Portland Bureau of Motor Vehicles had notified federal agents about a suspicious person who was renewing a license.

“That’s the kind of thing we want to prevent,” Strimling said. “We’ve had people at the homeless shelter dropping off 90 bags of food to people because they’re too scared to come down to the shelter to pick it up. They were worried they were going to get harassed.”

In a letter to Gov. John Baldacci, the lawmakers emphasized that the Maine Constitution prohibits discrimination and said they think it’s important to ensure that Maine employees never “participate in these ethnic-based sweeps.” With more than 20,000 migrant workers from around the world visiting Maine to do seasonal work, the legislators said law enforcement officers and other state workers should not engage in conduct that will have “a chilling

effect on legitimate laborers engaged in legitimate work.”

“The need to be vigilant in fighting terrorism is an unfortunate reality of our daily lives, but it should not become an excuse for doing away with people’s right to privacy and freedom from inappropriate and unnecessary questioning by any government employee,” wrote Rep. Ben Dudley, D-Portland.

Lee Umphrey, Baldacci’s spokesman, said state officials plan to meet next week with U.S. Sen. Susan M. Collins to discuss the order and whether it could impede the efforts of state law enforcement officers who routinely work in cooperation with federal agents on homeland security issues. Foreign workers are commonly encountered by state marine patrol agents inspecting commercial fishing boats and by law enforcement agents patrolling the state’s agriculture and forest products regions.

“We’re going to keep this under review until we can find the best way to respond to the executive order request,” Umphrey said.