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Maine Pushes Vets Aside to Hire ‘New Americans’

By Joe Guzzardi

New York, Illinois, and California are among the states most closely associated with embracing illegal border crossers and assorted other asylum seekers. But perhaps because the state is smaller than the major destinations and somewhat off the beaten media path, Maine’s over-the-top illegal alien red-carpet layout is less well-publicized.

Make no mistake—Maine Governor Janet Mills (D) ranks on a par with New York’s Kathy Hochel, Illinois’ JB Pritzker, and California’s Gavin Newsom as overt illegal alien coddlers. Maine is normally considered a vacationer’s paradise. In the winter, visitors can snowmobile in Aroostook County, a vast landscape that’s larger than Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. Come summertime, 3,500 miles of tidal shoreline attracts sailors, sea kayakers and windjammers. Despite its scenic appeal to visitors, residents must endure Maine’s hardcore migrant outreach, and the pocketbook-busting fees associated with aiding and abetting illegal immigrants.

During Mills’ tenure, Maine’s large southern municipalities have struggled to house thousands of migrants, mostly from Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Haiti. COVID-19 brought federal money that the state used to house migrants at hotels, motels, and shelters. The federal funds bonanza has dried up and the state is on the hook for the ever-increasing cost of providing food and shelter to the mostly homeless migrants. The fortunate are living inside the Portland Exposition Building, originally designated as a sports and exhibition venue. Most of the migrants speak limited English, have little money, and had no living arrangements when they arrived in Maine. They are heavily dependent on taxpayer-funded resources for charity.

In May, 2022, Maine’s growing migrant overflow prompted Kristen Dow, then-Portland’s Health and Human Services director, to send an ominous E-mail to Customs and Border Protection, FEMA, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree’s (D) local office, Portland’s city council and mayor, and its so-called community partners which read, in part:

     “As of the date of this email, there is no further shelter OR [emphasis Dow’s] hotel capacity in Portland, Maine. We have been over capacity in our shelter for quite some time and have now reached the point where the hotels we have been utilizing are also full…if your organization sends a family to Portland, Maine they are no longer guaranteed shelter upon their arrival to our shelter. Additionally, because our staff are spread quite thin, it is not guaranteed that we will be in a position to aid individuals in their search for emergency housing. I ask that you all share this information widely within your organizations and with families you are working with.”

In a predictable immigration-expansionist response to a migrant-overwhelmed state, Mills, in office since 2019, proposed to add 75,000 more illegal aliens by 2029, and in the process, throw citizens further under the bus. The vehicle that Mills will rely on to provide for the unlawfully present aliens is her newly developed Office of New Americans (ONA) created through the governor’s executive order. Mills’ plan would work toward “making Maine a home of opportunity for all, by welcoming and supporting immigrants to strengthen Maine’s workforce, enhance the vibrancy of Maine’s communities, and build a strong and inclusive economy.” The illegal aliens would be called “New Mainers.”

Mills and Maine’s immigration lobby have come up with what they view as the perfect solution—brand new, free housing. As local news station WCSH-TV reported, Brunswick will open 60 new migrant apartments, with 24 of the units already completed. The units, built at a $13 million cost and which residents disparagingly refer to as the ‘Taj Mahal’ are specifically designed for migrants awaiting their work permits, a process that can take more than a year.

The taxpayer funded Maine State Housing Authority leads the apartment project and has put into place a unique rental schedule. The state—taxpayers, in other words—will help pay for migrants’ rent using state legislature-approved funds. Taxpayers will be on the hook for two years, but migrants will need to pay 30 percent of their rent once they find a job that earns at least $30,000, half the average $60,000 local annual income. Such a rental structure is a strong inducement to never look for a job. Living rent-free is so much better. And while a migrants’ lease may expire after two years, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll vacate. Nationwide, squatters’ rights are all the rage.

In this era of illegal aliens first, Americans last, no audacity is too outrageous. A Somali woman who advises Mills on the ONA travesty proposed that the “new Americans” receive priority in job searches over military veterans because, in the advocate’s words, vets “have the advantage of speaking the language [English].” Punishing vets for speaking their native language in their home country is scraping the barrel’s bottom.

To Mills and other Democratic officials, establishing the ONA, building rent-free condos, and giving jobs away to illegally present foreign nationals at Americans’ expense is all normal governance even though not a single supporting vote from the Pine Tree State’s citizens has been cast in favor of Maine’s radical policies.

Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Maine Pushes Vets Aside to Hire ‘New Americans’

Sanctuary City Virtue Signalers Complicit In Steinle, Riley Murders

By Joe Guzzardi

In her interview with CNN anchor Erin Burnett, U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) said that the murder of 22-year-old University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley by Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, “shouldn’t shape our overall immigration policy.” Porter, a long-shot Senate candidate to replace retiring fellow Democrat Laphonza Butler, said that instead of enacting real border security and allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to apprehend violent illegal immigrants, Congress should work harder to keep its “promise to Dreamers.” Since 2023, Porter has consistently cast votes against strengthening border and interior enforcement.

The “one instance” claim that Porter made is 100 percent wrong and offends the hundreds of illegal aliens’ victims’ families. The website Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime lists dozens of preventable tragedies.

The most highly publicized illegal-alien-murders-citizen heartbreak occurred in 2015, four years before Porter was elected to the House. Porter lived in Southern California where she was certainly aware of the circumstances surrounding Steinle’s murder in sanctuary city San Francisco. The perpetrator was José Inez García Zárate, a five-time deported illegal alien and a Mexican national who had seven felony convictions. Prosecutors later learned that García Zárate had stolen the murder weapon, a .40-caliber SIG Sauer P239 handgun, from a Bureau of Land Management ranger’s personal vehicle.

Two years after Steinle’s murder, and after five days of deliberations, a jury acquitted García Zárate of all murder and manslaughter charges but convicted him of being a felon in possession of a firearm. García Zárate was sentenced to time served for previous crimes, a total of seven years. When the Steinle family announced its intention to file a lawsuit against the City of San Francisco, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Bureau of Land Management, alleging complicity and negligence in their daughter’s death, Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero dismissed the family’s claims against the city and then-Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. In January 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the magistrate’s ruling that Kate’s family could not sue San Francisco. Despite his obvious crimes, immigration-related and otherwise, illegal alien García Zárate got off easy — no justice for Kate, however.

Because immigration is voters’ top issue, the publicity around Riley’s murder may soon reach or exceed the coverage given to Steinle’s case. Similarities abound. Like García Zárate, Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan national, was in the U.S. illegally. Ibarra entered the U.S. illegally through the Southwest border. According to a recently filed arrest affidavit, Ibarra “disfigured Riley’s skull,” and is charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, and hindering a 911 call.

ICE records document that Ibarra was detained on September 8, 2022, after illegally crossing the U.S. from Mexico near El Paso, Texas, before being released. ICE also said Ibarra was arrested on August 31, 2023, in New York and charged with acting in a manner injurious to a child less than 17 but was released because of New York’s sanctuary policy. Biden’s catch-and-release agenda paroled Ibarra into the U.S. interior. Parole is an immigration status that includes work permission and makes alien removal more difficult.

The common denominator in Steinle’s and Riley’s cases is that their murders took place in sanctuary cities which protect violent criminals who too frequently prey on innocent citizens. When Steinle was killed, President Barack Obama was in the White House. Obama’s administration made it clear that it would not act against sanctuary jurisdictions. Instead, Obama moved to convert the entire nation into a sanctuary by giving work permits to illegal aliens and drastically scaling back enforcement for all but the most egregious criminal offenders. Obama terminated what was perhaps the most effective enforcement program ever, Secure Communities, the information sharing program between the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to identify in-custody aliens. The former president replaced an efficient program with the Priority Enforcement Program that explicitly allowed localities to obstruct ICE.

Although Athens officials insist that it isn’t a sanctuary city, during a 2020 interview, then-Athens-Clarke County Sheriff candidate John Williams, since elected, explicitly said he had no interest in cooperating with ICE officials.

Williams said: “It is not my intention to cooperate with detainers [from ICE]. I see it as the sheriff’s responsibility to protect the community. We can’t help with a culture of fear in our community and expect our community to respond and help us in situations.” Deborah Gonzalez, Athens’ district attorney urged abolishing ICE. Gonzales said that her charging decisions would “take into account collateral consequences to undocumented immigrants.” Gonzalez’s statements raised serious questions about her ability to prosecute Ibarra and she has brought in a special prosecutor to handle the case.

Federal, state and local governments failed Riley, Steinle and hundreds before them. Misguided virtue signaling has laid the foundation for protecting instead of deporting criminals. Gonzalez and Williams got their wish — Biden’s non-enforcement policies effectively abolished ICE. For now, he best Laken’s family can hope for is a token, insincere, Biden phone call, which, several days after her murder, has not been placed. Come to think of it, Obama never called the Steinle family either. Biden’s and Obama’s callous dismissal of Riley’s and Steinle’s murders are the ultimate betrayal of innocent Americans that prove their favoritism toward illegal alien criminals.

Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifssp.org.

Sanctuary City Virtue Signalers Complicit In Steinle, Riley Murders