Trump Immigration Crackdown and ICE Operations

NPR reports that a January ICE enforcement surge in Maine, dubbed Operation Catch of the Day, has quickly become a defining issue in Sen. Susan Collins’ bid for a sixth term in a state that did not back Donald Trump in 2024. DHS sold the operation as targeting 'the worst of the worst,' but on‑the‑ground accounts describe masked, heavily armed agents grabbing people with work permits, asylum‑seekers legally employed at county jails and a father with no criminal record whose baby was showered in glass when agents smashed a car window. Collins, now chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, says she pressed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to halt the surge and that Noem agreed, after which the most visible raids subsided, but her Democratic challengers argue local organizing forced the pullback and blame her for funding and enabling Trump’s broader crackdown. Marine veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner accuses Collins of having 'done absolutely nothing to stop ICE,' while Gov. Janet Mills is also running hard against the operation as she seeks the Democratic nomination, turning immigration enforcement in a small, aging state into a proxy fight over Trump’s national deportation agenda. The race is being watched nationally as a bellwether of how suburban and moderate voters respond to aggressive interior enforcement tactics in communities far from the southern border.