The ongoing federal crackdown on immigration — intensifying, somehow, each week — has been as aggressive as it has been sobering. In 2024, Stephen Miller (now the president’s deputy chief of staff) promised the public that what President Trump would oversee, on immigration, would be “spectacular.” Miller was right.

And Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, was right last week when she finally told the public she planned to allow a bill limiting local cooperation with this clumsy, heavy-handed, deeply unpredictable spectacle to pass into law next month. The bill prohibits local law enforcement from stopping, arresting or detaining a person solely on the basis of immigration enforcement.

Widespread and high-profile as they are, the supposed aims of the hands-on intervention by federal immigration agents can seem abstract: a safer and more secure America with a lower rate of crime; an improved domestic economy; the president’s keeping his word.

Its known effects, however, are stark and they are immediate. Overstep and error is commonplace. Fear is the name of the game. Due process? Don’t worry about it.

Last week, the New York Times chronicled the upshot of increasing arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement near schools across the country.

“The incidents have prompted ire on Capitol Hill,” read the report. “Some school leaders said they had seen drops in attendance because of ICE activity nearby, and they had increased student wellness programs. Parents have also started signing up for shifts to patrol schools during pick up and drop off.”

For parents living in Maine’s largest city, this is old news. ICE agents arrested an elementary school parent near school grounds in Portland in September, sending shockwaves through the city, drawing condemnation from local elected officials and mobilizing community members to keep watch on street corners.

Regardless of the outcome in this case and any others (where action results in deportation, it is touted by those in favor of an unfettered ICE as justifying the means) the atmosphere this creates for local students and families is lamentable at best.

In the Press Herald op-ed that confirmed her decision to allow LD 1971 to pass into law, Gov. Mills took care to focus on clear overreach by the agency, opening the piece with two real-life examples of cases “needlessly” involving Maine residents.

The federal petulance on immigration means that rules and systems are changing almost weekly.

It was an Afghan migrant who shot and killed two National Guard members near the White House earlier this month and, as a direct result, immigration applications were paused, Biden-era cases were placed under new review and certain green card holders were abruptly in line for “full-scale reexamination.”

Guidance issued to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services last week asked that agency increase its quota of “denaturalization” cases next year — where immigrants’ American citizenship is stripped from them — to 100-200 monthly. According to the Justice Department, the total number of such cases filed between 2017 and 2025 was 120.

If the federal administration had its way, visits to ICE facilities would be off the table. Too much pesky oversight. For now, a ruling by a federal judge — just last week — makes it legal for congressional representatives to do so.

The punitive, reflexive nature of immigration policymaking right now requires that all sensible available steps to minimize harm done to hundreds of thousands of people at a time by such a philosophy, if you want to call it that, are taken — and taken promptly.

It doesn’t matter if these safeguards seem small or scattershot: a court ruling here, a local agreement with the public’s support — like we commended in the town of Wells earlier this year on Section 287(g) — there. Together, they can restore some order.

It’s better, of course, if defenses against abuse can apply more broadly, contribute to something like a coherent playing field. This is where state-level clarity becomes very valuable.

Although it’s a pity it took a preponderance of deeply discouraging evidence for Gov. Mills to suspend her misgivings about the law enforcement bill, this editorial board is satisfied that the governor reached the only prudent and appropriate conclusion.