On Jan. 21, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the “launch” of a large-scale enforcement push in the state of Maine, Operation Catch of the Day. Many wrote to us voicing their disdain for the name. This morning, Sen. Susan Collins said that ICE has “ended its enhanced activities” here. For the following readers, at least one aspect will linger.

Please remember our humanity

Remember, we are all people, not the depersonalized and degrading term ICE is using in its operation in Maine, Catch of the Day.

Eileen Fair
Lewiston

People are not consumables

I was disgusted by the news that the ICE operation here in Maine was dubbed Catch of the Day, words most of us would read on the menu of a clam shack. The phrase turns human beings into consumables: something to be caught, served and sold.

In recent weeks, we’ve seen where this dehumanization leads: sweeping detentions that include people with no criminal records or pending legal status, and federal enforcement actions elsewhere that have resulted in the fatal shooting of U.S. citizens. When people become “catches,” their lives become expendable. 

This week, Christians heard the gospel in which Jesus calls his disciples to leave their nets and become “fishers of people,” not to capture but to offer new life. The contrast isn’t just jarring; it’s cruel.

The current administration claims to govern according to Christian principles, yet acts in ways and uses language that trivializes or celebrates the disruption of human lives. When we actually listen to Jesus, when we pay attention to whom he defends, with whom he eats, and whom he commands his followers to love, the disconnect is stark. 

Our political leaders must be held to a minimum standard of enforcing our laws without turning people into trophies, without violating the Constitution and without corrupting the faith they claim.

Randi Hogan
Scarborough

Operation name dehumanizes immigrants

This demeaning name reveals the dehumanizing nature of President Trump’s immigration policies. Likening immigrants to fish we might be catching for supper rather than human beings is shocking and dangerous. It trivializes the lives of immigrants and hardens the ICE agents against them, encouraging these agents not to see them as people but as prey. And to laugh about it. The outcry against this name should be uniform, regardless of party.

Paula House
Scarborough

Is this an agency that wants to be taken seriously?

With ICE’s history of naming each raid, such as Operation Metro Surge or locally in Maine, now, Catch of the Day — and the place one might be detained as Alligator Alcatraz — why would one submit to any directive from these agents? If this language is a reflection of how these agents perceive their work, would one think one would be safe in their presence? 

Linda Albert
Freeport

Gross name should not be reprinted

I’m writing to complain about your use of the term Operation Catch of the Day, the Trump administration’s official name for its ICE operations in Maine.

It’s gross. Your policy regarding news reports, involving racial slurs and obscenities, is to not print them, referring to them as slurs or whatever in their place. I’m thinking the same policy should apply here.

Jeff Blake
Portland

Nothing about this is funny

The federal government using Catch of the Day to name its roundup operation in Maine is beyond disrespectful; it’s dehumanizing, reducing human beings to objects of a hunt.

Equating people to a daily “catch” for federal government statistics is inflammatory branding and shows how cruel and insensitive ICE is. 

It’s especially demeaning when one considers the central place of the fishing industry in Maine. Use of the term “catch of the day” mocks a prominent feature at the heart of Maine culture. It’s a clumsy and deplorable attempt to turn a cruel assault on the people of Maine into a laughing matter. 

Wendy Ross
Wiscasset

Let’s take the analogy to its limit

Catch of the Day. Really? In a state where so many livelihoods depend on the sea? Are they trying to hide the cruelty of what they are doing in language that makes it sound routine? Nothing to see here, just the usual menu of people fleeing poverty and persecution.

Or maybe ICE officials are intentionally dehumanizing their victims. Immigrants aren’t people with family and community ties, with individual hopes for a new life in a free society. No, they’re just a swarm of fish to be scooped up in dragnets. Only these are nets of prejudice, of fear, of bravado and political ambition. And the fishermen are the nameless, faceless agents trawling in Maine’s streets, by its schools and churches, looking for people they can catch and remove.

And the captain? President Trump, of course. Ahab comes to mind, tangled in dark obsessions and ready to drag everyone under.

Charles Brown
Owls Head

Glib and offensive

Though nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to ICE, calling its Maine operation Catch of the Day is unnecessarily offensive. That glib expression, characterizing undocumented immigrants as fish and making light of their capture, is disgusting.

Marnie Black
Biddeford