Feb 18, 2026
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Choco-Latté Café.
BAR HARBOR—Three Bar Harbor residents stood before their town council, February 17, and explained that they want the town to adopt a local ordinance about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, the federal law enforcement agency under the direction of the Department of Homeland Security.
The ordinance would prohibit local law enforcement officers and Bar Harbor employees from indirectly assisting ICE agents.
“I think it would be a reflection of the values of our town. It would show that we want to protect our residents, no matter what their immigration status is. We want to protect the international workers who come here. And we want to protect all the visitors who come here,” Gail Leiser told the councilors, Tuesday night.
That, she said, is good for business.
Leiser has long been a business leader in the town and part of the Galyn’s Restaurant ownership.
Speaking first, John O’Brien told the councilors that his proposal was for a local ordinance to define the relationship between the federal agency and local officers and town staff.
“The state law focuses on enforcement immigration law by local law enforcement,” O’Brien said of a recent state law, LD 1971.
The state, he said, falls short in that it doesn’t address indirect cooperation and support of local law enforcement.
A traffic infraction could lead to a federal referral, O’Brien told the councilors. It is the second most reason. Information retention is another reason.
“Though less impactful than the mass deportation events we have witnessed in Portland and Lewiston. This type of action is the second most important reason for detention in our state. A local law could correct this,” O’Brien said.
“By supporting these restrictions, we contribute to a climate of trust in our community such that no one may avoid participation in necessary programs and services out of concern over their immigration status,” he continued. “I ask you to consider this proposal and allow us all to participate in an important discussion about how we can support our international neighbors and visitors and how we can protect our Town officials from participation in illegal, unconstitutional enforcement related activity.”
WHAT THE ORDINANCE WOULD DO
The proposed ordinance would amend the town code.
It would define multiple terms within the ordinance including citizenship or immigration status, town department, town employee, contact information, federal agency, and immigration enforcement operation.
The three-page proposed ordinance says that “no person acting in their capacity as a Town employee shall assist or cooperate with, or allow any town monies or resources to be used to assist, cooperate with or facilitate any federal agency in any immigration enforcement operation, except where legally required to do so by state or federal law or court order.”
It states the town would not give any ICE access to Bar Harbor-owned facilities for its immigration enforcement.
It also states that no Bar Harbor employee “shall support or assist any federal agency in immigration enforcement operations.”
That would include contact information, home or work address, custody status. It would not allow investigations or interrogations as part of an immigration enforcement operation; helping ICE establish traffic perimeter; being present and assisting or supporting an ICE operation.
It also states that Bar Harbor employees and departments couldn’t enter into contracts or agreements or arrangements with ICE that would allow it to “grant any federal immigration enforcement authority to a Town department or its employees, including but not limited to agreements created under 8 U.S.C. § I 357(g); or authorize the custodial transfer or detention of a person in removal proceedings or for other immigration enforcement operation purposes, including but not limited to Intergovernmental Service Agreements, Intergovernmental Agreements, and ICE riders to Intergovernmental Agreements.”
Town employees shall not “stop, arrest, detain or continue to detain a person for immigration enforcement operation purposes, including pursuant to an immigration detainer; an administrative immigration warrant, any other immigration enforcement document, or information or suspicion that the person is not present legally in the United States, or that the person has committed an immigration violation.”
Except for human, sex, drug, or firearms trafficking, it also says that Bar Harbor employees or departments can’t allow ICE (or Customs and Border Patrol) to access people detained already by Bar Harbor, transfer anyone into ICE or CBP custody, or permit the agencies to use town facilities.
PREVIOUS EVENT IN BAR HARBOR AND STATE LEGISLATION
In August 2025, Mohamed Eytah, 20, of Collinsville, Illinois, and Cheikh Hmeimed, 25, of Brooklyn, New York, were both charged with identical offenses after a call from the Best Western Hotel at 452 Route 3 in Bar Harbor.
Both men had an ICE detainer issued for them after they were arrested and brought to jail according to Hancock County Jail Assistant Administrator Frank Shepard.
ICE has said that it detained approximately 100 people in Maine last week as part of “Operation Catch of the Day.” This winter’s heightened presence in the state by the federal agents has sparked commentary by the state’s federal Congressional delegation, as well as local leaders and community organizers, particularly in the Portland and Lewiston areas.
Maine Legislature passed LD 1971 in June 2025. Governor Janet Mills did not veto it. It will go into effect 90 days after the Maine Legislature adjourns.
It’s meant to clarify how local and state law enforcement agencies interact with federal civil immigration engagements and prohibits state and local law enforcement from performing the investigation, interrogation, detention, detection, stopping, searching or arresting “a person for [civil] immigration enforcement purposes.” They will not be able to detain someone on a hold request from ICE and some other activities.
“As a former District Attorney and Attorney General and now as Governor, I carefully considered this bill. I’ve weighed my concerns that it imposes confusing restraints on law enforcement about when they can and can’t interact with Federal authorities against the extraordinary and horrifying actions of a Federal agency that has been weaponized by the President to undermine the rights of us all. And I also agree with the bill’s aim of ensuring that Maine law enforcement are enforcing Maine laws, not Federal immigration law,” the Governor wrote in an op-ed in the Portland Press Herald. “LD 1971 is imperfect, and we should not need it, but the times call for it. We cannot turn a blind eye to ICE’s unacceptable actions, and so I have chosen to allow LD 1971 to become law.”
Governor Mills also “repealed a 2011 executive order issued by Governor Paul LePage that called for enhanced cooperation between State and Federal officials on immigration enforcement,” according to a press release from her office in December 2025.
According to supporters, the goal of LD 1971 was to keep local law enforcement independent of federal immigration policy and not subordinate to it as well as ensure due process.
The ACLU of Maine’s Executive Director Molly Curren Rowles wrote, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has long been present in Maine, and federal law allows the agency to continue operations and to re-escalate their presence here at any time.”
Curren Rowles continued, “ICE’s actions over the past year—from using white supremacist slogans for recruitment to issuing unconstitutional memos—created the conditions that led to their dangerous, indiscriminate, and illegal actions in Maine and Minnesota over the past several weeks. But it wasn’t just during this surge that ICE placed our community in fear. They have abused power and arrested people in Maine in legal immigration processes over the past year.”
However, O’Brien and others worried that the state legislation is not enough.
REMARKS TO COUNCIL
On Tuesday, O’Brien also spoke about information collection. “This is an important means through which immigrants are identified and searched out. As we are increasingly aware, the federal government is engaged in the development of a massive database which contains highly personal information about all of us, including citizenship status. This data, then synthesized, provides a sophisticated tool to identify and locate immigrants.”
The state law would not limit data collected from other means, he said.
“While the state law will restrict inquiry into immigration status by law enforcement, it does not limit collection of that data should it become available through other means. Broadly prohibiting the collection of status information would excuse our police department from having to participate in this process entirely,” O’Brien said.
He wants the to extend that collection restriction to all town employees.
Support, he said, would lead to a climate of trust in the community.
“Every day we’re being assaulted with corruption, harm, and suffering while seeming to have little ability to intervene or affect change. We are seeing and hearing with our own eyes and ears federal agents ignoring the first and fourth amendment rights of individuals,” Norene Hunter told the councilors. “We are watching countless individuals being beaten and hauled away with no ability to protect them.”
The ordinance would give police and town officials a way to not aid ICE and give citizens an ability to take action, they stressed.
The ACLU of Maine in 2025, Hunter said, found widespread ways that ICE was supported by local resources.
LD1971 is important, she said, but doesn’t address indirect cooperation with local authorities. This, Hunter said, was only the first step. She agreed with O’Brien that the town needs an ordinance or amendment that would ban indirect cooperation.
Bar Harbor and Mount Desert have both previously declared sanctuary status.
In 2017, after a citizens’ petition, Mount Desert voters declared 101-59 that the town would be a “sanctuary community.” The non-binding resolution hoped to “protect the independence of our local law enforcement by refusing to require police or town employees to serve as enforcers of federal immigration law.”
It was the first town in Maine to do so.
That same year, Bar Harbor residents voted 351-62 to support declaring that town a sanctuary community.
Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Police Chief David Kerns had sent a memo in late 2024 explaining that “the police department remains dedicated to its mission of upholding public safety while respecting constitutional rights. In accordance with our legal responsibilities, we enforce state and local laws within our jurisdiction. Matters related to federal immigration enforcement fall under the purview of federal agencies, and we are not authorized to act in that capacity. This clear division of responsibilities has long been part of our approach, ensuring adherence to our legal obligations and protecting the constitutional rights of all individuals.”
“The Sanctuary Community Resolution reflects our shared commitment to fairness, inclusivity, and respect for all individuals. These values continue to guide our efforts in fostering a safe and welcoming community,” Kerns wrote at the time.
During council comments on February 17, Councilor Randy Sprague asked how to move forward with the three residents’ requests.
Chair Valerie Peacock said that council comments were not the time or place because it wasn’t on the agenda.
“We’re going to end up in a conversation unnoticed. We can talk about it after the meeting or put it on the agenda….But I hear you,” Peacock told Sprague. “Noted.”
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