About a year ago the Press Herald wrote about an ICE facility coming to Scarborough. It fell out of the news until it resurfaced a month ago. ICE, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, is in the process of constructing a holding facility for immigration detainees, at 40 Manson Libby Road. Maine Realty Advisors owns the property.

This may take you by surprise. Even though several news sources have been reporting this, it has been kept pretty quiet. Why would this information be kept from the public? Because of the harm this agency and facility will cause. Newspapers have reported that the building will not have signs. Why don’t they want signs or to be seen? Because that is how ICE operates: through silence, darkness and fear.

Are citizens of Scarborough aware that if this construction is completed, there will be a facility in their town that will be responsible for separating families as well as for the inhumane detention and deportation of individuals? Is this what they want to be known for? Separating families. Racial profiling. Causing communities to live in fear. Deporting hard-working people doing the jobs that keep food on our tables. Sending them back to the violence they left. As our country works to undo such harm, Maine should, too.

If you thought ICE was what forms on Maine winter lakes, please read up on this destructive agency. They have caused incredible fear and harm across our state and country for years. They are not good for us, Scarborough or our state.

Mary Dunn
Whitefield