Sen. Susan Collins is chair of the Appropriations Committee. This committee shepherded an annual $90 billion Department of Homeland Security funding bill through Congress in January, including $10 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and $18 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). 

A later funding measure advanced by the committee allocated $70 billion, over three years, to support ICE and CBP operations. That is a lot of taxpayer money.

Collins’ culpability in the death in Biddeford is the lack of supervision. Supervision starts with the president. The president does not care. This has been proven over and over. Supervision then falls on the president’s Cabinet. This group of people want to keep power so they are not going to stick their necks out; Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi stuck theirs out and they are gone.

Supervision then has to fall on Congress, which is appropriating taxpayer money to run the departments. Collins called it “absurd” that she was to blame.

Yet, where is the outrage? No emergency meeting to bring in Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mullin to answer questions about the training for federal agents or use of body cameras. A few phone calls to Mullin is all the senator can muster. Collins seems more concerned about Supreme Court justices than the citizens of Maine whom she is supposed to represent.

Safeguards like body cameras and deescalation training are not safeguards if there is no accountability for the lack of supervision. This is where Collins just failed.

Paul Roberts
Berwick