ROCKLAND — Rockland City Councilors voted 4-1 (Kalloch) to allow an immigration ordinance proposal to continue to the December agenda, though the vote follows lengthy discussion during the November 10 City Council meeting, including a potential false perception toward local police officers by the public, attempts to further differentiate between orders and ordinances, as well as further attempts to understand when and where councilors can create ordinances that direct staff.

The current proposal, according to Nicole Kalloch, is an overstep of the City Council’s reach.

“Councilor [Nate] Davis alluded to the fact that in our Code there might be some things in the past where Council may have overstepped on power,” said Kalloch. “I just think we shouldn’t continue that practice. And I do believe that this is an overstep of us to City Manager Luttrell. I’m worried about ten years down the road when we’re all not here, somebody could look back at this and say ‘well, that council did it, so now we can, and now we’re going to make all these rules about the harbor master or whatever it might be.’”

Not to discredit the time, attention to detail, and community values presented in the ordinance, Kalloch favors “repurposing” (as Councilor Adam Lachman termed it) the draft into an Order. Lachman shared a similar interest in making the ordinance an order, the same opinion given by the Rockland City Attorney. Councilor Callahan’s concern that redrafting as an order, and the subsequent call upon the City Manager to come up with accountability and penalties for staff, would take a long time. As she said in a speech at the beginning of the November 10 discussion, “The reality is, the risk is already here. ICE is at our front and federal immigration enforcement agencies were invited to Rockland before this ordinance was even made public” (see sidebar for the entire speech). However, Lachman pointed out that the draft was already written, and directing the Manager to come up with employee policies on the subject wouldn’t take long at all.

“I would also just like to say, the guidance that I’ve gotten from the experts who do this work, is that an ordinance amendment is the strongest, most protection that we can offer,” said Callahan. “The City Attorney pointed out that this is law. That’s really important because we’re talking about people’s Constitutional rights. There should be a law. It shouldn’t just be an administrative policy.”

The ACLU lawyer helping with drafting the ordinance asked, why not do both? A man can wear both a belt and suspenders, can’t he?

“As for enforceability, I think order or ordinance, at the end of the day, the City Manager is going to have to tailor that to personnel rules,” said Michael Kebede, Policy Director for ACLU of Maine. “Order or ordinance, the process for the city is more or less the same.”

Prior to the meeting, a colleague of Kebede described an informal relationship between some officers in Maine and immigration agents. This is where an officer conducts an unrelated traffic stop, and then calls an immigration agent to come and get the driver.

“This informal assistance is the vast majority of the immigration assistance that we are seeing here in the state,” said Lisa Parisio.

There is no centralized tracking method for seeing the full extent of these incidents, according to Parisio. Since March, ILAP has tracked 22 minor traffic incidents in which at least 50 people have been handed over to immigration officers based on their suspected immigration status alone, she said. Parisio did not specify any region of Maine that this has taken place.

“We’ve been able to verify that many of the Maine residents handed over at these traffic stops were in lawful immigration status, they were in lawful processes that they had the right to finish, they had valid work permits, they had absolutely no criminal history,” said Parisio.

The people handed over were drivers, passengers, bystanders, car accident victims, and children, she said.

“This enforcement is very broad, and it is very indiscriminate,” she said.

Broad, such as the words, codes, and interpretations that Rockland City Council is struggling with.

Regardless, following three months of collaboration in drafting the current proposed ordinance (which was actually only three meetings, according to Police Chief Tim Carroll), Carroll still expresses concerns with language within the ordinance, specifically the word “assist.” Used again was last week’s hypothetical scenario of an ICE agent and an individual fighting while ICE attempts to take custody. Local officers could be called upon to break up the fight, preventing further injury to both the agent and the individual, aka maintaining public safety. The restrained individual then detained by the agent. Because local officer responded to the scene, the public could easily perceive that local officers were involved with an ICE operation. And if the agent stated at the scene that the individual is now being taken into ICE custody, then, by fact that the officers helped maintain public safety by stopping the fight and restraining the individual, those officers could be accused of “assisting.”

“I don’t want that perception out there that we’ve assisted,” said Carroll. “But by the language of this, the potential is there. The perception is just wrong. It blurs what our abilities are. At the end of the day, we’re going to do what’s right to provide safety however that looks.”

Councilor Kaitlin Callahan, sponsor of the bill, however, believes that the ordinance presents an obvious understanding.

“I thought that it was pretty clear that if it becomes a public safety concern, which is what you are describing, then you absolutely can go in and assist them,” said Callahan. “That is not going to be held on you….if it is a public safety risk or it is a serious crime, absolutely.”

City Attorney Mary Costigan, however, agreed with Carroll that “assist” is a broad term, and though it is used in an intro paragraph, further defined by specific bullet point examples, the term is also followed by the phrase “includes, but is not limited to.”

Lachman called for accountability and well shaped policies, due to the fear that people are living with, hearing things and thinking certain things may be happening, though they are not sure whether they are happening or not.

“Reporting back to Council on a specified time period is really important, about ‘we say this is true and let’s confirm that this is true.' And if there is a violation of that, we have every right, we have every right to protect the citizens….In order to address the fears that people have, policies are only good in so far as the policies that we re-enforce. That, we have accountability on, that we hold the city manager to account for.”

Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com