There was no obvious evidence of a crime or any other violation. No call for help. No victim. Not even a broken taillight.

It was only fear that gave Jose Luis Matute-Duarte away.

According to court records, he was standing outside a Brownville convenience store on March 10 when a uniformed Border Patrol agent pulled up in an unmarked car. The agent noted the way Matute-Duarte “immediately looked down at the ground and avoided eye contact,” and how another man in a nearby work truck appeared to be trying to hide his face.

The agent had recently gotten tips about utility crews out of New York that might have hired undocumented workers the previous year. The truck had N.Y. plates. That was all the probable cause he needed to approach the men and start asking questions.

Matute-Duarte, a Honduran citizen, is now in federal custody and faces removal and criminal charges for illegally reentering the United States after previously being deported in 2015.

In the wake of high-profile arrests in Maine and beyond, advocates say many immigrants — including those with visas or green cards — are wary of being plucked off the street and pulled into an unmarked Border Patrol or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle. Local leaders say that with each new arrest, more and more families are choosing to stay home from work or school, hidden away from law enforcement and distrusted neighbors.

“It’s everybody who is an immigrant because you don’t know who they’re after,” said Claude Rwaganje, executive director of ProsperityMe, a nonprofit that provides financial education and other services to immigrants. “It’s hard to know if you are safe or not.”

Advocates in Maine believe the chaos is intentional and that the new administration’s goal is to make immigrants question their place in America. While President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to conduct mass deportations remains unrealized to this point, a rise in more aggressive tactics, like making plainclothes arrests on the street or tracking down immigrants at court appearances for minor traffic infractions, has left some Mainers feeling wary of law enforcement, including local police, whose role in the immigration system is often opaque.

Legal immigration status “doesn’t feel like protection anymore,” said Mufalo Chitam, executive director of the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition. “You’re walking on glass.”

A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to multiple interview requests. Maine’s highest-ranking Border Patrol official, Chief Patrol Agent Juan Bernal, was not available for an interview.

DEPORTATIONS DOWN, FEAR UP

One of the hallmarks of Trump’s campaign last year was his promise to carry out the mass deportation of immigrants. On his first day in office, he signed several executive orders aimed at shutting down the border, rolling back temporary immigration programs and ending birthright citizenship.

Still, both documented and many undocumented immigrants have legal rights that can make it difficult and time-consuming for the government to deport them, particularly if an immigrant believes they could face violence if they return to their home country.

Anna Welch, director of the Refugee and Human Rights Clinic at the University of Maine School of Law, said the administration lacks the tools or resources to actually detain and deport the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants who live in the U.S.

ICE reported an average of 661 daily removals nationwide during the first six weeks of the Trump presidency – 10% fewer than the 2024 average under President Joe Biden, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data collection nonprofit affiliated with Syracuse University.

“We completely understand why we’re all so fearful, but the numbers are not adding up,” Welch said.

That doesn’t mean Trump’s tough talk is hollow. By fostering a culture of fear and distrust, she said, the administration hopes to encourage immigrants to leave of their own accord.

“There have been a lot of changes that have created, sort of intentionally, shock and awe among the community,” Welch said. She pointed to several high-profile steps that have drawn the attention of immigrant groups, including opening a detention center on Guantanamo Bay, deporting 238 Venezuelans to an El Salvadoran prison known for civil rights abuses and revoking the visas of student protesters who have been critical of America’s role in the war in Gaza.

While deportations remain down, other immigration enforcement metrics are up since Trump took office.

ICE detentions nationwide have doubled, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Criminal prosecutions of undocumented immigrants — mostly for illegal reentry after previously being deported — have increased in Maine after the U.S. attorney general classified the cases as a priority of the administration, Maine’s acting U.S. Attorney Craig Wolff said in an interview last week. More of the state’s jail cells are being used to hold ICE and Border Patrol detainees.

Though it has proven difficult for this administration to meet, let alone exceed, the highest deportation rates of the Biden era, Trump’s team has succeeded in making life uncomfortable enough for some immigrants to consider packing up and leaving, according to several community leaders in southern Maine.

“One thing that, as activists, we’re all struggling with is the lack of transparency on contracts between law enforcement and ICE,” said Keyko Torres, community health and wellness director at Presente! Maine. “Who are the people making those decisions? Where are those calls being made?”

A HAZY LOCAL PICTURE

When police arrest someone or run their license number, they might come across a detainer request, which flags a person as having possibly entered the country illegally and asks that the local agency notify ICE before releasing that person from custody.

What happens next varies greatly by department.

Portland police say they take a hands-off approach. Chief Mark Dubois said in an interview last week that his officers don’t contact ICE for any reason, even if they see a detainer request.

If a person is arrested after committing a more serious crime, Dubois said, his team leaves it to the jail or the courts to handle the immigration enforcement process.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Wells Police Department is now working on a formal agreement with ICE that would allow its officers to enforce certain federal immigration laws. It’s the only department in Maine with either an approved or pending application to the program, according to ICE’s website.

Several police departments said that while they cannot enforce federal immigration law, they sometimes assist agencies like ICE. But many Maine law enforcement agencies don’t have written policies detailing exactly how officers are supposed to respond when they encounter a person suspected of being undocumented.

Federal court records show that since January, the Old Orchard Beach Police Department has called Border Patrol at least three times following traffic stops for minor violations, each resulting in the arrest of an undocumented immigrant. The department did not respond to multiple media requests over the last week about its policies and practices regarding working with federal agencies.

In February, a federal official detained four men in Wiscasset after a local officer pulled them over for failing to clear snow off their car and found they couldn’t speak English or provide valid IDs, according to court records. About two weeks earlier, a Brunswick officer called Border Patrol after a man he pulled over for not wearing a seat belt couldn’t speak English to confirm his identity, though he did have a Massachusetts license.

Recent detentions in Lewiston and Waldo County, both involving local law enforcement aiding federal officials, have garnered attention from news outlets and social media.

Each case makes it more difficult for advocates like Welch to convince immigrants living in the U.S. that they do have rights that can protect them, as long as they don’t give up and leave the country voluntarily.

THE FADING AMERICAN DREAM

In 2016, during Trump’s first term, Abdi Nor Iftin had been in Maine for two years on a green card. He remembers feeling uneasy about his status given Trump’s rhetoric at the time, especially about immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries.

Even though he’s been a naturalized U.S. citizen since 2020, Iftin feels worse now because he doesn’t see anyone pushing back against the president’s policies.

“It feels like the Trump administration this time is sort of testing the waters to see what it can get away with,” said Iftin, a native of Somalia.

He knows many members of Maine’s immigrant community, particularly those who are awaiting disposition of their asylum cases, are terrified.

“I’ve had a lot of conversations with people who are laying low because they know they could face trouble if they speak up,” he said. “So, it’s a very loud silence, if that makes sense.”

Many asylum seekers in the U.S. have fled home countries where war, crime or authoritarian regimes made every day uncertain. Several community leaders told the Press Herald that the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement has been retraumatizing for those who thought they had found a new life of stability.

Torres, from Presente! Maine, said that she’s been moved by the dozens of volunteers who show up each month to help run the group’s mobile food pantry.

“It’s so easy to feel so powerless when there’s executive order after executive order and you actually are seeing enforcement,” she said. “But there are nonprofits and community-based organizations that are on the ground doing the work.”

Still, she said the current culture of fear and chaos has already made life untenable for some community members who have decided to leave the country with their American citizen children rather than risk being separated from their families.

Iftin grew up in war-torn Somalia with the dream of immigrating to America. He learned to speak English by listening to western music and watching movies and TV. He worries that the current administration is making it less likely that people like him will want to follow.

“I felt like my life was shaped by the idea of America,” he said. “What I see now is that door is shut.”

Staff Writer Eric Russell contributed to this story.

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