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Platner Refuses to Accept 'Pinky Promise' on ICE From White House as Collins Claims Maine Surge Is Over
"When we do get ICE out of Maine, it's important for people to understand that that came from below, that came from power from organizers, from a mobilized population," said Senate candidate Graham Platner.
Jan 29, 2026
At a rally outside Sen. Susan Collins' office on Thursday morning, soon after the Republican lawmaker claimed she had gotten assurances from the Trump administration that it would end its immigration enforcement surge in Maine, Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner said he was not prepared to accept a "pinky promise" from the White House after the arrests of hundreds of Mainers in recent days.
"I don’t believe it,” Platner told a crowd of protesters. “I don’t take the word of an administration that continues to break the law. I don’t take the word of an administration that continues to stomp our constitutional rights. We need to see material change.”
Collins said in a statement Thursday morning that she had spoken with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and received information that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "has ended its enhanced activities in the state of Maine"—adding the caveat that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "does not confirm law enforcement operations."
"There are currently no ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations here," said the senator. "ICE and Customs and Border Patrol will continue their normal operations that have been ongoing here for many years."
About 200 people have been detained in what ICE has called "Operation Catch of the Day" since it was launched earlier this month, and immigrant rights and mutual aid groups in Portland, Lewiston, and other cities have ramped up efforts to support the state's growing population of immigrants and asylum-seekers, including its Somali community, which includes many people who have become citizens since arriving in the US.
The administration said it had a list of more than 1,400 people in Maine it aimed to arrest—people it claimed were among the so-called "worst of the worst" violent criminals the White House wants to deport.
People abducted from their cars and homes in the state, however, include a corrections officer who was eligible to work in the US, a civil engineer on a work visa, a mother who was followed home by ICE agents and had a pending asylum application, and a father who was driving his wife and 1-month-old baby home from an appointment and whose car window was shattered by an agent, sending glass flying into the infant's car seat. None of those people had criminal records, according to background checks and attorneys.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said that while the "visible federal presence" in Maine may be reduced following Collins' announcement, "it is important that people understand what we saw during this operation: Individuals who are legally allowed to be in the United States, whether by lawful presence or an authorized period of stay, following the rules, and being detained anyway.”
“That is not limited to this one operation," said Pingree. "That has been the pattern of this administration’s immigration enforcement over the past year, and there is no indication that policy has changed.”
Platner told local ABC News affiliate WMTW that Collins affirmed in her statement that "she still supports ICE operations, just not this expanded one. An agency that over the past week has abducted people that work for the sheriff's department, has abducted fathers bringing their newborn child home from the hospital, an agency that has murdered American citizens in the streets of Minneapolis."
"That is not an agency that has any welcome in Maine to conduct any operations," said Platner, who has spoken out in support of abolishing ICE, which was established in 2003.
Sen. Susan Collins said ICE has ended its enhanced operation in Maine. But Graham Platner, who is running for Collins' Senate seat, told @catemccusker that he will believe it when he sees it. https://t.co/7GL6qM3Bf6 pic.twitter.com/iE6O44Ok5t
— WMTW TV (@WMTWTV) January 29, 2026
Platner also emphasized in comments to the Maine Newsroom that Collins, who as the Senate Appropriations Committee chair has been working to pass spending bills to avert a government shutdown and has been fighting against a push to strip DHS funding out of the package, should not get credit for pushing ICE out of Maine, if the agency is actually retreating.
"When we do get ICE out of Maine, it's important for people to understand that that came from below, that came from power from organizers, from a mobilized population," said Platner. "It is that power that is going to push ICE out of Maine, and those in power, who have done nothing, are not the ones who get to take credit. The people of Maine get to take credit."
The government spending bills passed last week in the House with seven Democrats—including Rep. Jared Golden of Maine—supporting the DHS funding. The Senate needs to pass the package by the end of Friday to avoid a shutdown.
Portland City Council member April Fournier said the timing of Collins' announcement seemed "very convenient" for the senator, who is running for a sixth term.
"I take this with a grain of salt," said Fournier. "There's a very important budget vote today that Susan Collins will be a part of and there's a lot of pressure on her given all of these immigration operations, what's happened in Maine, what's happened in Minneapolis, and all over. She has a lot of pressure to decrease funding for ICE, and she has really put her line in the sand that she's not willing to do that."
Fournier added that Collins is "vulnerable" as the midterms approach, "so if she's able to somehow say, 'We got ICE out of Maine,' and then try and paint herself as the hero, I think that her political analysis of the situation is that will win her back some favor."
The council member noted that just over seven years ago, the senator assured voters that US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade as she announced her vote to confirm him.
"I trust Susan Collins and her actions about as much as I trust thin ice in spring here in Maine," said Fournier.
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‘Frightening’: Tom Homan Uses War Jargon to Describe ICE Operations in Minnesota
"'In theater' is an expression that has no place anywhere within the United States," said one critic.
Jan 29, 2026
White House border czar Tom Homan on Thursday sparked alarm when he used terminology associated with overseas war to describe federal immigration operations taking place in Minnesota.
During a press briefing, Homan was asked about the number of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents operating in Minnesota.
"3,000," Homan replied. "There's been some rotations. Another thing I witnessed when I came here, I'll share this with you, I've met a lot of people, they've been in theater, some of them have been in theater for eight months. So there's going to be rotations of personnel."
Q: Can you be specific about how many ICE and Border Patrol agents are currently operating in the state?
HOMAN: 3,000. There's been some rotations. They've been in theater a long time. Day after day, can't eat in restaurants, people spin on you, blowing whistles at you. But my… pic.twitter.com/1Vz8mKYCAv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 29, 2026
Typically terms such as "rotations" and "theater" are not used to describe domestic law enforcement operations, but overseas military deployments.
Many critics were quick to notice Homan's use of war jargon to describe actions being taken in a US city and said it was reflective of how the Trump administration sees itself as an occupying force in its own country.
"'In theater' like they're landing marines at Guadalcanal or something," wrote Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), in a post on X. "This stuff is happening in suburban American communities, that's where they're sending violent, masked invaders."
Northwestern University historian Kathleen Belew also expressed shock at Homan's rhetoric.
"'In theater' is an expression that has no place anywhere within the United States," she wrote on Bluesky. "'In theater' means in a war."
Andrew Lawrence, deputy director of rapid response as Media Matters, said Homan's war talk was "a crazy way to describe Minneapolis," while documentary filmmaker John Darwin Kurc described it as a "frightening characterization."
Shelby Edwards, a retired US Army major, also recognized the violent implications of Homan's words.
"Incredibly damaging how military language has infiltrated these agencies," she observed. "'In theater' is used for deployments into foreign nations, when we deploy soldiers we say things like this. This is America. This is an American agency assigned to an American city."
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As Democrats Push for ICE ‘Reforms,’ a Judge Shows How Flagrantly the Agency Already Violates Law
"ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence."
Jan 29, 2026
Amid the latest budget standoff in Congress, Senate Democrats on Wednesday said they may be willing to make a deal to fund the US Department of Homeland Security in exchange for a slate of "reforms" designed to rein in what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described as Immigration and Customs Enforcement's "state-sanctioned thuggery."
But just because something is written in law doesn't mean ICE agents will follow it.
That's what Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz of the US District Court in Minnesota—a conservative jurist appointed by former President George W. Bush—demonstrated when, as part of an order issued Wednesday, he published a list of nearly 100 court orders ICE has violated in just the month of January.
Schiltz issued the list as part of an order canceling a hearing for acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, whom he’d previously ordered to appear in court on Friday or face contempt. The judge demanded Lyon's personal appearance after ICE ignored the judge’s order to give a bail hearing to a detainee, Juan Hugo Tobay Robles, one of “dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks.” Schiltz canceled Lyons’ hearing when Robles was released from custody.
"That does not end the Court’s concerns, however," Schiltz wrote on Wednesday. "Attached to this order is an appendix that identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases."
"This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law," he went on. "ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence."
"ICE," he said, "is not law unto itself."
This scathing document of ICE's willful disregard for the law was top of mind for many critics of the compromise Democrats appear poised to make in exchange for passing a budget package that includes $64.4 billion in DHS funding, including $10 billion for ICE and $18 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
On Thursday, seven Republicans joined Democrats in a 45-55 vote to block the spending package, which needs 60 votes to pass in the Senate. Democrats have said they want to separate DHS funding from the rest of the bill in order to negotiate a series of "reforms." If a deal is not reached by January 30, funding for DHS and several other agencies will lapse, causing another partial government shutdown.
On Wednesday, Schumer told the press that Democrats are "united" behind three key reforms to DHS. Per TIME Magazine:
“We want to end roving patrols,” Schumer said, laying out Democrats’ first demand. “We need to tighten the rules governing the use of warrants and require ICE coordination with state and local law enforcement.”
Second, he said, Democrats want to “enforce accountability,” including a uniform federal code of conduct and independent investigations into alleged abuses. Federal agents, he argued, should be held to the same use-of-force standards as local police and face consequences when they violate them.
Third, Schumer said, Democrats are demanding “masks off, body cameras on,” a reference to proposals that would bar agents from wearing face coverings, require they wear body cameras and mandate that agents carry visible identification. “No more anonymous agents, no more secret operatives,” he said.
Journalist and political analyst Adam Johnson described these proposals as "superficial," with many already being codified into law or even the US Constitution.
"As many scholars have noted, Trump arresting people without warrants is already unconstitutional and illegal, but his DHS is doing it anyway," he wrote. "Passing laws to enforce existing law may dissuade the Trump regime in some contexts, but it’s unclear why Trump wouldn’t just ignore the new law since they duly ignored the previous one."
He also said, "It’s unclear how much power Congress or states would have to 'enforce accountability' while Trump’s cartoonishly corrupt DOJ continues to investigate and threaten state lawmakers and leaders with prison time."
Johnson noted that the list of demands made by progressives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was more comprehensive, including bans on arrest quotas and forcing ICE to end its reign of terror in Minneapolis, but said "it’s unclear how Congress would define, much less enforce, these parameters. And most conspicuous of all, their demands make zero mention of reducing DHS’s obscene budget."
DHS funds were already increased by $170 billion over the next five years in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress last year, and ICE funding tripled, from $10 billion per year to $30 billion, making it the equivalent of the 13th most expensive military in the world.
Aaron Regunberg, a writer at the New Republic, questioned what good it was to subject ICE to new laws when, as Schiltz's order showed, "ICE breaks the law, courts order them to stop, and then they keep breaking the law."
"You have to be dumb as bricks to think the answer is to pass a law saying it's against the law to break the law," he continued. "The answer is to stop giving these fascist goons billions of our tax dollars."
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Why Trump's Attack on Minneapolis Is Also an Attack on Our Elections
This armed assault on a major American city, coupled with a thuggish offer implying that the bully boys might be pulled back if state officials will betray their voters, shows the damage that can be done without outright canceling the midterms.
Jan 29, 2026
The nation has been convulsed by the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Millions now see with sickening clarity a lawless assault by federal officers on an American city and its people. As The Wall Street Journal editorialized, it is a “moral and political debacle for the Trump presidency.”
The videos were followed by a fusillade of lies from senior government officials. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti had engaged in “domestic terrorism.” White House aide Stephen Miller called Pretti an “assassin” who tried to “murder federal agents.” Border official Gregory Bovino declared, “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” The instant impulse by these high officials was to bully and smear.
Another outrageous statement by a cabinet official has not gotten enough attention.
On Saturday, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz linking the violence in Minneapolis to a demand that the state give the Justice Department complete access to the state’s sensitive voter rolls, among other things. There’s no explicit quid pro quo offered—but anyone familiar with Grade B gangster movies won’t miss the implication. Certainly that’s how state officials have read it. Let that sink in: Federal agents have killed innocent civilians in cold blood. And the response of the attorney general of the United States is to use it as leverage to illegally access voter data. That is an unambiguous abuse of power.
That sense of crisis, consciously instigated, can create opportunities to undermine the election and sow doubt and division.
As my colleague Wendy Weiser has written, “What do voter rolls have to do with ICE? Nothing. But they have a lot to do with the administration’s ongoing efforts to meddle in elections.”
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon provided Bondi with the only legal and responsible answer (a simple “no”), describing her offer as “an apparent ransom.”
Make no mistake: The federal government has no authorization to demand confidential voter information from the states. In our constitutional system, states are responsible for maintaining and protecting voter rolls. Indeed, various state and federal laws limit how much data the federal government can collect.
But that hasn’t stopped it from trying. Bondi’s Justice Department has demanded access to the voter records of 44 states and Washington, DC, and it has sued more than 20 states for not complying. Two courts have already ruled on the side of the states.
Why would the administration want to hoover up this data? It would give election deniers new ammunition to push false claims of voting by people who are not US citizens. It would help the federal government pressure states into reckless voter purges, which would kick eligible citizens off the rolls just as November rolls around.
Plainly, it’s all part of a broader strategy to meddle with our elections. Last weekend, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Republicans are looking into yet another version of the unpopular SAVE Act—the bill that would require American citizens to produce a birth certificate, passport, or similar document to register to vote. At least 21 million Americans lack ready access to those documents, according to our research. The bill narrowly passed the House but stalled in the Senate last year after massive public pushback.
Bondi’s letter is a gross escalation of this effort—an explicit abuse of this moment to coerce Minnesota to step into line.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) worries that this escalation is by design. Over the weekend, he warned that the “Trump administration is creating this mayhem, particularly in cities in swing states, in order to take control of the election.”
When Donald Trump took office the first time in 2017, he talked of “American carnage.” Shooting of bystanders, squads of masked armed men, terrorized immigrants, clouds of tear gas, vague claims of conspiracy, and more—all bring that “carnage” to life. That sense of crisis, consciously instigated, can create opportunities to undermine the election and sow doubt and division.
To be clear (and I get asked this a lot): Donald Trump cannot cancel the midterms. Presidents have no power to do that.
But this armed assault on a major American city, coupled with a thuggish offer implying that the bully boys might be pulled back if state officials will betray their voters, shows the damage that can be done nonetheless.
The dignified and angry public response from around the country to the latest killing suggests maybe something has snapped. It would not be the first time in our history that government violence kindled an even more powerful reaction.
It’s not only the safety and sanity of people in Minnesota that’s at stake. As we are reminded once again, our democracy is on the line.
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