A Sanctuary City Newspaper Shamelessly Ignores the Elephant in the Room: Immigration  

The far-left folks at Maine’s Portland Press Herald are pretending to be concerned by the fact that their city’s native-born population has dropped to 40 percent in recent years, according to the 2024 American Community Survey. While the paper’s May 8 article questions whether the loss is a problem (ultimately, of course, the piece concludes it isn’t), the “analysis” posits every possible reason for the collapse while conveniently avoiding the real one.

According to their glossy explanations, native Mainers are being replaced by entrepreneurs, free-spirits, and artsy types from other states, such as “the film-maker who moved from Michigan whose respect for the arts was important when she was deciding where her peripatetic life would take her.” The paper cites the COVID pandemic as another reason that “outsiders” moved in, resulting in an eight percent drop in the ratio of native-born since 2019.

While it’s a quaint assessment and not without some validity, the paper refuses to acknowledge a broader truth: Portland, and the entire state of Maine, has systematically torqued up its sanctuary policies and become a major depot for refugee resettlement and a magnet for illegal immigration.

In 2003, Portland’s City Council passed a sanctuary ordinance prohibiting local officials from inquiring about immigration status or honoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers. Likewise, in 2017, Cumberland County, in which Portland is situated, put sanctuary policies in place, prohibiting its jail from honoring detainer requests.

The die was cast. Thanks to local NGO’s and immigrant advocacy organizations, word-of-mouth spread over time, and Portland became a preferred migrant hub. Thus, by the spring of 2023, thousands of asylum seekers had arrived. Most were in dire need of housing assistance, which forced officials to place them in 12 local hotels, school gymnasiums, and Portland’s large Expo Center. Costs skyrocketed such that the city’s social services budget increased $43 million over the previous year.

Thousands of illegal aliens and their children – mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola – settled in Portland. As a result, 70 percent of the students now enrolling in the Portland school district – doing so under the provisions of the Supreme Court’s 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision – have limited English skills. Across the school district, 57 languages are now spoken, which imposes monumental classroom challenges. One former school official admitted, “Every teacher needs to know how to teach students who speak other languages… as we continued to welcome in so many new students it felt like we were at a tipping point.”

A “tipping point” indeed – so much so that the Portland school board recently approved a measure that will require all teachers to obtain credentials to support their teaching of non-English speaking students.

One seemingly closely held secret is the exact number of migrants now living in Portland. One clue may exist 40 minutes north of Portland in Lewiston, another sanctuary jurisdiction. Of Lewiston’s 39,600 residents, 6,000 are now African refugees and asylum-seekers. If proportional, Portland may have over 10,000. The number is probably higher, given the city’s preferred location based on its lavish benefits and services given to those without legal status. That’s a lot for a city of 70,000 – not that the Portland Press Herald gave it any consideration as they explored the “mystery” of why native Mainers were a declining share of the city’s population. 

Now, thanks to the Trump administration’s efforts, refugee flows have stopped, and illegal immigration has slowed. That said, few, if any, have left Portland.

In what can only be explained as panic that migration has slowed, Governor Janet Mills continues to support and fund an executive order she signed in 2023 to create a Maine state “Office of New Americans.” Its purpose is to attract an additional 15,000 “New Mainers” per year over five years. “New Mainers” is the governor’s euphemistic umbrella term for asylum seekers, refugees, and illegal aliens. That policy is a breathtaking 500 percent annual increase over current levels of in-migration.

And just to make doubly sure Maine’s immigrant population will continue to rise, Gov. Mills recently allowed a bill to become law that restricts local officials statewide from inquiring about a person’s immigration status, bans local law enforcement from honoring ICE detainers, bans locales from participating in ICE’s 287(g) program, and otherwise prohibits local officials from assisting immigration authorities.

The Portland Press Herald would like its readers to believe their city’s native-born residents are being replaced by innocuous New York and West Coast sophisticates and Bohemians migrating to Maine to revel in its tranquil vibe, bringing with them prosperity and creative energy. Nice try. It’s a crafty, feel-good attempt on the newspaper’s part to explain why native-born Mainers are being displaced while avoiding the embarrassment of having to admit that their support for sanctuary policies resulted in illegal alien mayhem.

In reality – and there’s no hiding it – mass immigration is the elephant trampling the quickly changing sanctuary city of Portland, Maine… and so many other places.

Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel at the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington, D.C.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.