Maine has enacted legislation that restricts state and local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and Border Patrol. The restrictions take effect this week as part of broader efforts to limit state involvement in federal immigration operations.

The measure follows a comparable sanctuary-state framework already implemented in California. The Justice Department is actively opposing these types of restrictions through litigation, having challenged parallel laws in Virginia on grounds that state-level limits on immigration cooperation unlawfully interfere with federal immigration enforcement authority.