Updated

Updated · The New York Times · Jul 13

Maine Democrats Target Collins Over $70 Billion ICE Funding After 26-Year-Old Is Killed

Updated

Updated · The New York Times · Jul 13

Maine Democrats Target Collins Over $70 Billion ICE Funding After 26-Year-Old Is Killed

Q: Why was a man with a US work permit facing a final deportation order?

A U.S. work permit does not protect someone from deportation, and the reporting so far does not say exactly why this man had a final removal order. What is known is that immigration advocates said the 26-year-old Colombian man was authorized to work in the United States and had a Social Security number, while DHS told Maine senators he was the subject of a final deportation order that ICE was trying to execute. Those facts are not necessarily inconsistent. A work permit, or Employment Authorization Document, often reflects temporary permission to work tied to a pending case or limited status; it is not the same as permanent legal status and does not cancel a removal order. In practice, people can end up with a final deportation order despite having had work authorization for several reasons. Their underlying immigration case may have been denied or terminated, they may have missed an immigration court hearing and been ordered removed in absentia, or they may have lost the status that supported the work permit, such as asylum-related, parole-based, or other temporary protection. In some cases, a person can still physically possess a valid-looking work card even after the legal basis for remaining in the country has ended. So the short answer is that he could legally have had work authorization at some point and still be under a final deportation order. The specific basis for his order has not been publicly detailed in the reporting available on July 13.

3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 13

Several Maine Democratic Senate candidates used Monday’s fatal ICE shooting in Biddeford to attack Senator Susan Collins, tying the death to her support for immigration enforcement funding.
Aaron Frey, the state attorney general, said an ICE agent fatally shot a 26-year-old Colombian man after he tried to flee in a vehicle toward an officer during an operation.
Nirav Shah and Troy Jackson went to Biddeford protests, with Jackson demonstrating outside Collins’s office and vowing to abolish ICE as Democrats compete to become the party’s new Senate nominee.
Collins called for a full and impartial investigation, but rivals highlighted that she later backed a Republican measure giving ICE and Customs and Border Protection $70 billion without the guardrails in an earlier spending bill.