Death and detainment are the overwhelming narrative surrounding ICE at the beginning of the new year. Last month, two people were killed in struggles involving ICE agents, and tens of thousands of immigrants have remained in custody. 

Immigrant populations across the nation exist in a state of fear as they are targeted; this is especially true of the immigrant communities in Maine, who have been subjected to an increase in ICE presence because of the Trump administration and the launch of ICE’s Operation Catch of the Day. 

Nicole Lemay—the executive director for Youth Led Justice—spoke on the fear that local communities have experienced: “When ICE first came to town, people were not leaving the house. People were not going to doctors. They were afraid to access those basic things.”

ICE has inspired mass hysteria across Maine’s immigrant communities. People who were already struggling to open up are completely shutting themselves off from local organizations that offer aid because they do not feel like they can trust anyone. 

Lemay, who has spent years working to help disenfranchised and misunderstood youth, explained how some of her kids have gone to drastic measures just to protect themselves.

“Two of my young people have been expelled from school again, and I honestly believe that they got in a fight so that they could get out of school because they were afraid. Because, these were two kids that never used to fight or anything.” 

A few months ago, the Well’s police department terminated its agreement with ICE. This decision received widespread support from locals, and it helped to alleviate some of the growing fear amongst immigrants in Maine. ICE’s 287(g) Program allows for ICE to partner with local police departments in order to better identify and apprehend undocumented immigrants.

Despite terminating the agreement, the idea that any of Maine’s local departments could have partnered with ICE was unsettling to immigrant communities; however, some local departments and community organizations are committed to providing equitable care regardless of the outside chaos. 

Given the volatile environment, mental health has become a concern within these immigrant communities; however, that very volatility has inspired a fear among immigrants that has prevented many from seeking aid. For states, like Maine, that have seen a steady growing immigrant population over the last decade, local programs and organizations are working to rebuild trust with the hesitant populations. 

For Maine’s mental health professionals who specialize in immigrant and refugee populations, helping individuals within these communities is a process that begins long before actual treatment starts. Before a provider thinks about giving aid, they must first put in the time to understand the specific immigrant community and culture that they are interacting with and establish a relationship with the people that need assistance. 

Organization Serving Multiple Cities in Maine:

A Somali mother gets on the phone and listens intently as a Spurwink case manager explains their services. She has taken time out of her day to listen to him explain the organization’s mental illness awareness and treatment programs. Even though there is a language barrier and there are some concepts that she does not understand, she’s initially very hopeful that these programs can help her with the depression that has weighed on her since moving to Maine.

She hopes for a solution, yet, to her dismay, the provider tells her that the meetings she needs will contradict with her working schedule. She relies on those shifts to take care of her family, so she decides to forgo the care she needs to the benefit of her loved ones.

“If you are being called by a provider, being asked to come to a meeting for an hour, and having the choice between doing that and going to work and making money for your family—it’s not a question. They’re going to go to work. They are not going to come in and have a mental health appointment,” Associate Director of Immigrant and Refugee Services, Elizabeth Steele said. 

Spurwink is a mental and behavioral health agency that serves children and adults with a variety of programming. Steele specifically heads a smaller offshoot program under the Spurwink umbrella—Supporting the Health of Immigrant Families and Adolescents (SHIFA). The program initially started in Lewiston in 2010, and it served the large Somali population in the city who have been around since the mid-1990s.  

Day-to-day, Steele works to help immigrants get the aid that they need. She attempts to show them the path out from the corners and rugs that national discourse has swept them under. However, when weighing long term health benefits against short term financial security, it is very challenging for Steele to get immigrants to see the utility of mental health services. Even if they were to put their finances aside, there are many barriers to consider. In her experience, she stated that resettlement stressors, cultural stigma, lack of translation services, and distrust of authority figures are all major factors that discourage immigrant communities from seeking help. 

According to the most recent census data, there are around 3,000 Somali-born residents in Maine, and the highest concentration of those people are in Lewiston and Portland. According to Data USA, about 10% of the entire population in both Lewiston and Portland is foreign born which is more than double the percentage of foreign born citizens living in the entire state (3.9%).  

In Portland and Lewiston, given the rise in immigration and the growing Somalian population, the distrust in national and local authority figures has come to the forefront. Even though dealing with fear “has always been a part of the work”, recent national discourse has made it extremely hard for immigrant communities to trust American organizations.  

“We’ve seen in the last few months that the level of fear has risen greatly,” Steele said. “People are retreating into their homes, and they don’t want to come out.” 

Spurwink’s current solution involves integrating their programs into spaces that are familiar and safe to immigrants: “We utilize clinicians who are mental health [professionals]; they have a masters level in social work or counseling. Those clinicals are colocated within schools—that’s the piece around embedding services within systems that are already trusted by the families that we are working with.” 

Spurwink serves a variety of cities in Maine with a strong focus on Portland, Lewiston, and Farmington. They are striving to meet immigrants in these cities where they feel the most comfortable, building relationships inside trusted communal structures, and their beliefs in strong rapport are shared by other local organizations. 

How the Portland Police Department Combats Mental Health:

Portland Police Department’s Behavioral Health unit, outfitted with radios and sirenless cruisers, sit ready. When in crisis, people call them to step in the place of police officers. They operate similar to first responders; however their intent is to make sure that those with mental health and substance abuse issues have an alternative to direct police engagement. 

Bridget Sliwak is the current Behavioral Health Coordinator for the Portland Police Department (PPD). She heads a unit of five alternative response liaisons and one substance use liaison. They primarily function as a crisis response team that steps in place or in addition to police officers in order to deescalate a situation that deals with non-threatening mental health episodes. 

Some people are afraid to interact with police, and, in some circumstances, officers can make those facing mental challenges uneasy. Sliwak’s unit bridges the gap between authority and the community in a less alarming way, while lowering anxiety when interacting with law enforcement. 

Given the rise in diversity, Sliwak and her team have been tasked with providing service and aid to a varied demographic. The unit helps anyone experiencing a mental health episode regardless of their background.

“I think there’s a certain amount of cultural competence that needs to exist when you’re doing this type of work,” Sliwak said. “We don’t have a specific training here, but everyone has a background.”

Despite the team’s “cultural competence”, Sliwak explained that they have not serviced the immigrant population as much as others. The largest demographics of people that they have been tasked to serve in the last year have been: homeless people and older people who are alone and can not fully care for themselves. Throughout her time with the unit, these two groups of people have made up the majority of the calls that her team has been asked to cover; however, their commitment to servicing other communities has not wavered. 

Sliwak explained how part of the lacking engagement from the immigrant population could possibly stem from the cultural stigma that some of these immigrant communities face surrounding mental illness.

“Understanding the cultural differences that come up around mental health, that’s something that we certainly deal with a lot,” she said. “And, being sensitive to how people view mental illness in their culture because there are certainly many different cultures that we interact with.” 

Even though understanding and establishing trust with these populations can be difficult at times, Portland’s behavioral unit does not shy away from interacting with immigrants. They try their best to create a trusting environment where individuals can get the necessary support and care that they need. 

Local Lewiston Office Helping Immigrant Youth:

Right in the heart of Lewiston, just blocks away from the Lewiston/Auburn Islamic Center and a bustling row of foreign businesses—the office for Youth Led Justice sits on 124 Lisbon St. 

The building has a few office spaces for employees and workers, and one central area. The area has a collective of curved desk that you can put together like puzzle pieces, a couch placed right in front of a wind that overlooks Lisbon street, and a door full of sticky notes. 

Above the sticky notes is the question: where do you feel the most like yourself? Through a mess of chicken scratch, block letters, and varying styles of penmanship that reflect the diverse age groups and backgrounds of the program’s participants, there were many perspectives.

One child wrote about how Fornite calmed them down, another wrote about their friends, but all gave answers that reflected the reality—they’re just kids. 

The restorative justice program seeks to prevent at risk youth from falling victim to the justice system. Through other young volunteers (ages 11-18) and adult supervisors, the program connects with adolescents in Lewiston, diverting them away from the juvenile and criminal systems. Even though Youth Led Justice serves children of all demographics, it deals with immigrant youth, especially Somali children because of the concentration of immigrants in the area. 

Building trust with the various immigrant populations in Maine is an incremental process that many local organizations have to maneuver. Similar to the PPD’s Behavioral Health Unit, Lemay’s organization (Youth Led Justice) faces issues with getting immigrant families to trust her and her team. 

“Even if they are living here with the right documentation, they are still afraid because they never know what’s going to happen,” Lemay said. “They don’t access medical care as much.” 

The first step that Lemay and her organization take in order to ensure that everyone can get the care that they deserve is to establish a relationship with each of the youths’ communities. She believes that it is essential to understand the perspectives of the immigrant youth and meet them on a level playing field.

“You have to understand them and the challenges,” she said. “Ask them what’s going on in their schools and in their communities. 

Lemay takes them time to go into her kids’ schools, parks, and other local communal spaces. She works to create a bond that young men and women can trust, and this allows them to share their intimate experiences with her and other program leaders. 

“It’s just being sensitive to what they’ve gone through and what their life is,” she said. “There have been kids that I didn’t think would open up to me, and they do, and they still call me.”

How Are These Organizations Moving Forward:

Relationships are paramount. Trust is the only way forward. Living in a foreign country with a leader who holds you under a microscope is intimidating, and it prevents you from being able to let your guard down. Organizations like the PPD’s Behavioral Unit, Youth Led Justice, and Spurwink, all help to supplant that intimidation and overcome the growing fear because they work to become a part of the communities that immigrants have built for themselves in Maine instead of expecting them to completely assimilate and integrate into a society that does not fully accept them.