SCARBOROUGH, Maine — The Scarborough Town Council voted 6-1 on Wednesday night to adopt an ordinance setting municipal policies on federal immigration enforcement, after one councilor who said he had supported the measure announced from the dais that he would vote against it because he felt he had been "baited."

The ordinance, titled Municipal Policies Regarding Federal Immigration Enforcement, was up for its second reading. The council chair said its intent was to align town policy with existing Scarborough police operating procedures and state law, and to remove any ambiguity about potential cooperation with ICE by town employees who are not police officers.

A town official told the council that a recently passed state law "puts some guardrails and restrictions" on police collaboration with immigration enforcement, and that the ordinance was meant "to extend those same sort of guidelines and limitations and restrictions" to the rest of the town's workforce.

Residents describe tension at ICE facility

Scarborough is home to an ICE facility, and several residents who said they protest there spoke in favor of the ordinance during public comment. One speaker who said she was a member of a community coalition to remove ICE called the ordinance "a really great first step."

Another resident read aloud what she described as an account of a phone conversation between a caller and a councilor about an armed protester at the facility, in which the councilor was quoted as saying, "ICE agents are plenty prepared to handle any situation that arises at the facility." The resident said that remark "sounds like a threat to me," adding, "I no longer feel safe in my own community."

Another resident thanked the council, saying, "It takes moral integrity and courage to stand up to this particular federal administration."

Councilor says he was set up

During council discussion, a councilor addressed the account. He said he had received "a bizarre phone call" saying a protester at the facility had a gun, and that he told the caller to contact Scarborough police. He said he told the caller that a protester has the right to carry a gun and that he thought the ICE agents were "well armed" and "can probably take care of themselves."

"Obviously, this was a bait thing to try and get me to say something," he said.

The councilor said he had backed the protesters' right to demonstrate "calmly and quietly and lawfully," but would now oppose the ordinance. "I was gonna be for this, I was in complete support of it until a few minutes ago," he said. "And maybe they did this to me because I'm a Republican and I feel like I'm on the show, the view, and I'm the token Republican."

A colleague urged him to reconsider, noting he had been the first to say the council needed to act. Another councilor said he wanted the facility "to leave Scarborough and then have no facility like that in the state of Maine," while acknowledging that is outside the council's power.

A town official told the council that police will still respond to calls for service at the facility, whether from people at the ICE facility or from protesters. "That does not, in my mind, constitute cooperation with ICE or anyone else," he said.

The ordinance then passed 6-1.