PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — For the second time in a month, immigration detainees were flown out of the Presque Isle International Airport on Wednesday morning, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
A CBP spokesman confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that the flight had taken off from the Presque Isle airport. Because of the high number of people the agency has detained in Maine, it had to transfer some of them to other states, he said.
The agency did not immediately respond to questions related to the number of people on the flight or where they were headed.
“In order to facilitate expeditious processing of those individuals it is necessary to transfer them to different [Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement Removal Operations] locations across the country,” said the spokesperson, Ryan Brissette of the Department of Homeland Security. “These types of transfers will continue until such time that apprehensions in the area return to a level in which local assets can adequately address the need.”
The flight on Wednesday came after another one on May 23, when agents from CBP’s Houlton Sector helped to coordinate the transport of 42 detainees on a flight from Presque Isle to Detroit for further removal proceedings. And on May 11, authorities transferred 29 immigrants lodged in Portland to other parts of the country for further processing, according to CBP.
President Donald Trump has issued a series of executive orders for CBP and other agencies to step up their enforcement and removal efforts throughout the country, including in Maine. That has led to a dramatic increase in immigration-related arrests throughout the state and other parts of New England this year.
In April, officials with the CBP’s Houlton Sector — which covers all of Maine — said they arrested 113 people from 16 countries who were in the U.S. illegally, marking the sector’s highest number of arrests in a single month in nearly 24 years.
Earlier this month, border patrol agents from Maine assisted in a large, month-long operation led by ICE officials in Massachusetts, which led to 1,500 apprehensions of people with criminal histories allegedly in the country illegally, according to ICE officials.
Houlton Sector agents directly contributed to 154 of those apprehensions, according to CBP.
Within the last month, CBP agents have made multiple immigration-related arrests throughout the state, including in Houlton, Calais, Madawaska, Rangeley, Montville, Brunswick, Caribou and Augusta. Many of these arrests followed minor traffic stops.
Last month, Houlton Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Christopher Kuhn said the flight out of Presque Isle on May 23 demonstrated their work “to ensure that individuals illegally present in the U.S. are apprehended and repatriated to their country of origin.”
