Janet T. Mills is governor of Maine.

A mother desperately seeking asylum for her three children at the Canadian border, detained after her appeals to remain in the state they call home fell on deaf ears. A small business owner on a job site, handcuffed and held despite his pending asylum claim. Neither had criminal records. Both were needlessly taken from their families and communities in Maine because of the broken immigration policies of Washington, D.C.

Despite promising to deport only “the worst of the worst,” those who pose a threat to public safety, President Trump has targeted all immigrants with a carelessness and cruelty that ignores due process and that ignites terror in our communities.

About 80% of the people arrested by federal authorities in Maine this year, in some cases pulled into unmarked cars by masked men, have no criminal records. Their children’s seats in class are empty, their presence missed in church, their communities wounded and their loved ones frantic as they try to find out where they were taken and why.

Immigrants across the country are watching these raids and the rage of the president of the United States against people who came to America seeking freedom, escape from persecution and violence, opportunity and belonging. They are wondering if they will pay a devastating price for believing in the welcoming promise of this country every time they drop their kids off at school to go to work to make a living for themselves and their family.

Most Maine people, regardless of political party, want an immigration system that works. A fair and reasonable set of rules that allow people who want to live here and contribute to this country to earn the right to become a citizen. I don’t know anyone — aside from our president and his allies — who wants our federal government to separate young children from their parents, arrest and abduct U.S. citizens or normalize hateful terms like “garbage.” Those policies and political attacks have been designed with a purpose: to harm immigrants and to divide Americans.

Many people feel powerless against the abuses being committed by this federal government, and so I understand why members of the Maine Legislature sent a bill to my desk at the end of the session to try to speak to the situation. LD 1971 would, generally speaking, not allow local law enforcement to work with ICE on immigration enforcement unless it’s related to a criminal investigation.

By law, when the bill reached my desk, I had ten days to either sign or veto it. I decided to continue to consider the bill past the ten-day window, but with the Legislature having adjourned sine die, it meant I also lost the ability to sign LD 1971. Instead, I could only either allow it to become law without my signature or veto it.

As a former district attorney and attorney general and now as governor, I carefully considered this bill. I’ve weighed my concerns that it imposes confusing restraints on law enforcement about when they can and can’t interact with federal authorities against the extraordinary and horrifying actions of a federal agency that has been weaponized by the president to undermine the rights of us all. And I also agree with the bill’s aim of ensuring that Maine law enforcement are enforcing Maine laws, not federal immigration law.

LD 1971 is imperfect, and we should not need it, but the times call for it. We cannot turn a blind eye to ICE’s unacceptable actions, and so I have chosen to allow LD 1971 to become law.

What’s more, while I can’t sign LD 1971, I can use my pen to repeal an executive order that undermines it. Today, I formally repealed a 2011 executive order issued by former Gov. Paul LePage that called for enhanced cooperation between state and federal officials on immigration enforcement. Under any other president, this may be acceptable, but under this Trump administration, it has become a broad and dangerous promise that Maine will not make.

By repealing the executive order and allowing this bill to become law, Maine is making clear what we believe: that the federal government should overhaul a failed immigration system that is trapping law-abiding people in the shadows, that it should target criminals who actually pose a danger to public safety, not schoolchildren and their parents, and that no one will make us abandon our neighbors based on the color of their skin or the country they once, if ever, called home.

And while my concerns about the law’s impact on law enforcement remain, I also believe our extraordinary and talented law enforcement officers can and will adapt, as they do in all manner of challenges, and Public Safety Commissioner Sauschuck stands ready to offer them guidance and to reinforce their ability to work with federal agencies on human trafficking, fentanyl importation and other serious crimes.

Maine will honor the hope that first brought immigrants to our state, home already to countless generations of the Wabanaki. The Irish dockworkers from Galway who worked the wharves of Portland’s waterfront, the French-Canadian farmers from New Brunswick who toiled in the fields of the St. John Valley, the Jewish families from Russia and Poland who opened shops in Bangor, Somali immigrants who ran small businesses in Lewiston and many other people from many other places who sought a better life and, finding it in Maine, have made our state a better place for every person to live, work and raise a family.

The inherent strength and beauty of America is not that we are bound by a common racial or religious heritage. It is that we are bound by the notion that, here, we are all treated equally under the law and we are all guaranteed equal opportunity to succeed. The story of America is our imperfect but never-ending march to turn that notion into reality — and that is why we are the best nation in the world and a beacon of leadership and hope to all others.

The president does not understand that, but Maine people do and that is why Maine will keep that hope alive and the promise of freedom, opportunity and belonging for all.