U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, told the Press Herald this week that lawmakers may not be able to reach an agreement on a Department of Homeland Security budget before the temporary funding runs out next Friday.

“I just learned that Sen. (Chuck) Schumer and Rep. (Hakeem) Jeffries had greatly expanded their list from the three items that Sen. Schumer just last week asked for,” Collins said Thursday. “I personally think we could use a little longer for these negotiations and I’m concerned about whether they will be able to be completed in the next week.”

DHS funding includes money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection — the agencies generating controversy for the heavy-handed tactics they used in Minnesota that led to the killing of two American citizens last month.

Schumer, the U.S. Senate minority leader, and Jeffries, his counterpart in the House, outlined 10 specific reforms needed before congressional Democrats would support the DHS budget. DHS is the only agency that has not been funded for the year.

Those reforms include prohibiting agents from wearing face masks; requiring identification for agents; requiring agents to obtain judicial warrants before entering private property; requiring an end to racial profiling; and ending enforcement sweeps at hospitals, schools, churches, courts and polling places.

Collins, who is not involved in the DHS funding negotiations, didn’t directly answer a question about the Democrat demands. Instead, she noted how the DHS budget she negotiated included money for body-worn cameras, de-escalation training for immigration agents and more oversight from independent inspectors general.

Agents in unmarked vehicles, often masked, swarmed into Maine for a week beginning Jan. 20. DHS says it apprehended more than 200 people, but the agency has provided little information about whom they arrested, and where detainees are being held. Advocates and family members say many of those taken did not have criminal records, contrary to the Trump administration’s claim that agents were coming for the “worst of the worst.”

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, also weighed in on the DHS funding fight, arguing that ICE agents need to be held to the same standards as law enforcement agencies nationwide.

“After what we saw from ICE in cities across the country, there is no doubt that Congress must act to implement guardrails to prevent further harm to the American people,” King said in a statement Friday. “Therefore, the essence of the Democrats’ proposal is simply to subject ICE to the same standards of conduct already applicable to every police force in the country — like no masks, identification, judicial warrants, body cameras, independent investigations of the use of force, and no racial profiling.” 

The top two contenders for the Democratic nomination in the race for Collins’ seat are urging their party’s congressional leaders to demand even more extensive reforms.

Gov. Janet Mills said in a written statement released by her campaign Friday that Democrats need to do more. She called her party’s demands “the bare minimum.”

Democrats, she said, should demand the removal of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials overseeing ICE operations; a revetting of ICE agents, especially new hires; a prohibition on the administration purchasing warehouses for detention centers; and a full accounting of Mainers swept up in federal raids last month.

“The Senate needs to reject the DHS funding bill until there are concrete measures in place to deliver accountability and rein in Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, and ICE’s reckless, dangerous, and lawless actions,” she said.

“Action like this is needed now, and Congress — including Senator Collins — should not continue to delay these obvious reforms. Until substantive changes are made, no state, including Maine, is safe from this administration’s weaponization of ICE.”

Graham Platner, a 41-year-old political newcomer who is also a top contender for U.S. Senate, has called for ICE to be “dismantled.”

When Jeffries told reporters last week that he also wanted a ban on deporting U.S. citizens, Platner was incredulous, saying on social media that such deportations are already not allowed.

“I knew Democratic leaders were stupid and ineffectual,” Platner said. “I had no idea they were THIS stupid and ineffectual.”

That prompted the Congressional Black Caucus to clap back.

“You better check yourself before you wreck yourself,” the group said. “@RepJeffries
explicitly said deporting U.S. citizens is unconstitutional — full stop. His point is that it’s so obvious that if extremists act like they don’t get it, Congress should remove all ambiguity.”

Platner also panned the new list of demands released Tuesday.

“This is not a ‘list of demands,'” he said. “This is a surrender.”