Earlier this year, Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins voted for a $70 billion funding package for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Until President Trump leaves office, more than half of this funding will be used to fund ICE alone.

By the time of the April vote (a vote of 214-212), there was no ambiguity about what the masked and muscular ICE of Trump’s second term is, does or gets away with. Last Monday morning in Biddeford, Collins’ constituents were delivered a deeply distressing reminder.

The fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero by an ICE agent hired just this year was the second such killing in America in as many weeks. All of us in Maine are continuing to reckon with the fact that his wife and his 3-year-old daughter watched him die.

This federal agency has been on administrative steroids in recent years — hastily and carelessly manned by recruits who were drawn in by unusual cash bonuses; led by people who are indifferent to its already cynically lowered standards; committed to meeting arbitrary arrest and detention quotas; and answering to almost nobody. 

When things go wrong, and they have gone very wrong, the response has been to double down. In January of this year, after two people were shot dead by ICE agents in Minnesota, Sen. Collins declined to call for the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who saw fit to defend the fatal shootings before any investigation into them had commenced.

When ICE paused its work in Maine later that month, Sen. Collins spoke about steps to “improve trust, accountability and safety.”

Safety still doesn’t come into this, evidently, nor does accountability. By any sensible standard, both in the bloodied streets and by the courts nationwide that have found ICE to have — again and again — distorted the truth and deceived the public, trust has been destroyed.

Members of this editorial board were appalled last week to see Maine’s senior senator again reach for the bewilderingly promotional word “improve.”

“While it is clear ICE needs to improve its performance,” Collins said in a statement, “it is important to remember that the work ICE does to protect our country goes far beyond immigration enforcement.”

Collins’ sustained commitment to this sloppy, deadly incarnation of ICE strains credulity. In the absence of any cause for optimism about effective federal reform, we’ve resorted to mitigation efforts at the state and local levels.

Writing in this defeated spirit last September, we called on Maine to assume a more firm and unified stand against the work of ICE locally. Early last summer, we praised a handful of Maine towns that chose to withdraw or pause their departments’ work with ICE. If this reads to you now as quaint, please know that we agree.

In December, Gov. Janet Mills allowed a bill limiting Maine law enforcement’s cooperation with ICE (due to take effect next week) to pass without her signature. Just a few weeks later, ICE revealed the brazen, cartoonish name for a program of “enhanced” activities that terrorized communities around Maine: Operation Catch of the Day.

Last week, Mills was heckled away from a memorial for Guerrero in Biddeford. A set of angry protesters shouted at the governor and demanded she do something. At least one reporter tried to get the governor to say she regretted not signing the December bill into law.

Our March investigation into correspondence between ICE agents and local police in Portland resulted in considerable public dismay. The police department was dismayed too, ultimately calling a meeting with editors to complain about damage done by the association.

Let’s stop this. Let’s correct our focus. When it comes to federal immigration policy and enforcement, the buck starts and stops with Congress. The policies are horrible. The practices are out of control. And the resulting discomfort and anger needs to be reserved for the source.

What little intervention Sen. Collins has managed in response to Maine’s outrage in recent days pales in comparison to what the senator has knowingly and willingly allowed ICE to become. It’s been a very poor performance so far.