It’s easy to think that what our state does doesn’t matter much, to lower our heads and get through each day with the notion that powerful people are going to decide everything anyway.

But it just isn’t so.

I am proud to live in a state whose residents saw federal agents running amok and decided to try to stop them. Not to hunker down in fear but to stand tall, speak up and push back.

The announcement late last week that immigration authorities would cease their “enhanced activities” in Maine was, assuming it proves true, a victory for decency.

Not long before, I stood amidst a huge crowd in Lewiston that gathered on a frigid afternoon under a simple slogan — “ICE Out” — to insist the armed, masked agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency go home and leave our neighbors alone.

It felt good to be surrounded by so many people who took time to bundle up and head out into the cold to insist that our government follow the law and treat some of the most needy people in our community with respect. Some of those in attendance were a little too zealous, sure, but I loved the spirit that brought them together.

As state Rep. Mana Abdi told the crowd, “We fight for our families, we fight for our friends, and we fight for each other.”

That summed it up pretty well.

The thing is, though, that we’re in America. We shouldn’t have to fight for our families and friends. We shouldn’t have to worry that we’ll be dragged from our cars on the way to work or coming home from school. Or simply gunned down on the streets.

It’s nice that strident opposition — and, probably, concern that more innocent people would wind up dead — caused ICE to scurry away from Minnesota and Maine, two states where residents understand we have to look out for each other.

But it isn’t enough.

Fear should never stalk this land of the free, dedicated for 250 years to the idea that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Those words, which have heartened Americans for generations, are precious because we care enough about them to weave them into every aspect of our lives — and not just to embrace them but to fulfill their promise, too.

Maybe we can take a breath and relax for a bit, though promises by the Department of Homeland Security to retreat need to be verified on the ground first.

Then it’s time to keep pushing back against an administration that routinely abuses the rights of everyone in this great land, whether they’re in Bangor or Brownsville, Lewiston or Louisville, Augusta or Atlanta.

“What ICE is doing to our community members is evil. It’s horrible to kidnap innocent people from their homes and families,” said Carlos Fra-Nero, a young man I’ve known in Lewiston for years. “We have to do everything in our power to fight for the rights and lives of all our community members because when one person gets hurt, we all get hurt.”

We’re all in this together, in a community that stretches from coast to coast. And we don’t have any choice except to win.