Following the detainment of a corrections officer last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now working to learn more information about employees at the Cumberland County jail.Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce says the Department of Homeland Security served his office with a subpoena for employment data on Jan. 23. Joyce said the subpoena was specifically for “the names and dates of birth for ALL employees working in the Cumberland County Jail from January 1, 2025-January 23, 2026.”The request came a day after Joyce held a press conference about how ICE detained one of his corrections recruits, whom Joyce said had passed through a rigorous hiring process and was legally allowed to work in the country. “In this particular case, this is an individual that had permission to be working in the state of Maine. We vetted him,” Joyce said. “Every indication we found is that this was a squeaky-clean individual that really hadn’t done anything at all.” Yet Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that this employee, named Emanuel Landila, was an “illegal alien” from Angola and had illegally crossed the southern border in 2019.“Following learning the county jail employed an illegal alien, ICE will no longer house illegal aliens at the facility,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “We could not, in good conscience, continue to partner with a law enforcement organization that flagrantly violated our nation’s immigration laws.” When asked why ICE is looking for the county jail’s employment data, a spokesperson for DHS said ICE Homeland Security Investigations had sent a notice of inspection to the sheriff’s office “to compel the sheriff to hand over the I-9 forms that every employer is required to complete in order to confirm they are following the law and employing people legally allowed to work in our country.”“Just last month, ICE arrested an illegal alien working at the Cumberland County Jail,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “It is only natural that we need to see that the sheriff isn’t employing any other lawbreakers.”The sheriff’s office says they did comply with the subpoena.
Following the detainment of a corrections officer last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now working to learn more information about employees at the Cumberland County jail.
Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce says the Department of Homeland Security served his office with a subpoena for employment data on Jan. 23. Joyce said the subpoena was specifically for “the names and dates of birth for ALL employees working in the Cumberland County Jail from January 1, 2025-January 23, 2026.”
The request came a day after Joyce held a press conference about how ICE detained one of his corrections recruits, whom Joyce said had passed through a rigorous hiring process and was legally allowed to work in the country.
“In this particular case, this is an individual that had permission to be working in the state of Maine. We vetted him,” Joyce said. “Every indication we found is that this was a squeaky-clean individual that really hadn’t done anything at all.”
Yet Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that this employee, named Emanuel Landila, was an “illegal alien” from Angola and had illegally crossed the southern border in 2019.
“Following learning the county jail employed an illegal alien, ICE will no longer house illegal aliens at the facility,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “We could not, in good conscience, continue to partner with a law enforcement organization that flagrantly violated our nation’s immigration laws.”
When asked why ICE is looking for the county jail’s employment data, a spokesperson for DHS said ICE Homeland Security Investigations had sent a notice of inspection to the sheriff’s office “to compel the sheriff to hand over the I-9 forms that every employer is required to complete in order to confirm they are following the law and employing people legally allowed to work in our country.”
“Just last month, ICE arrested an illegal alien working at the Cumberland County Jail,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “It is only natural that we need to see that the sheriff isn’t employing any other lawbreakers.”
The sheriff’s office says they did comply with the subpoena.