How Maine’s Clergy Fought Back Against ICE—And Won
A frontline reverend and leader of ‘The God Squad’ tells her story.
By Rev. Jane Field, Executive Director, Maine Council of Churches
When the phone rang on a cold morning in January, I didn’t recognize the number, but something told me to pick it up anyway. It was Ben Waxman, owner of American Roots, a small company on the fourth floor of an old mill in a small Maine town. They make sweatshirts, t-shirts, and other apparel. So why was he calling me?
Because his friend, Mike, a Roman Catholic priest, told him to call. Mike and I go way back—he once sat on the Board of the Maine Council of Churches (MCC), where I’m the Executive Director, and Mike has served on our Public Policy Committee. When Ben told Mike he had an emergency need for clergy to show up and help him protect his workers, Mike said, “Call Jane. MCC can help.”
Ben needed to protect his workers because more than half of them are immigrants—all here legally. They belong to a union, pay taxes, get vacation and health insurance, and are paid a living wage. Now they were frightened. And Ben was frightened for them. Because the ICE surge in Maine (heinously named “Operation Catch of the Day”) was starting. And they knew from watching the horror unfolding in Minnesota—where ICE was carrying out a deadly mass occupation of the city—that being here legally doesn’t necessarily protect them from the masked agents abducting people.
Ben was willing to do whatever he could to protect his beloved employees. So, when the ICE surge began, he was prepared to use every connection he had to protect them.
During our talk, Ben mentioned he grew up in a multifaith home; his dad was Jewish, and they sometimes attended the Portland synagogue, but he hadn’t met their new rabbi yet. After we hung up, I called my friend Rabbi Rachel Simmons—who ministers there—to loop her in, and she said she’d follow up with Ben.
So that’s how, on a freezing cold Wednesday morning in January, a priest, a rabbi, and a Presbyterian minister (that’s me), walked into a sweatshirt factory.
We sat with Ben and his employees to find out how we could help. They asked if we’d come back at closing time to be peaceful observers, and possibly deter ICE agents from abducting workers as they left to go home. And would we come back again Thursday morning to do the same thing as workers arrived? We said we’d come every morning and every evening for as long as they wanted us to.
I asked if they’d want more clergy than just the three of us. Ben looked at me in disbelief, “You think others would come?” “Don’t worry,” I assured him, “The God Squad will have your back.” He roared with laughter and that quickly became his nickname for us.
That afternoon, not just three, but 25 (!) clergy rolled into the parking lot, climbed out of their cars into the freezing cold, and formed a human barrier, lining the sidewalk in front of the factory door. Non-immigrant coworkers pulled up their cars behind us so the frightened employees could climb inside safely. Ben walked up and down the line hugging everyone. When the God Squad began singing “We Shall Overcome,” that six-foot-four giant of a man began to weep. By 5 pm, we had gotten every employee into their cars and on their way home, following safe routes that Ben’s “spies” out in the community were calling in based on where ICE was (and wasn’t).
At 7:15 am the next morning, even more clergy turned up and lined the sidewalk. At first, not many employees came, still frightened of being wrongfully detained. But Ben got on his walkie talkie and then asked us if we could stay, because the frightened workers who weren’t going to come to work that day had changed their minds when they heard we were there and would stand up to protect them.
Did ICE show up? You bet. Sometimes circling the block like vultures, or idling in the employee parking lot, or hiding across the bridge and around the corner. But they never crossed our line.
Clergy were on that sidewalk every morning and every evening for more than two weeks. They also organized a massive grocery shopping project, getting members of their churches to fill grocery orders for employees who were too frightened to go to the market.
When the surge ended, Ben invited all of the clergy to come to the factory for breakfast and a factory tour. Employees and clergy applauded each other, cried and laughed and hugged, and then Ben and his wife Whitney presented each clergy person with an American Roots sweatshirt emblazoned on the back with a halo and the words “God Squad” in big gold letters.
Let’s be clear: The terror is not over. ICE remains active in Maine, abducting innocent people almost every day—just not on the scale they did during the surge. Our immigrant neighbors still live in fear.
Clergy activists and organizers have shifted their work to becoming bond sponsors for detainees, and holding nonviolent civil disobedience actions at the Massachusetts detention center, where most Mainers are first taken after ICE abducts them. The ICE Watch hotline and rapid response program that faith leaders in Maine helped establish is still running and has over 1,000 volunteer operators and verifiers.
As I write this, dozens of faith communities from around the state are hosting “Love is the Point,” a gathering designed to counter a Turning Point USA rally being held just a few blocks away. Local musicians will perform, clergy will offer words of blessing, comfort, and solidarity for our neighbors targeted by the administration and its enablers like TPUSA: immigrants, LGBTQ+ folks, women seeking reproductive health care, the poor and unhoused, and victims of gun violence. And the audience will be invited to donate to local nonprofits serving them.
These public acts of faith-based resistance and solidarity are important and make a difference. They embody the highest ideals and values of our great faith traditions: love of neighbor, justice for the oppressed, peace, and compassion. And they inspire and empower others to stand up, show up, and speak up when they realize they are not alone. Together, we can restore our democracy, take back our neighborhoods, and create a better world where all are welcome, valued, respected, and safe.
Rev. Jane Field is Executive Director of the Maine Council of Churches. Founded in 1938, the Council is a coalition of seven mainline Protestant denominations that have more than 400 churches in Maine with over 50,000 parishioners in their care. MCC’s mission is to speak with a prophetic voice of faith, connecting people within, through, and beyond the church to create a more just, compassionate, and peaceful world.
Rev. Field has served as Executive Director since 2015. Before that, she served Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, and Lutheran churches in New York, Connecticut, and Maine, and worked at domestic violence programs in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Maine. She holds a B.A. in Economics and Public Policy from Kalamazoo College, an MPA from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and an MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Thank you for sharing this story.
The God Squad is certainly doing the Lord’s work. Thank you for highlighting them.