XPost: talk.politics.misc, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.law-enforcement
XPost: me.politics, sac.politics

A Maine resort town is challenging the Trump administration’s criticism
of its police department after a seasonal reserve officer was arrested
by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week. The incident is
putting renewed focus on the accuracy of E-Verify, the system the
federal government created for employers to check if prospective
employees have legal authorization to work in the United States.

Federal immigration officials have asserted that the Old Orchard Beach
Police Department either “knowingly” hired an unauthorized immigrant as
a reserve officer or did not do enough independent verification of the
man’s status. The department has said it thoroughly checked the
background of Jon-Luke Evans, and he was approved to work there as an
officer in May through the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify Program.

ICE said it arrested Evans, a Jamaican citizen, last Friday after he
unlawfully attempted to buy a firearm, triggering an alert with the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which worked with
ICE to make the arrest. ICE said that Evans overstayed a visa that
required him to leave in October 2023. But the town's police department
said E-verify cleared Evans' work eligibility until March of 2030.

“The Old Orchard Beach Police Department follows all of the
pre-employment guidelines expected of an employer in the State of Maine
and in the U.S., and we are providing this additional information in
response to statements made by certain federal agencies that only work
to undermine public trust and confidence in municipal law enforcement,”
the town's manager, Diana Asanza, said in a joint statement with the
police department on Wednesday evening.

“Today, the Department of Homeland Security doubled down on its attack,
but in doing so has thrown its own electronic verification system into question. If we should not trust the word of the federal computer system
that verifies documents and employment eligibility, what good is that system?” Asanza said.

The joint statement came after DHS said earlier Wednesday that using
E-Verify “does not absolve employers of their legal duty to verify documentation authenticity, and all employers should take necessary
steps to effectively verify legal employment status.”

“The Old Orchard Beach Police Department’s reckless reliance on E-Verify
to justify arming an illegal alien, Jon Luke Evans, violates federal
law, and does not absolve them of their failure to conduct basic
background checks to verify legal status,” DHS Assistant Secretary
Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement.

McLaughlin also defended the E-Verify system, saying it “is a proven,
no-cost tool that delivers high accuracy in verifying work authorization
by cross-checking employee documents against government databases to
combat rampant document fraud and protecting American workers.”

E-Verify is operated by the Department of Homeland Security in
partnership with the Social Security Administration.

After McLaughlin issued the DHS statement, Old Orchard Beach released a statement of its own detailing the steps it took to verify Evans'
immigration status and eligibility to work.

The town said that before the police department hired Evans, it compiled
a 153-page personnel file on him that included background checks,
driving records, copies of identification cards, education and medical
records, and personal references.

Evans provided required information including an I-9 federal immigration
and work authorization form, as well as his Jamaican birth certificate, Massachusetts driver’s license, U.S. social security card, work
authorization card, among other documents, according to the statement.

“The Old Orchard Beach Police Department thoroughly checked Mr. Evans’ background and verified that all information and documentation he
provided was accurate. The depth of his personnel file shows the
diligence the Town takes in hiring,” Police Chief Elise Chard said.

It said it then submitted Evans’ forms to DHS’ E-Verify program, and in
May the federal agency verified Evans’ status and said he was authorized
to work legally through March 19, 2030.

“Evans would not have been permitted to begin work in Old Orchard Beach without DHS verifying his status. The federal government has
aggressively pushed all employers — government and private — to rely on E-Verify in the hiring process,” the town and police department said.

“Simply stated, had the federal government flagged his information the
Town would not have hired Mr. Evans,” Chard said. “Any insinuation that
the Town and Department were derelict in our efforts to verify Mr.
Evans’ eligibility to work for the Town is false and appears to be an
attempt to shift the blame onto a hard-working local law enforcement
agency that has done its job.”

The policed released 54 pages of his personnel file, which NBC News has reviewed, showing records related to his police department application
process, which state that employment is conditional upon a background
check, the submission of mandatory paperwork, drug screening and
mandatory training sessions. The records also show Evans was required to provide two valid forms of ID for payroll processing and that he passed
all of his training sessions before he was approved to work as a reserve officer. The documents also include Evans’ résumé and educational
records.

DHS did not respond to requests for comment on the Old Orchard Beach
town and police department statement. It also did not share what steps
and methods, beyond E-Verify, it suggests local police departments and
other employers use to independently verify an immigrant applicant’s
legal status and work authorization.

ICE had accused the police department of “knowingly breaking the law”
and hiring an immigrant in the country illegally. The police department
denied the claim, saying the federal government’s own system had
approved the man to work as a reserve officer.

Rep. Lori K. Gramlich, a Democrat who represents Old Orchard Beach in
the state House of Representatives, said in a statement Thursday that in
light of the conflicting accounts, she was calling for a thorough
federal review of E-Verify and DHS’ authorization process “that allowed Officer Evans to begin work in good faith in May 2025.

“This incident highlights the importance and necessity of reliable
federal systems to support the lawful employment of noncitizen residents
in community-serving roles,” she said. “We must do better to prevent
such situations in the future, protect community trust and ensure
fairness and accountability.”

Melissa Azallion Kenny, a partner at the firm Burr & Forman who
specializes in immigration law, said that in her experience working with clients, when a prospective employees’ information is properly entered
into the E-Verify system, it is usually accurate in confirming
employment authorization. But in general, there have been instances of
both false positives and false negatives, including potentially cases of identity fraud, she said.

Azallion Kenny said that while all the facts aren’t fully known or
public in the Maine case, if she were counseling an employer who had
fully and accurately completed an I-9 form, thoroughly gone through the E-Verify system and done the checks the police department said it
conducted, “I would at least feel confident that I could provide some
sort of good faith defense” to demonstrate the employer did everything
it could do to comply.

Maine is one of about a dozen states that allow noncitizens to work in
law enforcement. Some require an immigrant to be a green-card holder,
while others, such as Maine, require an immigrant to be legally
authorized to work in the U.S.

The town has said that its police department, like many in coastal
communities, uses a seasonal supplementary workforce when the population
surges in the summer months.

Maine has some 34,000 immigrant workers, or 4.6% of the state’s labor
force, according to the American Immigration Council. There are also an estimated 5,800 unauthorized immigrants of working age in the state,
according to the council.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/maine-ice-arrest-reserve-officer-pro perly-vetted-jon-luke-evans-rcna222097

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