Delfino Nsuka said about half a dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers pulled him over in Lewiston on Jan. 22nd while he was on his way home from his job as a FedEx driver.
Nsuka, an asylum seeker from Angola, said he showed the officers his driver's license, work permit and Social Security card.
But it wasn't enough. Nsuka said the agents put him in handcuffs and drove him away.
"I was very scared," he said. "I'm just praying, you know, and just hoping, 'God just protect me,' because I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know where I was going at all."
Nsuka was swiftly transferred out of state, to a detention facility in Massachusetts.
ICE has shared very little about the more than 200 people it said agents arrested in Maine last month. But like Nsuka, many were asylum seekers with no criminal records, according to lawyers, family members and employers.
Robin Nice, an immigration lawyer in Boston, is representing six asylum seeker clients from Maine arrested during the surge last month. She said ICE technically does have the authority to detain people with pending asylum claims, but historically hasn't done so.
"But now, all of a sudden, everyone is fair game," she said.
Nice said this new approach isn't always standing up in court. Three of her Maine clients have already been released, and the other three have upcoming bond hearings.
But she said the seemingly random nature of the sweep could be a Trump administration tactic to push immigrants toward self-deporting.
"Scare people into giving up, and to make people think that it's going to be too hard, or that they will arbitrarily be picked up and forced to leave," she said.
Nice said being arrested can alter the course of someone's asylum application, by potentially moving it to a "defensive" or more adversarial track within the immigration court system. And she said even those whose cases continue normally could end up being ordered to restart the whole process somewhere else under a safe third country agreement.
"So people are getting deportation orders to a country that they have never set foot in and have no ties to," she said.
Nice has filed what’s known as habeas corpus petitions in federal court on behalf of her clients, challenging the basis of their detentions.
It’s part of a national flood of similar cases.
Immigrants have filed more than 18,000 habeas petitions during the first year of the Trump administration, according to ProPublica. That's more than were filed during the past three administrations combined.
One analysis by a federal judge in New York found that immigrants are prevailing in the vast majority of these cases.
Some recently arrested Maine residents are finding similar results, said Shaan Chatterjee, a Massachusetts-based immigration attorney.
In two recent cases, he said the government barely challenged his motions seeking bond hearings for Maine clients.
"The government's attorneys didn't even really file oppositions. They were more just waving the white flag," he said.
Unless there's a change in circumstances, such as involvement in a criminal case, Chatterjee said ICE should be less likely to detain those clients again.
A DHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment about recently arrested immigrants in Maine being released on bond, or whether they might be picked up again.
"But it's not impossible, you know?" Chatterjee said. "I mean, I think these days we're seeing that ICE is capable of just about anything."
It's a fear that still hangs over Delfino Nsuka, the Angolan asylum seeker in Lewiston.
He was released on bond in February after 15 days in ICE custody. His lawyer, Sahra Hassan, said in an email that Nsuka had a few key factors working in his favor: He originally entered the country on a visa, he has no criminal record, and he's married to an American citizen, offering another potential path to permanent status.
Still, Nsuka, who's lived in Maine since he was a teenager, said being suddenly picked up by ICE has destabilized his sense of belonging.
"Because I feel like, like I'm not wanted here or something," he said. "That's how it feels deep down."
Like many of those arrested during the ICE surge, Nsuka said he’s confused about why he was picked up to begin with. He says his focus has always been working, providing for his family and following a legal immigration pathway toward asylum.
Because he was arrested, his lawyer said his case has been moved to the more adversarial defensive track, meaning Nsuka may have to prove his case in front of a judge, rather than through an interview with an immigration officer. He and his wife are also saving up to begin the process of adjusting his status through their marriage.
For now, Nsuka says he's just trying to restart his life. He plans to get back to work for FedEx on Monday.
