What to Know About Maine’s ‘Office of New Americans’

Gov. Mills and Democratic lawmakers used an unusual trick to create a migrant re-settlement office tasked with bringing 75,000+ migrants to Maine

The Office of New Americans State Network is a project of the Washington, D.C.-based American Immigration Council and the New York City-based World Education Services. Both parent organizations are 501(c)(3) nonprofits that work with the ONA State Network to develop ONAs in states across the country.

The Maine Office of New Americans states its goals are in alignment with Governor Janet Mills’ 10-year economic plan to bring 75,000 new people to Maine. 75,000 ‘New Mainers’ is closer to 300,000 people if you account for a spouse and an average of 2 children for each person being recruited to Maine by Gov. Mills and her administration. Maine’s population in the 2020 Census was 1,362,359 people.

Maine does not have the infrastructure or tax revenue to support this mandate from the Mills administration of an increase of almost 25 percent of existing 2020 population numbers. Ultimately, these increased costs will largely fall on municipalities for required General Assistance, school and utility costs. Healthcare costs will also increase for both public healthcare and private costs to offset demand for services. Moving this many people to Maine will also impact housing availability and opens the door through LD 2003 to municipalities being forced to adhere to Department of Housing and Urban Development density requirements for low-income housing.  

All of this drastic change and there was no bill to create a Maine Office of New Americans that received a vote by the House and Senate. No bill to do any of this made its way through the full legislative process with a public hearing, committee vote, House debate, Senate debate, House vote, Senate vote and required concurrence of those votes in both legislative chambers.

So how did we get here?

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