SCARBOROUGH, Maine — The Scarborough Town Council is exploring the legality of potential actions related to the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, while one council member has co-authored an opinion piece urging the building’s landlord to help remove the federal facility from 40 Manson Libby Road.

The council has moved up an executive session with its attorney, Bernstein Shur, from Sept. 30 to Sept. 16 to consider possible responses to a community petition. The petition calls for removal of the ICE processing facility from town and limits on municipal cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

An executive session of the council is a closed meeting permitted under state law for certain matters. Town Manager Thomas Hall said the Sept. 16 session will focus on potential town actions related to the ICE facility, “potentially involving the building owner and/or the tenant.”

State law allows executive sessions to address the council’s legal rights and duties, as well as pending or contemplated litigation, when public discussion could place the municipality at a substantial disadvantage.

Hall noted that no votes may be taken during an executive session. If the council reaches a consensus on next steps, however, the chair may provide general comments after returning to public session.

In a separate development, Town Councilor Jonathan Anderson recently co-authored an op-ed in the Portland Press Herald urging the building’s landlord to take steps to remove the ICE office. Anderson signed the piece in his role as chair of the Scarborough Democrats, not as a council member.

The building’s owner, Josh Soley, has previously said the space is leased to the federal General Services Administration (GSA), which determines which federal agency occupies it.

In the op-ed, Anderson acknowledged the role of the GSA and urged Soley to ask the agency to consider replacing ICE with another federal tenant or to evaluate alternative uses for the building that would better serve the government, the community and other tenants.

Anderson wrote that such a request could make Soley “part of a groundswell that finally rids our town of an unwanted element.” The op-ed also noted that Soley had not responded to a prior attempt to contact him privately.

The federal lease for the space occupied by ICE reportedly runs through 2034.

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Steve Hanly, Sept. 14, 2026