ICE removed all detainees from Cumberland County Jail and DHS canceled its housing contract hours after sheriff criticized ICE's tactics

On the night of January 22, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed all roughly 50 federal detainees from the Cumberland County Jail in Portland, Maine, hours after Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce held a news conference criticizing the agency's tactics as "bush league." Joyce's criticism concerned ICE's January 21 arrest of Cumberland County Jail corrections recruit Emanuel Ludovic Mbuangi Landila, an Angolan asylum seeker whom agents pulled from his car in Portland's Bayside neighborhood; Joyce said Landila's background check had come back "squeaky clean" and his paperwork showed work authorization through April 2029. The following day, the Department of Homeland Security formally canceled its contract to hold detainees at the jail, and ICE separately subpoenaed Cumberland County for the employment records of every jail staff member hired since January 2025; the county confirmed it complied. [7]

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin cited Landila's arrest in a written statement, saying the department could not "continue to partner with a law enforcement organization that flagrantly violated our nation's immigration laws." ICE Deputy Assistant Director Patricia Hyde was more direct in her own written statement, saying Joyce "chose to turn on his law enforcement brethren" instead of "owning up to his own department's failures," and that Joyce "should clean up his own house before criticizing those who actually protect our communities." Asked whether the removal felt retaliatory, Joyce said, "It seems like an immediate response, right?" ICE initially told a federal court the removals were due to a lack of bed space, a justification a lawyer for one affected detainee later said was false.

In the same rushed transfer, ICE moved detainees despite standing federal court orders barring their relocation. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maine told the court it had not been informed of the transfers in advance and acknowledged that ICE had violated judges' orders. U.S. District Judges Stacey Neumann and John Woodcock Jr. responded by ordering the immediate release of at least three detainees whom ICE had moved in direct violation of standing orders protecting them from transfer, including a Brazilian woman married to a U.S. citizen and a Chinese national who has lived in the U.S. for more than three decades.

The federal government pays Cumberland County $150 per day per detainee under the contract, a revenue source county commissioners had voted in November 2025 to keep despite months of protests calling for its end.

Updates

2026-02-10 — Immigration judge granted Landila bond and ordered his release [5]

An immigration judge in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, granted Emanuel Ludovic Mbuangi Landila a $6,000 bond and ordered his release, after his attorney said DHS had misrepresented his employment status and family ties in court filings.

2026-04-22 — County commissioners voted to formally drop ICE from jail contract [6]

The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners voted 3-1 to remove ICE from its detainee-housing agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service, roughly three months after DHS's unilateral cancellation and following months of public pressure that predated it.