Senate candidate Graham Platner (D., Maine) urged supporters to donate to an anti-ICE group led by several Somalis tied to a nonprofit under congressional investigation for allegedly defrauding the state of millions of dollars in Medicaid payments.
The day after ICE launched a statewide operation targeting illegal aliens in Maine, Platner promoted the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (MIRC), a taxpayer-funded nonprofit that touted its “ICE Watch Hotline” earlier this month. Its board has included Deqa Dhalac and Nathan Davis, who have been named persons of interest in a congressional probe over their leadership roles at Gateway Community Services Maine.
“Maine is reeling from ICE’s latest assault. Those incarcerated, and their families, need our support,” Platner wrote on Instagram Thursday. “I’m asking you, if you have anything to spare, to consider contributing to the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition. See the link in my bio, and please spread this far and wide.”
Dhalac, a Somali-born state representative for Maine’s 120th district who has campaigned with Platner, served as Gateway Community Services Maine’s assistant executive director from May 2022 to March 2023. She sat on MIRC’s board as a founding member since 2017 and was its vice president until last month, around the same time she was named a person of interest. Davis, who has worked at Gateway Community Services Maine since May 2022 and took over as executive director in June, remains an at-large MIRC board member.
