I recently read a Portland Press Herald article that described how American Legion Post 76 in Scarborough is allowing ICE to use its facilities for staging and parking. (American Legion allows ICE agents to park vehicles in its Scarborough parking lot).
I was a bit gobsmacked when I read this article. How can an organization that's devoted to supporting veterans also support an institution that’s causing harm to veterans and their communities?
So I started to contact other American Legion posts in Maine, and to note their responses. I recorded my results on this website: https://sites.google.com/view/maine-american-legion-ice/home
I got contact info for 168 Maine American Legion posts from https://mylegion.org/PersonifyEbusiness/Find-a-Post
Of these 168 posts, 62 had no email address listed. I emailed 104 of the remaining Posts that did have emails (I skipped the state HQ Post in Winslow, and the Scarborough post itself.)
17 of the 104 emails bounced.
From the 87 remaining valid emails, I received 2 responses:
Post 35 in South Portland supported ICE and the Scarborough post.
Post 197 in Westbrook opposed support for ICE, and opposed the actions of Post 76 in Scarborough.
Full contact log: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fWq_mi1ydoM5Vsbf8rrdYUDD6tw5hv2TdaC0hM0sq28/
The main result is that the response rate was very low!
I’m not sure how much of this is Posts being reluctant to speak up, versus other factors. E.g. did they even receive the email, etc.
I did think it was interesting that the two responses did not agree. In other conversations I’ve heard that there is a lot of variety in Posts. There’s really very little top-down command. A Post’s actions are really the product of its own local membership.
I had a kind of gut-level realization while sending out the individual emails, and seeing the bounce-messages come back. The realization was that these Posts are dying out. Many are located in out-of-the-way small Maine towns. I remember passing through many of these towns as a kid (I grew up in Maine). The population of Maine is very old in general. And I felt like I was hearing the last echoes of ghosts.
I’m debating whether I’ll follow up by phone with the posts for which I didn’t get responses. I’m not sure yet.
If you know anyone from a post that has not responded yet, please let them know I’d like to hear from them! I have a contact form here: https://forms.gle/MWSWD1ktU8fRnLXA8
I’d also like to do a similar survey with Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) posts. I’ve heard in general the VFW membership skews a bit younger. I'm curious what the response would be like.
I really want to people to be careful about NOT demonizing AL Posts that support ICE. I think it’s important to remember that AL members are probably people who genuinely care about their community. After all, they joined an organization to support fellow veterans!
I think a lot of the support comes down to long-held generational beliefs. Many of the AL members are older, and the idea that law enforcement could be bad is a really hard thing for many of them to grasp.
The AL as an organization also talks about ‘The Four Pillars’ (https://www.legion.org/about) . One of these pillars is ‘National Security’, which many posts interpret as unconditional support for law enforcement. What I wonder is how do AL posts reconcile the fact that ICE support goes against the other pillars they support?
And I think some of the support comes down to their information environment. From conversations I’ve had, it sounds like many American Legion posts have Fox news on all the time (or some other flavor of billionaire-owned news). There’s a good chance that their members aren’t getting the full picture.
To me, these are some of the interesting aspects of this moment (information bubbles, generational beliefs), and I think the American Legion is a really interesting microcosm of it all.
At the same time, I think it’s important to engage them. After all, if a post is providing support for ICE, that’s doing harm to our neighbors and communities. But try to find a way to engage in a way that builds bridges rather than burning them.
That's all for now! If you want to get in touch about this project, feel free to use this contact form: https://forms.gle/MWSWD1ktU8fRnLXA8 .