Remember Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, 25, Who Was Shot and Killed by ICE in Biddeford on Monday, July 13, 2026. He left Behind a Widoew nd Three Year Old Daughter.
Renee Nicole Good, 37, Murdered by ICE Thugs on January 7, 2026.
Alex Pretti, 37, an ICU VA Nurse was Murdered by ICE Thugs Earlier This Year. .
Nurses at Maine Medical Center (MMC) in Portland, are staging an emergency protest on WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5th to demand the release of an RN colleague who is being detained by ICE despite the fact that she is legally authorized to live and work in the country while she waits for her asylum case from Zambia to be processed.
The protest takes place on the Western Promenade near 22 Bramhall Sreet, in Portland at 10:30 am.
On July 30, ICE took into custody Deborah Kapisha, a medical-surgical registered nurse at MMC while she was traveling through Logan Airport in Boston, MA. ICE plans to transfer her Wednesday from Massachusetts to Lousiana, where she will be far from her famly, legal counsel and support systems. Her union is coodinating with her attorneys to work for her release and prevent the transfer.
Besides her release, her union nurse coworkers are demanding that their employer, Maine Medical Center, take immediate steps to formally sponsor her for permanent residency.
“Debra is an amazing nurse and takes great care of her patients,” said Abigal Nelson, an MMC RN who has worked alongside Ms. Kapisha and considers her a friend. “She is a kind and supportive coworker. We are like a family here and it feels like a piece of us is mssing.
“ICE is imprisoning a nurse who cares for and saves lives every day in our community,” said Cokie Giles, a Maine RN and vice president of NNU. “When ICE kidnaps critical, upstanding and hardworking members of our commuity like this, they are broadcasting their real intentions and goal. To kick all Black and brown people out of the country and turn the United States into a fascist, white supremacist society — as well as terrorize all people who fight back. Nurses envision a just society and say,’ Absolutely not!'” MMC nurses are represented by Maine State Nurses Association/National Nurses Organiziing Committee, an affiliate of Natinal Nurses United.
Since ICE began kidnapping Black and brown people and terrorizing our communities, National Nurses United has called it out as an illegitimate, violent, paramililtary organization that must be promptly abolished. On top of people that immigrant enforement officers have shot and killed in the streets, such as Johan Sebastian Guerrero, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, VA RN Alex Pretti and Renee Good, at least 52 people have died within the immigration detention system during Trump’s second term mainly due to withholding of adequate medical care, according to Human Rights Watch.
Nurses are outraged though not surprised that their employer, MMC. has said it will not help Ms. Kapisha. MMC’s owner, MaineHealth is currently embroiled with its nurses in a fight to end a secretive agreement it has with Palantir, an A.I. company well known for its government contracts helping ICE target people for detention.
Maine State Nurses Association is part of National Nurses Organizing Committee, repreenting 4,000 nurses andother caregivers from Portland to Fort Kent. NNOC is an affiliate of National Nurses United, the largest and fastesst-growing labor union of registered nurses in the US with nearly 225,000 members nationwide.