Bulwark Takes - ICE Detains a Corrections Officer, Leaves His Pregnant Wife Terrified (w/ Ben Bozeman)

Episode Date: January 25, 2026

Over the past week, there’s been a surge of ICE activity in Maine and one incident in particular has captured national attention. A corrections officer recruit was detained by ICE in the middle of the street and his car was left running in the cold. Tim Miller spoke to witness Ben Bozeman, who captured the shocking footage and stepped in to help return the officer’s car.Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce, whose recruit was detained, called ICE’s actions “Bush League policing.” We reached out to the Cumberland County Sheriff's office Friday afternoon and spokesperson said that they have not been given any information about the status or whereabouts of their colleague.

Hey, everybody. Tim Miller from the bulwark here. Obviously, we've been focusing a lot on what was happening with ICE and CPP in Minneapolis. But there has also been a surge over the past week of activity in Maine. And one video in particular has caused a stir up there and caught our attention. This was of a correction officer, off-duty recruit, that was hassled by these federal agents. And despite the fact that the person was, A, not here illegally, and B, a part of law enforcement themselves. And this video that has prompted a press conference and other stuff will get into it a little bit was taken by local resident Ben Bozeman. And we're lucky to have a chance to talk to him now. So I'll watch the video and then we'll get with Ben on the other side.

I'm not with that one. And, come to the Georgia. What's wrong? I'm just coming from war. What's wrong? I never understand me. I don't have any of my life there. Oh my God.

Oh my uniform is right there. No, I'm really straight to you, man. I don't know. My uniform is right there. What's cool? I worry. If I want that right, I haven't been working with the government. What's the law?

He's got a job. He's got a productive members of society. Can't have productive members of society. What's his crime? Having a job? Is this he has a job? Is crime having a job? Is your job fulfilling you?

Is it a job? Is it like make you feel good? Fuck you got it. What's good a thing about? Just leave his fucking car there, I guess. Hey, Ben, man. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, my pleasure.

So tell us a little bit about the scene, like what your situation was, how you spotted it, just paint a little picture for us. Yeah, I mean, I was just in the area. There's a few breweries nearby, so just saw, I was walking by and saw, you know, the lights pop on, the blue lights flashing, and then within, moments, you know, four other unmarked cars themselves started lighting up, flashing as well. Just coordinated, swoop down on this guy's car, like five, seven some odd agents popped out.

And I think my video I started in the three minutes, I think, tops, it was done. Left his car on the side of the road, left it running, left the windows down. It was maybe 10 degrees outside. And that was it. So I guess their plan was just to leave it there for the rest of the night. I hopped in and put it in a parking lot nearby just to get it off the street. So you took the car and put away in it, and you contacted, like, what, immigration advocates, you said? Yeah, so there's a local group that's doing a lot of good work, doing their best, I guess, to sort of like provide support for families that have been affected called Project Relief, Maine.

I didn't really know what to do with the video. I'm not really like a huge, you know, online presence or anything. So I message them, said I had this video of this guy being, you know, just abducted. And what should I do with it? And so they, you know, I sent it to them. I was able to, in this guy's car, you know, in the glove box, find the car's registration. I got his name. With his name, I was able to, you know, pass that along.

They were able to track down his family. and sort of work as an intermediary between myself and the family to, you know, figure out what next. And basically just, you know, first things first is get the car back to him because they were too afraid to leave once they had heard what happened to him. So, yeah, so I ended up bringing the car to his wife myself later that night. Oh, man. That's cool. How was she doing? Uh, awful. That was probably the, that was one of the worst things I've personally ever experienced. Um, I think she, you know, was in her early 20s. I, you know, I don't want to like, I'm just, I'm still, I haven't really heard from, from them. I've reached out to project relief to see if I could, you know, continue to be of service to, to her specifically because it was, you know, affected me so much. But yeah, she was, you know, visibly shaken. She's crying. She's pregnant with their first child. And just, you know,

the feeling I had of just like complete helplessness in the face of like utter despair was was just like, yeah, soul crushing. I don't know. I don't really have the words. But yeah, I mean, she, what really got me was she asked me if I knew how long it would be that he would be detained for it and I just you know I don't know just shattered me I don't so uh that's horrible and so at this point we haven't heard what anything more no I mean then the press conference that um that the sheriff gave yesterday yeah why don't we pull that up actually for people who haven't seen it I'm just going to play a little clip of that and then we can talk about that on the other side this is the cumberland county sheriff Kevin Joyce great accent he has and again it's just another situation we were talking about

this similarly in Minneapolis where the administration and Vance, these guys are saying that they're not targeting people, you know, based on skin color, that they're not doing anything inappropriate. And then similarly to Minneapolis, here we have a local member of local law enforcement saying, no, the opposite. They're menacing my own people and they're doing it improperly. Let's just listen to a little bit from Kevin Joyce. This is an individual that had permission to be working in the state of Maine. We vetted him. He took the extra step of risking his job to fly to Texas to take care of hearings, and for some reason he was picked up last night.

Folks, that's Bush League policing. Again, in my world, you wait for a wrecker. You wait for somebody to come pick it up that the individual wants. Or you get permission to drive the vehicle into a public parking spot, and you lock it up and you give the person their car keys. You don't leave their personal belongings unsecure along the streets of the city of Portland. It's not fair to the guy that owns the car.

It's surely not fair to the Portland police. And it's what my understanding is is going on. I'll end with this. We're being told one story, which is totally different than what's occurring or what occurred last night. Every indication we found is that this is, this was a squeaky clean individual that really hadn't done anything at all. So yeah, man, that's the sheriff.

And, you know, I don't know. So did you have any kind of contact with them about the situation? I haven't had any contact with any sort of law enforcement or anything like that. I've reached out again, like I said, to the various, like immigrant advocacy groups. But they've also been posting that, you know, they're getting. absolutely inundated, flooded with messages, both from, you know, community members like myself who want to volunteer and want to support, but also I would imagine from family members of people who have been, you know, detained or abducted or any, you know. So I'm sure that they're all

just underwater at this point. They have to vet everyone that wants to volunteer to make sure that, you know, there's no, you know, bad actors or people trying to, you know, troll them or something. So no, I haven't heard anything about the gentleman in question about whether or not he, you know, where he is. If he's still detained, I assume he is. But yeah, it's just been, it's been a vacuum. And I, yeah, I keep just thinking about his wife and just, I don't know if she's like alone. I hope there's family nearby that can, I don't know, bring groceries, you know, just do little things. And also she's, like I said, midway through a pregnancy that doesn't have her breadwinner to sort of like take part in or provide support. And it's just, I can't, yeah, words are.

That's brutal. And that kid is an American. The kid is going to be an American. And this guy, and according to his sheriff Joyce, you know, he was hired in February. he'd gone through, he'd been doing his paperwork, done all the right things. And this is just the same thing we've seen over and over again. It's people who are trying to go about this the right way that are being targeted. What was, like, what inspired you to get involved?

Was it, like, have you been wanting to get involved? Does it just happenstance that you were there? Are you, like, are you kind of a person that does activism stuff? I mean, yeah, I mean, I like to consider myself at least, like, politically literate, if not, you know, super active. But no, I mean, in this case, it's like I'd obviously seen, seeing videos going back months now from different parts of the country. I have a friend in Minneapolis.

I'd, you know, been in contact with him about everything that's going on in Minnesota. And it's, you know, you see the videos and it's awful. But to see it, you know, just, you know, felt very surreal. sort of walking by and then the lights come on and it's like, oh, this is, this is happening right now, right in front of me. This guy is like, you know, pleading for pleading his innocence and being ripped away out of his vehicle. So it's like, like I said, it's one thing reading about it. And then just to sort of be thrust into it was was completely another thing. Are you hearing a lot more about other instances and this has been happened recently? Like,

you hear more at work or like are your buddies or whatever? Yeah, I mean, like, it's, there's reports of every day it's it's something else in a different part of town and you know a couple towns away a couple cities over um you know mother of four i think got got she dropped her kids off at a local high school they followed her home and they they you know grabbed her in the parking lot as she was getting out of her out of her car to go back in her house um yeah i mean it's just losing track but yeah i think a local pastor got got grabbed I think a couple now corrections officers have been have been taken but yeah the cases are or the instances are really mounting up and it's you know it's getting kind of dizzying honestly I just this is a

politics show so I've like I have to take my shot with a one-man focus group here do you have any obviously the main politics stuff's kind of hot right now interesting different primaries is anything what's cut who's catching your eye flattener I mean I'm really excited I it just seems I heard someone say this about I used to live in New York City so I follow that fairly closely too and I was really excited by Zoron's campaign and candidacy and someone mentioned it like out of all this sort of democratic politicians Zoron seemed like he just he wanted the ball to use like a sports you know terminology and I get that same feeling from from Platner from Grand Platner I think he knows it seems like

he recognizes the moment we're in and, you know, he wants the ball and he wants to, he wants to do something if elected to, to office and, and with the power that comes with it. So, um, I'm definitely, uh, planning on, on voting for him. So yeah, is that, is that, like, is that a recent thing for you that you've been getting it? Or like, were you a Bernie guy or is it just, I mean, yeah, I mean, I, I, I, like, my fucking moment calls for it. Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I was definitely, uh, I was a Bernie fan. I don't know if I was a Bernie fan. I don't know if I was like, you know, mega hardcore, Bernie bro, whatever the pejorative term is, but yeah, I was a Bernie supporter for sure. I want to see someone who will, I don't know,

fight for, you know, to do something. And it seems like he's the most likely, the most likely candidate that would do that in this state anyway. All right, man. I appreciate you jumping on with us. This is just a brutal situation. And that's so like, like an awesome that you did that for the family. And if you, you know, get more information or hear about like a way our viewers could, you know, support the family or local groups or whatever. Just let us know. And I'll make sure to give it a shout. All right, man? Yeah, absolutely. I'd appreciate it. That's Ben Bozeman, everybody. Subscribe to the feed. Thank you for doing this, brother. We'll talk to you soon.

Cheers. Thank you.