LEWISTON — Maine Gov. Paul LePage says he’ll stand his ground on a plan to cut off welfare funds for undocumented immigrants despite warnings from Maine’s Democratic attorney general that doing so could be illegal.

LePage said Thursday he wasn’t concerned about the state being sued over the matter. He suggested that if the federal government wanted to grant asylum to immigrants fleeing other countries, it should help states pay for the immigrants’ needs.

“If people are here illegally, I don’t think that we should not feed them, I just think that while they are eating their meal we should call (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to come up and pick them up and do whatever they do to illegal immigrants,” LePage said during a stop at the Androscoggin Business to Business Trade Show in Lewiston.

LePage said if it takes the federal government up to 18 months to process asylum-seeking immigrants, including issuing them work visas, then the federal government should be responsible for their well-being, not local taxpayers.

“Anybody can sue anybody at any time,” LePage said when asked if he was concerned he would face a legal battle over the change. “The important thing is, ‘What’s the verdict?'”

LePage said he was basing his view on the Maine Constitution. “There’s nothing in there that says I have to harbor fugitives or illegals from any country in the world,” LePage said.

He said he was “all for immigrants” and fixing U.S. immigration laws but was opposed to the problem being pushed onto the states.

The Maine Department of Health and Human Services is changing eligibility standards for General Assistance, a type of cash grant issued by municipalities to people in dire economic circumstances. The money can only be used for food, rent, medicine or utilities.

DHHS wants to disallow the use of state funds for General Assistance that’s distributed to “illegal immigrants.” Maine has hundreds of asylum-seeking immigrants who may not have the required federal visas and other immigration documents. Not technically “legal” immigrants, they would be ineligible for the cash grants under the policy shift.

Maine Attorney General Janet Mills said the LePage administration has two strikes against its proposal. The first is that DHHS officials haven’t followed the state’s rule-making laws requiring public notice and a public hearing. Second, the new eligibility requirements may be a violation of the state’s constitution.

DHHS issued a release earlier this week indicating it would send notices to cities and towns alerting them of the rule change, and that enforcement of the new rule would begin shortly.

At stake is about $1 million in state funding that is used by towns and cities to help cover the cost of General Assistance. Cities and towns Thursday were still awaiting final notice from DHHS.

The Maine Municipal Association was urging its members to disregard the rule change, and suggesting it was illegal.

“This is being done entirely on the back of an envelope. It’s just crazy,” Geoff Herman, MMA’s director of state and federal relations, told the Bangor Daily News. “This isn’t an issue, in my mind, of whether illegal immigrants — whatever that means — get or don’t get public assistance. The issue is how we make decisions, how we establish rules. It’s not done in this cavalier way, with simply a notice from a state agency.”

Mills suggested that the change would push an unfunded mandate on cities and towns because it would require them to function as immigration officials.

LePage’s opponents in the 2014 governor’s race, independent Eliot Cutler and Maine’s 2nd District U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, a Democrat, also weighed in on the issue.

Cutler, at the trade show Thursday, said the first thing LePage should have done was meet with Mills to work out their differences over what she believes is illegal and what he wants to do to protect taxpayers.

“My first response, if I wanted to do something and the attorney general of the state of Maine said, ‘You can’t do it,’ my first instinct would be to call the attorney general and say, ‘Let’s talk this through,” Cutler said. “Because, No. 1, these are people who need help and No. 2, you don’t want to do anything as the chief executive officer of the state that is not legal.”

Cutler said he understood LePage’s frustration over paying for a federal initiative. He also said he understood Mills’ position but he thought some of her points were “a little hyperbolic.”

“Should there be a distinction between people who are here legally and illegally? Maybe,” Cutler said. “Should there be a humanitarian distinction between them? Maybe not.”

He said the issue was one to be worked out carefully and in a way that avoided putting the governor and the attorney general in a legal dispute.

Michaud, who was working in Washington on Thursday, said LePage’s stance was typical for the firebrand Republican governor.

“This is the politics of division that we’ve become used to from Gov. LePage,” Michaud said. “He took an oath of office to uphold the law in Maine and now he’s deliberately ignoring it. That’s not how democracy works and it’s just plain wrong.”

Michaud added, “No one is above the law, not even the governor. Mainers deserve someone who not only understands that, but will work with Democrats, Republicans and independents to change the law if that’s what is best for Maine.”

sthistle@sunjournal.com

Mario Moretto of the Bangor Daily News contributed to this report.

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