AUGUSTA — Maine Gov. Paul LePage said President Barack Obama’s plan to shield millions of immigrants illegally in the United States from deportation is “shameful.”

The Republican governor told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that it took him 11 years and $80,000 under current immigration procedures to get a green card for a Jamaican whom LePage took into his home at the age of 17.

“I should have just told him to go to Mexico and jumped the fence,” LePage said.

Under the plan Obama is expected to announce Thursday, as many as 5 million people in the country illegally would be spared from deportation and made eligible for work permits.

LePage made the remarks in Florida, where he’s attending a Republican Governors Association meeting.