Maryland sheriffs vehemently denounced the anti-ICE sentiment sweeping through Annapolis this week, saying state officials’ attempts to thwart the federal agency from arresting illegal immigrants at jails will only push those officers out into the state’s communities.
“All this Legislature has done is elevated criminal aliens over American citizens,” Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins said.
The sheriffs were responding to a new law signed last week limiting their ability to proactively cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and several bills still percolating in the Legislature that would also block them from cooperating when ICE asks for it.
That would include barring them from complying with federal deportation detainer requests.
One of the bills would go further, ordering sheriffs and police departments to deploy their own personnel to record and report any time they receive information that ICE is working in their jurisdiction.
“That means we’re now pitting deputies, troopers and local police officers against our federal partners,” Wicomico County Sheriff Michael A. Lewis said.
Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, signed the law last week banning proactive cooperation with ICE under what’s known as 287(g) agreements.
Those allowed departments to sign up to scour their arrestees for deportation targets and to help initiate immigration arrests.
Frederick County had maintained a 287(g) agreement for 18 years.
“We worked with ICE without one single complaint of profiling or discrimination,” Sheriff Jenkins said. “It was a seamless, safe program. We turned criminals over to ICE in our jail with no threat to the public, to the officers, or the detainees.”
In signing the law banning 287(g) agreements, Mr. Moore issued a guidance document making clear that departments could still cooperate with detainers.
The sheriffs said two Senate measures, SB660 and SB791, would undercut the governor by preventing cooperation with civil immigration enforcement.
SB660 would also push departments to deploy their own personnel to track and report on ICE activities, including body-worn camera footage. The reports would then be made available to the public.
That measure is sponsored by Sen. Sara Love, Montgomery County Democrat. SB791 is sponsored by Sen. Clarence K. Lam, whose district includes portions of Howard and Anne Arundel counties, and there is a similar measure pending in the state House.
The Washington Times reached out to the senators’ offices for this story.
The sheriffs contrasted Maryland to Minnesota and Los Angeles, where ICE led major enforcement surges that sparked riots from a public looking to hinder the arrests.
Sheriff Lewis said if Annapolis limits cooperation, it means ICE can no longer pick up its deportation targets from the relatively safe environment of a jail.
Instead, ICE will go into communities — as it did in Minneapolis — to try to arrest its targets, and that means it will also have the chance to arrest other illegal immigrants encountered at the same time.
“All it’s going to do is amp ICE up on the streets,” Sheriff Lewis said.
Sheriff Jenkins said he has 20 people in his jail currently who could be turned over to ICE when their time is up.
“What would you prefer I do with those people? Let them loose in your community?” he said. “We’re all damn mad over this.”
