Local governments in Maryland might not want you to know this.
They’re working with ICE.
It’s not the horrific campaign to drag pregnant women and friendly neighbors to the border and give them a sharp kick. It’s not the blunt force trauma strategy used by the feds that killed two U.S. citizens on the streets of Minneapolis.
No, it’s the routine business of removing criminal aliens.
Most jails and prisons turn over people to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for possible deportation when agents use an administrative process set up in 2008. Others require a judge’s order.
But it has become so politicized that the corrections officials doing the work would rather not talk about it.
“It’s a difficult time when so many things are so polarized, and the practitioners are trying to do what’s right in the best interest of our communities,” said Christopher Klein, president of the Maryland Correctional Administrators Association.
“The people feel stuck in between, trying to figure out what they believe is right and what is safe.”
Maryland might not feel the brunt of a Minnesota-style offensive by ICE. It might not even see the completion of a proposed detention center in Hagerstown.
The political ground is shifting. President Donald Trump’s war in Iran has scrambled his agenda, and whether his campaign promise to deport millions survives a looming fall rout for congressional Republicans remains unclear.
But it will end, eventually.
Corrections professionals like Klein will be there when it does.
“I think we’re doing what we have done for a long time,” said Klein, the Anne Arundel County superintendent of detention facilities. “And we don’t have the luxury to know what interest ICE has in these individuals.”
Twenty of Maryland’s 23 counties take part in the Criminal Alien Program, part of former President George W. Bush’s Secure Communities initiative. It allows ICE to initiate deportation while someone charged with a crime is still in custody.
Jailers can ask people where they were born. It complies with a 1963 international agreement ensuring foreign nationals’ right to seek help from their embassies or consulates.
And they all plug fingerprints into a national database. ICE agents can access it and issue an administrative detainer or obtain a court order to hold someone.
Counties in the program agree to honor immigration detainers — administrative requests to hold someone for 48 hours after their scheduled release so ICE agents can collect them. Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties are the largest participants.
Their numbers have held steady over the last three years and don’t reflect the Trump administration’s push for more deportations in 2025.
Anne Arundel recorded 710 foreign-born bookings. ICE sent detainer notices for 270, then picked up 140.
Baltimore County booked 1,620. Yet it turned over less than 10%, only 122.
Most of these immigrants were serving sentences for local crimes, usually under 18 months. They reflect the state’s largest immigrant groups, people from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.
It’s not the 287(g) program. That’s the one the General Assembly banned last month.
That deputized local corrections and law enforcement officers to start the deportation process. Neither Anne Arundel nor Baltimore County was enrolled at the time.
When elected Republican sheriffs in nine counties protested the ban, they claimed that it hobbled their public safety programs. That’s simply not true.
Most only signed up for 287(g) in 2025, when Trump shifted focus for ICE from people convicted of crimes to those in the country without documentation — a civil offense. All nine of those counties were already in the Criminal Alien Program.
The Republican sheriffs’ protests would be laughably partisan if it weren’t for a push by Democratic jurisdictions in the other direction.
Howard, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, as well as Baltimore City, have all adopted policies requiring ICE to obtain a warrant signed by a judge. They defend the extra step because of the excesses of Trump’s immigration purge.
“We’re trying to do our job and balance all those things,” Klein said. “I work with everybody across the state. And most law enforcement professionals, we’re very rooted in following the law.”
“When those things start getting muddy, it’s tough.”
ICE doesn’t care about nuance. Its leaders politicize anyone who doesn’t want to volunteer for Trump’s anti-immigrant crusade.
“Maryland sanctuary politicians are playing Russian roulette with American lives by outlawing cooperation with ICE and forcing law enforcement to RELEASE criminals from their jails into our communities and perpetrate more crimes and create more victims,“ ICE spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.
Well, except for the Criminal Alien Program.
ICE agents threatened to condemn Anne Arundel County last year when it released someone the agency wanted.
“Long story short, they found out they never had the detainer,” Klein said. “Of course, they never go on the news and say we never had a detainer. They don’t tell on themselves.”
The politics involved make many authorities wary.
A spokeswoman for Howard County Executive Calvin Ball spent weeks ignoring my requests to discuss his policy. Monday, Safa Hira promised to provide details.
Two days later, she refused without explanation.
Baltimore County Attorney James Benjamin was so concerned that he had someone call around to find out who was talking to me before approving the release of foreign-born bookings data.
Maryland banned 287(g) but may balk at going further.
State Sen. Clarence Lam, a Howard County Democrat, introduced the Community Trust Act. It would bar corrections officials from asking where someone is born or from cooperating with ICE agents without a warrant.
With the deadline Monday to pass his bill in the Senate and send it to the House, its future seems doubtful.
What happens next is up to Trump. He might return to immigrants as a punching bag or abandon them.
Anything is possible when politics interfere with justice.
“You have people who are out there who really don’t have a lot of skin in the game, other than the political game,” Klein said.
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