The Montgomery County Council announced its latest step Monday to counter the federal campaign to deport immigrants, which has disrupted the lives of hundreds of county residents.

The ICE Out Act would prohibit the county from issuing building permits or use-and-occupancy permits for immigration detention facilities within its boundaries.

Monday’s press conference on the bill comes as Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown is suing the Department of Homeland Security to stop the transformation of a Washington County warehouse into an immigration detention facility. Howard County recently revoked a building permit for a privately owned detention facility in Elkridge, and a recent proposal to open a facility in Hyattsville has sparked protests.

“We are naming it, we are calling it out and we are prohibiting it here in Montgomery County,” said at-large council member Evan Glass, the bill’s lead sponsor.

Glass said that there are no private ICE detention facilities in the county, but drafted the legislation after seeing what was happening in other parts of the state.

The entire council is cosponsoring the bill, which, in addition to the prohibitions, would for the first time define an immigration facility in the county code.

Though the council unanimously favors the bill, it has detractors.

“The hype of a threatening ICE is not a reality,” Dennis Melby, chair of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee, wrote in a newsletter Monday. “It’s only a story from the left wing media and a opposing Party seeking to use if for political advantage in the next election.

Amos Fon, a Cameroonian immigrant and an activist with We Are CASA, said he supports the bill because “the promise of opportunity and dignity” that brought him to Montgomery County is under attack.

“For someone like me, a permit is permission,” Fon said at the press conference. “We did not flee violence to live in the shadow of another system that cages people.”

Ella Wan, a freshman at Richard Montgomery High School and a member of Students for Asylum and Immigration Reform, said during the press conference that her organization has raised money and collected food for more than 200 Montgomery County Public Schools families impacted by deportation this year.

“When adults hear this number, they might think it’s just a statistic, but we think of empty seats,” Wan said. “Watching someone disappear like that changes you. It makes you realize how fragile stability is for some students.”

Glass’ bill is one of several from the council to limit ICE activity in the county.

Last month, the council unanimously passed the Trust Act, which County Executive Marc Elrich signed into law. It requires judicial warrants for ICE activity on county property and prohibits local law enforcement from voluntarily cooperating with ICE.

Two related pieces of legislation will be the subject of public hearings at Tuesday’s council meeting. The County Values Act, sponsored by council member Kristin Mink, would require a judicial warrant for ICE to access nonpublic areas of county facilities, which are not covered by the Trust Act. It would also prohibit the use of county-owned parking lots, garages and vacant lots for immigration enforcement.

The Unmask ICE Act, sponsored by at-large council member Will Jawando, would prohibit federal, state and local law enforcement from wearing masks on the job — with some exceptions, such as medical masks to protect public health.

Glass’ bill will be formally introduced during Tuesday’s council meeting and will be subject to a public hearing at a later date that has not been scheduled.