ICE crackdown drives a wave of new bills in Maryland

Maryland lawmakers made standing up against the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts an early priority, ending a federal program meant to expand the reach of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement into local jails in the session’s first weeks.

It turns out they were just getting started.

A raft of immigration-related bills meant to stall, document, ban and regulate around the corners of the federal government’s plans continues to move through the chambers.

Democratic lawmakers say they’re responding to public outcry for protection from an aggressive and growing federal immigration campaign, mostly aimed at residents of blue cities and states.

One bill seeks to empower people to sue a person or business for helping federal agents with immigration enforcement. Others sharpen protections for noncitizens at sensitive locations, including schools and hospitals; require private companies to document detention flights; keep personal data, such as school enrollment or driver’s license info, from being used for immigration enforcement; and require state and local cops to respond to federal enforcement activity and document it.

Measures similar to those proposed in Maryland have been floated in other Democratic-led states. Some could face legal challenges if they become law.

Senate President Bill Ferguson said Democrats have been forced to respond to a federal approach to immigration enforcement that he called “absolutely antithetical to American values.”

Republican lawmakers criticized Democrats for political signaling, saying they should be focused on issues facing Maryland taxpayers.

“I think a lot of it’s connected to making sure they all win their Democratic primaries,” said Sen. Justin Ready, a Republican representing parts of Carroll and Frederick counties.

No state cop jobs for ICE

It’s too soon to say how many could become law, but it’s a signal of lawmakers’ fury that they’ve dug through Maryland code to find more than a dozen ways to limit what they say is the Trump administration’s encroachment.

“Congress has abdicated its responsibility, and so now you kind of have to look to states to pick up the mantle and do something,” Del. Adrian Boafo of Prince George’s County said.

Boafo, who is running in the 5th Congressional District, has pitched a bill that’s especially retributive.

The Ice Breaker Act would bar any ICE agent sworn in since Trump’s inauguration from working at a state law enforcement agency, such as the Maryland State Police.

Boafo said he wants the state to avoid hiring people attracted by a Department of Homeland Security recruitment campaign targeted at gun rights supporters and military enthusiasts. The agency directed tens of millions of dollars in ads on attendees of NASCAR races, gun shows and other conservative-coded audiences.

“Are you going to cowboy up or just lay there and bleed?” one of the social media ads reads.

“These are really radicalized people,” Boafo said.

Acting Assistant DHS Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement that “Maryland lawmakers are falsely casting federal law enforcement as villains while ICE officers are being targeted, threatened, and doxxed simply for doing their jobs.”

Bis narrowed in on a proposal that would ban officers from wearing masks in Maryland. She called the bill a “flagrant attempt to endanger our officers” and said the agency will not follow “unconstitutional bans.”

Regulating detention centers

The batch of bills comes as the Trump administration is seeking to convert a massive commercial warehouse outside Hagerstown into a detention center.

Lawmakers are also closely watching reports of crowded and unsanitary conditions at Baltimore’s ICE field office.

The proposed federal facility and the conditions in Baltimore have inspired a measure that would forge new regulations over federal and privately owned immigration detention centers.

Montgomery County Democrats Del. Vaughn Stewart and Sen. Will Smith want to extend the minimum health and safety standards for Maryland’s jails and prisons to any immigration detention center in the state.

Operators would have to certify a facility’s infrastructure and emergency preparedness annually to ensure they wouldn’t overburden rural hospitals and first responders. It’s a way to prevent Marylanders from further subsidizing ICE activities, Stewart said.

When detention centers and prisons fail, taxpayers end up “on the hook,” Stewart said, adding Marylanders are paying for the agency’s immigration campaign through a federal budget law passed last year.

“There’s only so much we can do,” he said. “But we’re trying to do everything at our disposal to prevent their hard-earned dollars from being funneled into ICE’s destruction.”

Paving a way to legal remedies

Lawmakers have been jolted into action by a flood of viral videos coursing through social media. They are among the millions of Americans who have watched masked federal agents kill two American citizens in Minneapolis, tear-gas protesters, smash car windows and drag people across pavement as part of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement.

Stewart and other lawmakers have been careful to emphasize that their legislation will not regulate federal policy, over which the state has virtually no control.

But they’re attempting to fence off what agents can and can’t get away with in Maryland. Some proposals, like Boafo’s, may test legal boundaries. Many may clear new ground.

“We’re making it clear that immigrants are our neighbors and they deserve to be protected,” said Del. Lesley Lopez, a Democrat of Montgomery County.

Lopez’ MELT Act, the Maryland Enforcement Limits and Transparency Act, would allow people who can prove they were illegally arrested for civil immigration violations to sue businesses and individuals who aided ICE in that arrest. One example: a tenant whose landlord reports them to ICE because rent is late.

The Senate has passed a bill that would ban law enforcement from wearing masks at all levels of government, with some exceptions. Maryland’s attorney general has said such a ban would be “difficult and likely unconstitutional” to enforce.

In the House of Delegates, lawmakers have proposed a way to digitally unmask federal agents using technology when someone wants to sue them for violating their constitutional rights.

Dels. Lorig Charkoudian and David Moon of Montgomery County and Del. Ashanti Martinez of Prince George’s County, all Democrats, merged three bills that would give an individual the right to sue a federal agent and permit prosecutors to obtain digital evidence that could help identify them.

Using state assets, such as street camera video, license plate readers and facial recognition tech, investigators could piece together the identity of a masked federal agent who may be the subject of a civil suit.

Maryland Speaker of the House of Delegates Joseline Peña-Melnyk said her chamber is drawing a “clear line” between federal immigration enforcement and the role of state government.

“When those lines are blurred, communities become less safe and institutions lose [the public’s] trust,” she said in a statement.

The Democrat representing parts of Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties said the bills send a message to Marylanders and the Trump administration that residents can “engage with schools, hospitals, and law enforcement without fear.”

“To the federal government,” she said, “it means we respect your role, but we will not compromise ours.”