The Justice Department announced Thursday that it is suing Maryland over a new law that restricts local police collaboration with federal immigration enforcement.
The agency’s suit seeks to invalidate Maryland’s Community Trust Act, which prevents local police and correctional facilities from informally collaborating with ICE. The DOJ alleges Maryland has since refused to transfer undocumented immigrants to federal officials even after federal agents issue a detainer — a legal request that a jail hold someone up to 48 hours past release so that ICE can assume custody.
It’s the latest in a series of lawsuits the DOJ has brought against more than a dozen states and municipalities, including New York and Illinois, for what it deems “illegal policies designed to thwart federal law enforcement.”
Last month, 17 of Maryland’s 24 sheriffs sued the state over the CTA as well. Democratic Gov. Wes Moore did not sign the CTA because he said it presents challenges that need to be addressed with executive action in next year’s legislative session, and let it become law without his signature.
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“Maryland will also work with federal law enforcement when it makes Marylanders safer, but we will not let untrained, unqualified and unaccountable ICE agents deputize local law enforcement officers to do federal immigration work,” Moore’s office said in a May statement.
The DOJ’s lawsuit said Maryland’s new measure violates the Supremacy Clause on multiple fronts, including obstruction of federal immigration enforcement and improper regulation of the federal government.
“Such blatant disregard for federal laws that have been on the books for decades is not merely a political disagreement or passive abstention; it is deliberate, disruptive action that jeopardizes the public safety for all Americans,” the lawsuit reads.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit.
“Federal immigration officers merely enforce the laws that our Nation’s elected representatives in Congress passed, reflecting the will of We the People,” DOJ Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement. “When sanctuary jurisdictions enact laws to shield illegal aliens from federal law enforcement, it is not merely federal law that is violated, but the voices of everyday American voters silenced. Today’s suit proves that this Department will never stand for such lawless action from blue state leaders.”
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