Anti-ICE Community Trust Act passes in MD Senate’s final days

ANNAPOLIS — In a late-session move, the Maryland Senate passed legislation Friday to further limit state and local police interaction with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the chagrin of the Republican caucus.

“You’ve passed about seven or eight other bills to really slap at ICE,” Senate Minority Whip Justin Ready, R-Carroll and Frederick, said during an evening floor session. “I think this one is a bridge way too far, and it’s going to put people in danger.”

Known as the Community Trust Act, the bill would bar employees at state and local correctional facilities from asking about or investigating an individual’s citizenship, immigration status or place of birth.

People detained at these facilities could not be held at ICE’s request or transferred to one of their facilities unless agents present a valid judicial warrant. Correctional facility employees would additionally be prohibited from providing information to ICE, and federal immigration agents would not be allowed to enter into areas of those facilities that are off-limits to members of the public.

The Senate bill would provide carveouts for communications with ICE if a person is convicted of a felony under Maryland law, if they are convicted of an offense that lands them on the state’s sex offense registry or if they are sentenced to a term that would require them to serve a sentence in a state prison.

“This legislation will ensure due process when people are charged with a crime, while balancing the absolute need for public safety,” Senate President Bill Ferguson, D-Baltimore City, said at an Annapolis news conference. “Whether it’s safeguarding health care access, defending critical funding or ensuring that Maryland remains a place of opportunity and fairness, we made it clear we will not stand by as Marylanders are put at risk.”

The legislation debated Friday builds on a policy banning memoranda of understanding with ICE, known as 287(g) agreements, that the legislature passed and Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, signed earlier this session.

Ferguson said that after the bill banning 287(g) agreements was enacted, certain local law enforcement officials were “outright discussing … how they were going to defy the law,” making the Community Trust Act a necessity.

“… once some of the local officials indicated their deep desire to defy some of the rules and regulations that we put forward, we thought that it was essential to have a statewide standard,” he said.

Asked if there is concern that a combination of bills — from the Community Trust Act to the ban on 287(g) agreements and the No Kings Act that passed out of the House on Thursday evening — would paint a greater target on Maryland for ICE enforcement, Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chair Will Smith Jr., D-Montgomery, said those conversations were had in 2025 and “the parade of horribles that we were afraid of have all come to fruition.”

“It’s incumbent upon us to act and act defensively to protect people in Maryland,” he said. “The first step was the 287(g) piece. The second step is really focused on due process and public safety.”

But not everyone agreed.

Sen. Johnny Mautz, R-Middle Eastern Shore, said Friday evening before the bill passed that he has a “large immigrant community” in his district. He said that every bill that the legislature has passed this session to limit ICE  “has absolutely no effect,” and that the federal agency is “going to do what they’re going to do.”

“There are some huge problems with the way that ICE is operating, but we’re not doing anything here to stop that,” said Mautz. “And I hope the advocates are listening to me, because we’re not doing anything to help our constituents by passing these bills. We’re inciting more and more of these problems by passing these bills.”

Similar sentiments were expressed when the bill was brought to the floor Friday morning.

Republicans were irate when the bill hit the chamber floor Friday morning, alleging it was passed out of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee in secret Thursday evening without input from law enforcement and state’s attorneys.

“I mean, talk about stacking the deck,” said Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey Jr., R-Upper Eastern Shore. “You’ve got enough votes whenever you need them but to bring the advocates in and allow them to participate in the voting session without having the opponents? How one-sided do we have to get?”

In a text exchange with The Daily Record, Smith wrote that the voting session was announced on the Senate floor and that the voting list was published on the General Assembly website.

Sen. Bill Folden, R-Frederick, sits on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. A former law enforcement officer, he said the bill is “poor policy.”

“This bill is reckless,” Folden said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re arrested for murder, rape, running someone down; they’re still not allowed to work with our federal partners and, if they do, they’re going to be subject to actions against them.”

Hershey asked that debate on the bill be delayed to the evening so amendments could be prepared. Smith pushed back but gave Republicans a shorter break to prepare.

A media advisory from the Senate Republican Caucus issued Friday afternoon stated that its members were “preparing a full amendment fight over what they call the ‘Community Distrust Act.’”

And they did.

Democrats defeated a dozen amendments to the bill, largely on the basis that they undermined the due process intent or negated the legislation completely. An amendment brought by Folden was accepted as friendly. It would allow interaction with ICE if a person was sentenced to and served in prison for five years in another state.

In response to the onslaught of amendments, Senate Majority Leader Nancy King, D-Montgomery, said that she felt as though a whole population were being impugned.

“Are there some bad apples? Of course there are bad apples. There are bad apples among all of us, I mean, it happens,” said King. “But it has sounded today like we’re just assuming that every one of them that is coming into this country is a bad apple, and they’re not.”

The bill passed out of the Senate Friday night on a vote of 29-13. It still has to pass out of the House chamber to make it to the governor’s desk. There are four days until the General Assembly adjourns its annual legislative session.

This story has been updated upon the passage of the bill.