MD lawmakers move anti-ICE bills on last day of session

Listen to this article

ANNAPOLIS — Maryland’s House of Delegates and Senate lawmakers sifted through dozens of bills Monday before the clock ticked past their midnight Sine Die legislative deadline, passing significant immigration legislation.

“It takes a lot of work to pass a bill, and what you saw today was basically the way things work,” House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, D-Anne Arundel and Prince George’s, said addressing the press after her chamber adjourned for the year. “You work all the way until midnight, and you work, and you push through whatever is left on the desk, and that is exactly what we did tonight.”

Large chunks of the day in both chambers were spent continuing to move legislation aimed at combatting the ramp up of activity from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the state has seen under President Donald Trump.

The Senate chamber sent legislation to Gov. Wes Moore’s desk that would prohibit employees at state and local correctional facilities from asking about or investigating an individual’s citizenship, immigration status or place of birth.

Under the bill, known as the Community Trust Act, 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 barred from providing information to ICE, and federal immigration agents would be prohibited from entering into areas of those facilities that are off-limits to members of the public.

Senate Republicans tried in vain to slow the movement of the bill to Moore’s desk Monday evening, with several saying that it will only serve to increase ICE activity in the state.

“By cutting down cooperation that creates and incentive … for more ICE on the street, for more conflict, for more trauma,” Sen. Johnny Mautz IV, R-Lower Eastern Shore, said before the final vote was cast on the bill.

The legislation was sent to Moore on Monday on a vote of 32-15.

The House chamber had worked feverishly over the weekend to pass the Community Trust Act during a three-hour, late-night session.

“In Maryland, we are making real the promise that immigration enforcement is focused on violent criminals, but for everybody else, we have to make the decision here during the 90-days how best to protect our residents when Sine Die gavels us out of here,” House Majority Leader David Moon, D-Montgomery, said before the bill passed.

As it was passed out of the Senate on Friday, the legislation 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, if they are sentenced to a term that would require them to serve a sentence in a state prison or if they sentenced to and served in prison for five years in another state.

The House amended the bill Saturday to require that it go into effect upon receiving Moore’s signature. The Senate still needs to approve the change made to the bill in the House before it reaches the governor’s desk.

As the bill passed in the House chamber Saturday night, Del. Lauren Arikan, R-Harford, warned Moore not to sign it. She said the “public will likely hold him responsible” if it goes into effect “and one of our Marylanders is murdered.”

“They may not hold each and every one of you responsible. They may not hold the leadership responsible. But they will hold Governor Moore responsible,” Arikan said to the chamber. “So I would caution him on signing this bill because the first woman who is slaughtered in our state because of the policies in this bill will be in his watch, the blood will be on his hands, and the people of Maryland and the entire country will hold him responsible.”

The bill builds on emergency legislation signed by Moore earlier this session that bans local sheriff departments from entering into memoranda of understanding, or 287(g) agreements, with ICE.

At a Friday news conference, Senate President Bill Ferguson, D-Baltimore City, said the legislature decided to move forward with the Community Trust Act because certain local law enforcement officials were “outright discussing … how they were going to defy” that legislation.

“… 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.

The House chamber continued to move anti-ICE policy Monday, giving its final approval to Senate Bill 1, which would mandate the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission to establish a uniform policy prohibiting law enforcement officers — including ICE — from wearing face coverings in the normal course of duty. It would provide carveouts, including for officers who are undercover and in the case of cold weather.

The House amended the bill Monday morning to additionally require the commission to develop a statewide policy requiring officers to wear identification while in the course of duty.

In his attempt to persuade his colleagues to vote against the bill, Del. Matt Morgan, R-St. Mary’s, said that the Senate’s “marquee bill” served to “encourage doxxing.” He recalled a previous legislative session, when the chamber passed legislation in honor of slain Washington County Judge Andrew Wilkinson.

Wilkinson was fatally shot in the driveway of his home in October 2023. Legislation passed in his name during the 2024 legislative session allows judges, their families and other protected individuals to request that their personal information not be published online.

“… in the age of doxxing, identity could be used as a weapon,” said Morgan. “When those agents that are unmasked are retaliated against, what do you tell their families?”

Del. C.T. Wilson, D-Charles, said the bill “is a matter of public trust.”

“We want our citizens … to submit to law enforcement, but they can’t do that as an unknown,” he said. “This bill is trying to bring some calmness to our citizens that in Maryland, if our Fourth Amendment rights are interrupted” officials know who is doing it.

The bill passed out of the House chamber on a vote of 100-37. It received final approval in the Senate late Monday and was sent to Moore on a vote of 32-13.

This story has been updated with the Senate vote and the end of the session.