The Maryland Senate could be taking up bills as early as this week to ban agreements between local police and federal immigration authorities and to prohibit masks on law enforcement agents, after the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee approved both Tuesday.
The committee vote came less than a week after hours of testimony on the two bills, and the same day that the House Judiciary Committee was holding its own combative hearing on a companion bill to do away with the so-called 287(g) agreements between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local sheriff’s departments. Nine Maryland counties have entered into such agreements, that require their jails to hold undocumented suspects to hand over to ICE for deportation proceedings.
Both the House and Senate committee hearings took place against the backdrop of increased scrutiny of increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement, after federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, 37 in Minnesota. That shooting came weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, also 37, in Minneapolis.
The Trump administration policies were never far from the discussion in Annapolis Tuesday.
“We need to just get out of this business right now,” said Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery), chair of Judicial Proceedings and lead sponsor of Senate Bill 245, which would ban 287(g) agreements.
The committee voted 8-3, on party lines, to approve the bill that would prohibit local police or any “agent of the state” from entering into an agreement with the federal government to enforce civil immigration law.
The vote came after the committee rejected an amendment from Sen. Mary-Dulany James (D-Harford) that would not have banned the agreements, but would have would have prohibited certain immigration enforcement activities by local police “unless an individual has been charged with or convicted of a felony.” Her amendment would also have required correctional facilities to report that and other information to the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy.
“I have a sheriff who I have a lot of respect for who’s been running a 287(g) jail-based program, as have some other jurisdictions in Maryland,” James said. “I’m impressed with how it’s run. They [ICE agents] are nothing like the people that I’m seeing on the [TV] screen in the streets.”
But Smith urged the committee to reject the amendment because of how the immigration enforcement is being handled by federal agents.
After about 30 minutes of debate, the committee rejected James’ amendment by a 7-4, with all three committee Republicans – Sens. William G. Folden of Frederick County, Chris West of Baltimore and Carroll counties and Mike McWay of Western Maryland – joined James in support.
During a briefing with reporters Tuesday morning, Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) defended Smith’s bill, calling the operations of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration “unconstitutional and unlawful.”
“I’m very cognizant that we could see something happen in Maryland, and we want to make sure that we’re prepared as possible for whatever surge could happen,” he said. “The partnership with an organization that’s operating with the procedures that it has right now is undermining faith in law enforcement.”
If approved, Maryland would join several Democratic-led states including Delaware, Illinois and New Jersey to ban such agreements. California legislature is working to also approve limits on the agreements.
‘Storm troopers’
The Judicial Proceedings Committee spent about 70 minutes on the face-covering legislation sponsored by Sen. Malcolm Augustine (D-Prince George’s) before voting 7-4, with James joining the three Republicans, to move the bill to the full Senate.
Senate Bill 1 would prohibit face coverings on law enforcement officials working in the state, including ICE agents who are typically masked. The bill would ban items such as a balaclava, ski mask or neck gaiter for officers on duty. Exceptions would be made for officers “actively engaged in an undercover operation,” someone wearing a motorcycle helmet, a garment worn for religious purposes or when health-related matters are involved.
The committee approved a couple of amendments, to require that the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission develop a uniform policy prohibiting face coverings, versus a model policy. Violations would now be civil offenses, not criminal ones, and the penalty would be a fine up to $1,500 instead of up to $2,000 and possible two years imprisonment.
Even with those amendments, opponents were not completely satisfied.
West said he agrees that law enforcement officers should not be wearing masks resembling “storm troopers in Star Wars,” but he said there could be future conflicts between state officers trying to enforce the law on federal officers doing their duties under federal law.
“The local officers are going to say, ‘Well, then you are obstructing justice. I’m putting you under arrest.’ And the ICE officers are going to respond by saying, ‘You’re obstructing federal officers, I’m putting you under arrest,’” West said. “Each trying to put the other squadron under arrest. This is bad. It’s not going to end happily.”
Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery), vice chair of the committee, said after the voting session that the committee “made a statement today that the actions of the federal government are unacceptable to our Maryland values, and we as a legislature have a duty to respond. The committee had a legitimate debate, both on the underlying policies and the constitutionality of those policies, and we sent it to the floor of the Senate to continue that conversation.”
Ferguson said both measures could be debated on the Senate floor as early as Thursday.
287(g) in the House
About two hours before the Senate committee’s vote on its 287(g) bill, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on a House version sponsored by Del. Nicole Williams (D-Prince George’s).
Williams said ICE isn’t providing public safety in communities, even in those Maryland jurisdictions that have signed on to them.
One day after Wicomico County Executive Julie Giordano (R) testified against the Senate version of the bill last week, she announced on social media Friday that the county signed a 287(g) agreement, the ninth in Maryland to do so.
“Officials who signed these agreements claim that they are a means of enhancing public safety, but that’s false,” Williams said. “These agreements drain taxpayer dollars from the real work of local law enforcement, and while ICE does provide training, equipment and some oversight, it offers no reimbursement for the staff and overtime required by these additional responsibilities.”
Del. Lauren Arikan (R-Harford), whose county has the state’s second-longest 287(g) agreement, asked Williams if she’s prepared to push a bill to have President Donald Trump (R) send ICE teams to the state to replace the eliminated 287(g) agreements.
“There will be blood on the hands of people that move this when folks die, because there’s no longer a jail model in place. So are you ready to do that?” Arikan said.
“First of all, ICE shouldn’t be randomly engaging in shooting individuals,” said Williams, who summarized there have been federal agents and ICE activity in her legislative district where there’s no 287(g) in place.
Del. Susan McComas (R-Harford) said it should be up to individual jurisdictions whether they want ICE or not.
“That’s the fair way to do this,” she said. “If the community wants ICE, then let them have it.”
When Del. Nino Mangione (R-Baltimore County) asked why a legal immigrant be worried about immigration enforcement, several people in the audience laughed.
“Really? I would say basically every news story for the past 12 months would make the case for why legal immigrants, undocumented immigrants would be worried about interacting with ICE,” Comptroller Brooke Lierman (D) said. “Many people are under threat by ICE right now. I think that legal, documented immigrants also have a reasonable fear of interacting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”