DOJ Sues Maryland, Alleging New Immigration Law Obstructs Trump’s Authority

The Justice Department on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the state of Maryland in federal court, alleging that a new law curtailing local jails and law enforcement from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement thwarts the Trump administration’s authority.

Maryland’s law, called the Community Trust Act, was passed by the supermajority Democratic legislature earlier this year and went into effect at the end of May. It was championed by immigration rights advocates but opposed by Republican lawmakers and a coalition of local law enforcement agencies, some of which pledged to continue communicating with immigration authorities despite the new restrictions.

The lawsuit claims Maryland and the state’s attorney general, Anthony G. Brown, are violating the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.

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Moore allowed the Community Trust Act to become law this spring without his signature, saying at the time that the bill created “ambiguities around joint investigations” across local, state and federal law enforcement that his office was working with the state attorney general to “clarify.”

The bill does not wholesale ban jail officials and law enforcement from cooperating with ICE. What it does do, according to guidance from Brown’s office to local officials, is dramatically limit the circumstances under which jails and police can facilitate the removal of an undocumented immigrant.

Brown’s guidance said those limitations generally do not apply when a noncitizen has been convicted of a serious crime or if local officials are presented with a valid judicial warrant or court order, or if personal information collected by police is relevant to a criminal investigation involving federal officials.

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The Community Trust Act was passed as an emergency bill, galvanizing support from Democrats at the tail end of the legislative session. Weeks earlier, Democrats had also rapidly pushed through a ban on 287(g) agreements between ICE and local law enforcement agencies. The ban, which Moore quickly signed into law in February, was a defiant step from Maryland against the Trump administration’s aggressive stance on immigration and aligned the state with others that had enacted similar restrictions.

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