In the final days of the legislative session, Maryland lawmakers are considering a series of bills aimed at protecting the state’s immigrant communities from the Trump administration’s sweeping mass-deportation efforts.

Three main bills being debated would prevent U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, from accessing state databases without a warrant; keep ICE out of private areas of “sensitive locations” like public schools and libraries; and block local police and sheriffs from signing enforcement agreements with ICE.

But the nature of the American immigration system means there are limits on what state lawmakers can do, a challenge that has brought intense debates and amendments to the bills throughout the session.

Immigration enforcement is largely handled by the federal government, a factor that would play into state-level immigration bills during any presidential administration. But President Donald Trump’s punitive approach — and his administration’s willingness to bend or ignore the law — presents a new challenge to state lawmakers.

The administration has already begun retaliating against jurisdictions that limit local cooperation with its removal policies. Trump has also threatened to withhold federal funding from “sanctuary cities” that decline to use local resources to assist federal immigration enforcement efforts, a possibility that has come up repeatedly during debates over the Maryland bills.

“Can you imagine the amount of money Maryland is looking to lose?” Del. Lauren Arikan, a Republican who represents Harford County, asked during a bill hearing about the data privacy legislation.

“I would hope that something like that doesn’t happen,” replied Matthew Elliston, the former director of ICE’s Baltimore field office. “I would suggest that we look at the constitutionality of this law before making any decisions.”

The data privacy bill would prohibit state and local governments from granting access to information databases for immigration enforcement purposes without a warrant.

Opponents argue the proposal runs counter to federal law, which says states cannot prohibit employees from providing information about citizenship or immigration status to the federal government.

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office disagreed in a letter to lawmakers reviewed by The Banner, though it raised other legal concerns about the bill, which also attempts to block private data brokers from sharing information for immigration enforcement purposes.

Federal threats have also come up during discussions of a bill that would end cooperation agreements between ICE and local law enforcement in Maryland.

Six Maryland sheriffs have signed such agreements, in which ICE trains local deputies to serve and execute administrative warrants for jailed people who are believed to be in the country without authorization. In Maryland, many people in local jails are being held in pretrial detention and have not been convicted.

The "Maryland Values Act" would end those deals with ICE, known as 287(g) agreements. The bill would also require correctional facilities to notify ICE before releasing anyone accused of a felony, DUI or violent crime who is also subject to an immigration detainer request.

Sheriffs who use the agreements warned that ending the deals could push ICE to conduct more “mass arrests” as they seek out people accused of crimes. The Trump administration has claimed it would prioritize deportations of undocumented immigrants accused of crimes, but early data and media reports have shown that the government is also detaining and removing many people without criminal records. The administration has also targeted legal immigrants.

“I think we’re going to see larger operations where they’re going into homes and they’re not being discretionary in identifying those individuals who are in the country illegally and haven’t broken, maybe, any law,” Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler told lawmakers this week.

Nicholas Katz, who is general counsel for the immigrant advocacy organization CASA, said threats from the federal government present a “false narrative.”

“It would be illegal for the federal government to withhold funding based on the state’s decision not to participate in 287(g),” Katz said. “It is a voluntary program that states can choose to participate in. The federal government cannot coerce states into doing its job.”

He also argued that ICE is not going to stop enforcing immigration law in Maryland communities if local police also collaborate by turning over people being held in jail.

“The Maryland legislature can’t change immigration law,” he said. “They can’t stop the federal government from engaging in immigration enforcement. But we don’t have to participate. We don’t have to give Maryland residents over to [ICE].”

CASA is pushing for an amendment to the Maryland Values Act that would remove the language mandating correctional facilities to notify ICE before releasing people convicted of certain crimes.

The bill would not require local jurisdictions to detain those people past their release dates so that ICE can pick them up, a practice the Maryland Attorney General’s Office has said may be unconstitutional. Immigration detainers are a request from ICE, not a court order or judicial warrant.

The Maryland Values Act passed the House of Delegates but faced tough questions before a Senate panel this week.

Sen. Will Smith, a Montgomery County Democrat who chairs the Senate’s Judicial Proceedings Committee, said he’d prefer a clean bill that simply ends 287(g) agreements in Maryland without creating the new notice requirement. But with the legislative session ending April 7, lawmakers are running out of time to work out disagreements between the House and Senate.

“Whether we’ll be able to reconcile those differences before Sine Die remains to be seen,” Smith said.

A Maryland bill that would have required local governments to cooperate with ICE failed to gain traction. Virginia’s governor recently ordered state police and corrections officers to assist with immigration enforcement and asked local jails to certify their cooperation with ICE.

Another bill under consideration in Maryland is a response to the Trump’s shift to allow immigration enforcement actions in “sensitive locations” that were shielded under previous administrations.

Elliston, the former Maryland ICE director, told lawmakers that agents are not going into schools, churches or hospitals at a hearing last month. But the move still contributed to widespread fear in immigrant communities.

The Maryland bill requires public schools, libraries, and certain state facilities to deny ICE warrantless access to areas that are not publicly accessible. It also mandates the Attorney General’s Office create guidelines for those facilities to follow in the event of an ICE enforcement action.

The bill was pared back significantly from an original version that included a longer list of sensitive locations, including churches and other private institutions. It also cannot prevent ICE from accessing public areas of sensitive locations.

Lawmakers have “limited tools at the state level to combat federal immigration policy,” Smith said.

“But I do think we have an obligation to do everything we can to protect those who are here paying taxes, going to work, going to school, contributing to our society, who have done everything right absent the fact that they don’t have papers.”