Armed, masked federal agents smashing car windows, ripping people from their vehicles. Protesters pepper-sprayed. A Minneapolis woman shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
And closer to home, agents shot a man during a confrontation in Glen Burnie and injured another, then later changed their story about what happened.
Images that have angered people across the country and the state have alarmed Maryland lawmakers. They’re drafting bills to protect residents from an increasingly violent mass deportation effort and send a strong message to Washington.
But critics say lawmakers’ focus on immigration could affect public safety and draw the attention of President Donald Trump’s administration, risking an ICE surge into Maryland.
Maryland lawmakers are following the lead of other states, seeking to ban agreements that let ICE work with local law enforcement and to stop federal immigration officers from concealing their faces.
“We’re moving forward because what we’ve seen has been unconscionable,” said Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat representing Baltimore. Lawmakers will hear the mask and 287(g) ban bills Thursday.
But they’ll also consider a bill that would collect data on federal agents’ interactions with the public in order to digitally unmask them. There’s a pitch to cement the right to sue the federal government and bar immigration officers from state law enforcement jobs.
The Trump administration is challenging a California mask ban in court and it’s not clear how much states can limit federal agents.
The plans come as violent and deadly clashes between federal agents and the public have reached a boiling point, and just as the curtains have opened on the state’s 90-day lawmaking session.
Ferguson and his counterpart in the House, Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, have declared their top priorities are banning contracts between federal immigration enforcement and local agencies, known as 287(g) agreements for a section of federal law, and prohibiting federal agents from wearing masks.
Unmasking agents will strengthen trust between law enforcement and residents, Ferguson said.
“Immigrants deserve to live with dignity and respect,” said Peña-Melnyk, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who has blasted agents’ treatment of the public. The Democrat represents parts of Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties.
Gov. Wes Moore declined to weigh in on bills lawmakers have yet to debate, but the Democrat questioned why the federal officers need to “dress up” to do their jobs, and said he’s concerned about the behavior he’s seeing from ICE.
“They [ICE] don’t seem to care about violent crime and public safety,” Moore said. “Nor do they care about following the Constitution.”
Trump administration officials have continued to back agents’ tactics, and insist that allowing agents to pick up noncitizens who are being held in local jails keeps ICE from having to flood communities with patrols.
Democratic lawmakers say their proposals wouldn’t risk public safety or interfere with federal immigration enforcement.
“We will always participate to solve crime and to get dangerous people off the streets,” said Sen. Will Smith, a Montgomery County Democrat and the Senate’s lead sponsor of the bill to ban the agreements. The measure is expected to breeze through the General Assembly. Del. Nicole Williams of Prince George’s County is the lead House sponsor.
Judiciary Chair J. Sandy Bartlett, an attorney, argued that state and local jurisdictions fund local public safety officers to protect the people within their purview. The federal government has its own budget for immigration enforcement. Her House committee will review the bill.
“They do not need our law enforcement to do their job,” the Anne Arundel County Democrat said.
Existing 287(g) agreements allow corrections officers at local jails to ask the immigration status of someone they’ve arrested. Officers can then flag ICE and hold noncitizens for the feds for up to 48 hours after arrest.
Critics of the agreements say they allow law enforcement to racially profile Marylanders arrested for unrelated crimes and sow fear of law enforcement. They also may extend someone’s detention after they would have otherwise been released before a court date.
Republican lawmakers and county sheriffs cautioned that ending the agreements could stoke retaliation.
Federal agencies could see the bans as “resistance,” said Sen. Bill Folden, a retired police officer who at one time served as a deputy sheriff in Frederick County, a jurisdiction that’s had a 287(g) agreement in place for nearly two decades.
“We need to be careful what we ask for,” he said. “Because we don’t want to see the model that we’re seeing in Minnesota.”
The ICE surge in Minneapolis has become a proving ground for how far the Trump administration will take its deportation efforts. A federal judge on Jan. 16 ordered ICE to refrain from detaining protesters or using pepper spray on people exercising their First Amendment rights.
“Letting fear of retaliation dictate our laws is not good leadership,” said Cathryn Jackson, policy director for immigrant rights group CASA.
She said the 287(g) ban has cycled through Annapolis for years. Not passing it has not made her members safer.
Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler called the agreements “an important public safety program,” that allow his officers to screen for someone’s immigration status inside jails. No contract in Maryland permits local officers to conduct immigration arrests.
Sheriffs in Allegany, Carroll, Cecil, Frederick, Garrett, St. Mary’s and Washington counties have also signed the voluntary agreements, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Many say they want the programs to continue.
Unmasking ICE
The ban on face coverings would extend to state, local and federal officers, with some exceptions, such as wearing surgical masks to prevent illness.
The digital unmasking bill, drafted by Del. David Moon, would allow the state to store data, such as location, license plate photos and cellphone video of an ICE officer’s actions, should a member of the public file a complaint against them.
At a time when there’s selective oversight for federal agencies, the Montgomery County Democrat said it’s imperative the state use “the resources at our disposal to ensure there’s at least the opportunity for accountability.”
Republican Del. Matt Morgan said lawmakers should first try to understand why the feds are wearing masks.
“They’re trying to protect those officers,” the St. Mary’s Republican said.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said her officers face violence, threats and harassment while trying to do their jobs. Concealing their faces protects their identities, she said.
Suing ICE
Another early proposal will cement Marylanders’ ability to sue the federal government over civil rights violations. Democrat Del. Lorig Charkoudian of Montgomery County said her bill, dubbed the No Kings Act, will provide legal recourse where none currently exists.
Del. Adrian Boafo has pitched a bill that would disqualify immigration officers sworn in after Trump’s 2025 inauguration from getting jobs as state law enforcement officers.
The bill raises questions about whether someone’s past experience could bar them from future employment, said Nancy Modesitt, a University of Baltimore law professor who specializes in employment law.
But it’s emblematic of Democrats’ outrage after watching Trump’s immigration forces take the streets of American cities.
Boafo, a Prince George’s County Democrat, said those who applied to ICE after the agency used amped-up anti-immigration rhetoric to recruit applicants understood what they were signing up for.
Should the bill pass, he said, it will serve as “a reminder that we’re not going to forget what terror this has been for a lot of Marylanders.”
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