Nine Maryland county sheriffs on Wednesday vowed to continue working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), despite a ban signed by Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) on Tuesday that ended official agreements between local police and the federal agency, as state Democrats admit the new rules cannot stop the cooperation.
“It is the biggest betrayal to law enforcement and public safety that I have ever seen,” said Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis. “This is sad day for Maryland, it really is. This is a sad day for Maryland.”
The group of Maryland sheriffs held a joint press conference on Wednesday to decry the ban on state participation in the federal government’s 287(g) program that pairs local law enforcement departments to federal agencies to work directly in immigration enforcement and other law enforcement operations.
Sheriff Lewis ripped Gov. Moore and state Democrats for the folly of banning the 287(g) program as a “betrayal to law enforcement,” and pointed out that the ban does not stop ICE from doing its work, regardless.
“The abolishment of the 287(g) program is not the abolishment of ICE. They’re going nowhere. In fact, they’re going to intensify their efforts,” Lewis said, according to WBAL-TV. “Mark my words, you will see a dramatic increase in the presence of ICE in this state.”
Each of the sheriffs also said the so-called ban does not actually prevent them from working with ICE, it only prevents them from being conveniently enrolled in the 287(g) program, and they vowed to simply create their own, individual policies to continue working with ICE despite what the Democrats want.
Carroll County Sheriff Jim DeWees said he has now created his own internal policy that will allow him to continue working with ICE and his policy does not intersect with the ban in the least, WBFF-TV reported.
Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler added, “So we go forward still in partnership. Even if it’s not formal, even if the MOUs are banned.”
“We’re going to provide ICE with the information of those people we arrest, so that they can file detainers,” Gahler explained.
WBFF added that several Democrat lawmakers have already admitted that they cannot stop sheriffs from working with ICE and their new ban does not stop cooperation outside 287(g)s.
“We cannot say you cannot work with ICE there is federal supremacy. So we can say and we can make it state law, that there can’t be any formative agreement,” a lawmaker told the station.
Former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) predicted that most law enforcement agencies in the Old Line State will ignore Moore’s ban.
“Yesterday in my state they just passed a bill, Gov. Moore signed an emergency bill to prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE. And, you know, all the local law enforcement officers are saying, ‘We’re going to ignore that because we’re required to work with them,” Hogan said on Wednesday, according to the Hill.
“So, I get the whole, you know, overreach and overstep and doing the wrong things, but, you know, when they have violent criminals that they’re holding in jail that ICE wants to be detained, they, you know, they shouldn’t be let back on the street. So there’s two sides to this argument,” he added.
Maryland was not the only state to try and hamstring local police from working with ICE to take violent offenders off the streets. New Mexico has also recently enacted a new law banning the implementation of the 287(g) program within the state.
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