Maryland’s westernmost county is the latest to enter a partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the enforcement of federal immigration law, according to a database kept by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
The Allegany County Sheriff’s Office joined what is known as the 287(g) program in June, agreeing to serve warrants on undocumented immigrants on behalf of ICE.
Named for Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the program allows DHS to enter into written agreements with local or state jurisdictions. Under those agreements, ICE is permitted to deputize state or local officers to carry out certain immigration-related functions normally performed by federal agents.
Among other things, the program allows local law enforcement agents to ask residents about their immigration status, check DHS databases for information on immigrants, and issue detainers to keep people in their custody until they can be picked up by ICE.
The Allegany County decision brings to eight the number of Maryland counties that have entered the partnerships, according to the database. Carroll, Cecil, Frederick, Harford, Garrett, St. Mary’s and Washington counties all previously signed agreements with the federal agency.
Neither Allegany County, its sheriff’s office, nor an ICE spokesperson responded to questions by publication.
Baltimore, Baltimore County, and Maryland’s 14 other counties have declined to enter into the agreements. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is among the leaders who have stated their jurisdiction’s police officers will focus on local matters, not on enforcing federal immigration law.
Scott has stuck to that policy amid what advocates have called a dramatic increase in ICE arrests and detentions of noncitizens in Baltimore since late May, when Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff and top immigration advisor, called a meeting in Washington to order ICE officials to carry out 3,000 arrests per day.
The 287(g) program has become a political football as the Trump Administration ratchets up what Trump vowed on the campaign trail would be “the biggest mass deportation operation in history.”
According to the ICE website, the program “enhances the safety and security of our nation’s communities by allowing ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) to partner with state and local law enforcement agencies to identify and remove criminal aliens who are amenable to removal from the U.S.”
The purpose is “to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of aliens who undermine the safety of our nation’s communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws,” according to the post. But immigrant advocacy groups argue that the program gives local law enforcement room to engage in racial profiling and undermines trust between immigrants and sheriffs’ departments.
A 2011 investigation by the Department of Justice found, for instance, that police in Maricopa County, Arizona, systematically profiled Latino drivers after entering a 287(g) agreement, and another justice department investigation in 2012 found that police in Alamance County North Carolina, pulled Latino drivers over at 10 times the rate of non-Latinos after signing onto the federal program.
States can bar local law enforcement agencies inside their borders from entering 287(g) agreements, and six American states have done so — California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut.
An effort by Maryland lawmakers to enact such a prohibition statewide passed in the House in March but fell short in the Senate.
Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.
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