{"id":6864,"date":"2026-07-10T04:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T04:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=6864"},"modified":"2026-07-10T04:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T04:10:08","slug":"doj-sues-maryland-alleging-new-immigration-law-obstructs-trumps-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=6864","title":{"rendered":"DOJ sues Maryland, alleging new immigration law obstructs Trump\u2019s authority"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lawsuit adds to acrimony between the Trump administration and deep-blue Maryland.<\/strong><\/p>

Read more Lucas Glover birdies final 2 holes for a 63 and a share of the ISCO Championship lead<\/a><\/p>\n

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(Evan Vucci\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

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\u2019s authority.<\/p>\n

Maryland\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit claims Maryland and the state\u2019s attorney general, Anthony G. Brown, are violating the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Act\u2019s purpose and effect is to obstruct federal law enforcement and thwart the constitutional obligation of the President of the United States to take care that the immigration laws enacted by Congress are enforced,\u201d Justice Department attorneys wrote in the suit. \u201cSuch blatant disregard for federal laws that have been on the books for decades is not merely a political disagreement or passive abstention; it is deliberate, disruptive action that jeopardizes the public safety for all Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

The attorney general declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Gov. Wes Moore said his office \u201ccannot comment on active litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernor Moore has been clear: Maryland will work with the federal government when that coordination makes our people safer \u2014 but we will not let Donald Trump\u2019s untrained, unqualified, and unaccountable ICE agents deputize our law enforcement officers to do immigration work,\u201d Moore spokesperson Rhyan Lake said in a statement. \u201cWhile Trump\u2019s ICE has ripped mothers out of cars and detained five-year-olds, Maryland\u2019s law allows our law enforcement to continue working with federal officers to get violent offenders off our streets, remain focused on the work that has helped drive historic reductions in violent crime, and protect fundamental civil rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore allowed the Community Trust Act to become law this spring without his signature, saying at the time that the bill created \u201cambiguities around joint investigations\u201d across local, state and federal law enforcement that his office was working with the state <\/b>attorney general to \u201cclarify.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill does not wholesale ban jail officials and law enforcement from cooperating with ICE. What it does do, according to guidance from Brown\u2019s office to local officials, is dramatically limit the circumstances under which jails and police can facilitate the removal of an undocumented immigrant.<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department has sued seven other states over what it deems \u201csanctuary city\u201d policies friendly to immigrants, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center litigation tracker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit in Maryland follows high-profile antagonism between President Donald Trump and Moore, a rising star in the Democratic Party and a potential 2028 presidential contender.<\/p>\n

Trump has called Moore \u201cfoulmouthed\u201d and disinvited him from a White House dinner for governors. Among other tussles, the president ridiculed Moore\u2019s leadership on cleaning up a sewage spill<\/a> in the Potomac River and the pace of golf course renovations<\/a> at Joint Base Andrews, a military facility in Maryland.<\/p>

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Moore called Trump \u201cgrotesque<\/a>\u201d this week and accused him of \u201cgrifting.\u201d While he praised the president for so-called Trump accounts \u2014 investment accounts for children seeded by the government \u2014 he also held a dueling Fourth of July celebration speech<\/a> that heavily criticized Trump\u2019s brand of patriotism as a form of nationalism. Moore also engaged in week-long spat with Trump over the deployment of National Guard troops to U.S. cities and demanded the Trump administration refund<\/a> Maryland taxpayers for tariffs thrown out by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

In a state with a large immigrant population, Maryland\u2019s Democratic leaders and advocacy groups have worried for months that the Trump administration might conduct a major ICE operation in Baltimore and elsewhere in the state. Separately, Maryland\u2019s Democratic congressional delegation has challenged efforts from the Department of Homeland Security to erect a massive warehouse detention facility<\/a> near Hagerstown.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> between ICE and local law enforcement agencies. The ban, which Moore quickly signed into law<\/a> in February, was a defiant step from Maryland against the Trump administration\u2019s aggressive stance on immigration and aligned the state with others that had enacted similar restrictions.<\/p>\n

It forced nine sheriff\u2019s offices in Maryland to immediately sever their ICE agreements \u2014 including the Frederick County Sheriff\u2019s Office, which had one of the nation\u2019s longest-running 287(g) partnerships.<\/p>\n

Maryland immigrant rights advocates had advocated for more than a decade for both laws.<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit, the Justice Department quoted Maryland Senate Minority Whip Justin Ready (R-Carroll), who after the Community Trust Act\u2019s passage called it \u201cone of the most dangerous and wrong bills\u201d he has seen pass through the State House in Annapolis.<\/p>\n

Maryland\u2019s Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and House Speaker Joseline A. Pe\u00f1a-Melnyk (D-Prince George\u2019s), who both supported the Community Trust Act, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Sen. Clarence K. Lam (D-Howard), who sponsored the bill, said lawmakers took great care to ensure the language did not interfere with ICE agents\u2019 ability to enforce federal immigration law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a massive obfuscation on the part of ICE and an embarrassment on behalf of the Department of Justice to take this tack,\u201d Lam said. \u201cThey are trying to make this out to be a policy that is subverting the ability of the federal government to be able to enforce federal immigration law. This has nothing to do with federal immigration law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll it is saying is that our state resources cannot be commandeered by, from my perspective, an out-of-control federal agency like ICE to enforce federal immigration law,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Justice Department attorneys asked the federal court to issue a permanent injunction barring the implementation of the law.<\/p>

Read more Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 has a goal and an assist as France beats Morocco 2-0 in the World Cup quarterfinals<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The law, called the Community Trust Act, curtails jails and law enforcement in the state from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nDOJ sues Maryland, alleging new immigration law obstructs Trump\u2019s authority - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=6864\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DOJ sues Maryland, alleging new immigration law obstructs Trump\u2019s authority - 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