LAWLESS? Sheriffs Claim ‘Sanctuary’ Endangers Communities

A new Maryland “sanctuary” law is forcing sheriffs to release criminal illegal aliens back into communities instead of into federal custody, and a majority of the state’s top lawmen are taking the fight to federal court.

Story Snapshot

Seventeen of Maryland’s 24 sheriffs have filed a federal lawsuit to block the new Community Trust Act, calling it an unconstitutional “sanctuary” mandate.
The law sharply restricts communication and cooperation with federal immigration officers, even for jail inmates accused or convicted of serious crimes.
Sheriffs say the act forces them to “harbor” removable criminal aliens and defies federal immigration law and the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
Supporters claim the law protects immigrant “trust,” but the lawsuit argues it instead endangers law-abiding citizens and undermines basic public safety.

Maryland’s Sheriffs Revolt Against Forced “Sanctuary State” Policies

Seventeen elected sheriffs, representing most of Maryland’s counties, have sued Democratic Governor Wes Moore’s administration over the state’s newly enacted Community Trust Act, a law they say effectively turns Maryland into a sanctuary state and blocks them from meaningfully working with federal immigration officers.^[1]^[2] The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Greenbelt, seeks to stop the law before it fully takes effect and to restore long-standing cooperation between county jails and federal immigration enforcement.^[1]^[2]

According to reporting on the complaint and press conference, the sheriffs argue the act “cuts off nearly all communication” between local jails and federal immigration authorities, including routine notifications about when removable criminal inmates will be released.^[1]^[2]^[3] In past years, sheriffs commonly used these communications and related requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to transfer deportable offenders directly to federal custody rather than releasing them back into neighborhoods after serving local sentences.

What the Community Trust Act Does – And Why Sheriffs Say It Harms Public Safety

The Community Trust Act comes on top of an earlier Maryland law that banned “287(g)” agreements, which are formal partnerships allowing local law enforcement officers to be trained and designated to perform certain federal immigration functions in cooperation with ICE.^[1]^[2] Sheriffs stress that the new act goes much further by forbidding most direct cooperation and communication, not just formal written agreements, thereby reaching deep into daily jail operations and information-sharing practices that have existed for years.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Media coverage and the sheriffs’ statements explain that under the act, local and state law enforcement agencies generally may not notify federal immigration officers when an unlawfully present inmate is about to be released, nor may they hold someone beyond their local release time based solely on an immigration detainer, absent specific court orders.^[1]^[3] Supporters carved out narrow exceptions for cases such as convicted felons, registered sex offenders or inmates who have served lengthy prison terms, but sheriffs say many dangerous offenders fall outside those narrow categories and will still be released back into communities.

Constitutional Clash: Supremacy Clause, Federal Law, and “Harboring” Concerns

The lawsuit, filed with support from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), argues that Maryland’s law is not just bad policy but unconstitutional because it “stands as an obstacle” to federal immigration laws that rely on cooperation from state and local officials to identify, detain, and remove criminal aliens.^[2] The sheriffs and FAIR contend that Congress explicitly designed immigration statutes to foster information-sharing and federal–state cooperation, which the Community Trust Act now obstructs inside Maryland.^[2]

The complaint goes further, asserting that the state is effectively commanding sheriffs to violate federal criminal law by forcing them to conceal or withhold information about removable aliens from federal authorities.^[2] FAIR highlights the federal “harboring” statute and argues that when a sheriff refuses to provide ICE with a requested release date or transfer, after the state has barred such disclosure, the sheriff is being ordered to “harbor” that alien by concealing his or her whereabouts.^[2] Because sheriffs cannot obey both federal harboring law and Maryland’s sanctuary restrictions, they argue, the act presents a “textbook case of conflict preemption” under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.^[2]

Supporters’ “Trust” Argument Versus Real-World Safety Concerns

Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups backing the Community Trust Act claim it is needed to ensure immigrants are not afraid to work, report crimes, or serve as witnesses due to fear of immigration enforcement, framing the measure as a civil rights and “community trust” bill rather than an anti-police statute.^[1] They insist the law does not stop federal immigration officers from acting on their own and say it merely adds due process protections before inmates are transferred to immigration custody.^[1]

A majority of Maryland’s sheriffs, 17 out of 24, are suing the state over the new Community Trust Act. They say it effectively turns Maryland into a sanctuary state by limiting how much they can cooperate with ICE.

The law requires ICE to get a judicial warrant before detaining… pic.twitter.com/NFFc84fgLt

— Patricia 🇺🇸 (@1109Patricia) May 28, 2026

Sheriffs counter that the people most protected by this law are not law-abiding workers, but criminal offenders who should be turned over to federal authorities instead of quietly released onto Maryland streets.^[2]^[3] By blocking routine communication with federal immigration officers while inmates are already in secure custody, they argue, the state is choosing ideology over common-sense public safety, burdening local taxpayers with repeat offenders and undermining the federal government’s duty—now backed by the Trump administration—to remove dangerous illegal aliens before they create new victims in American communities.^[2]^[3]