Maryland legislators overturned Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto of a bill that bars local jails from housing detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and prohibits police from asking people about their immigration status during traffic stops and investigations.
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Advocates of the legislative action described it as one of the most significant pieces of immigration reform to pass in Maryland since the enactment of the Dream Act, a 2012 state law that provides in-state tuition grants to undocumented immigrants.
“This is an extraordinary moment,” said Cathryn Paul, manager of government relations and public policy for CASA, a grass-roots immigrant advocacy organization. “It’s a major step forward in making Maryland a safer place for immigrants and a place that treats immigrants with dignity, just as the [bill’s] title suggests.”
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The General Assembly, which is in Annapolis for a special session on redistricting, also overturned the Republican governor’s veto of a measure that bans the Motor Vehicle Administration from sharing personal information, including facial recognition data, with immigration officials.
Paul credited the passage of the bills and their override to a strong, unified effort by activists and legislators who have been unsuccessful in recent years in attempts to gain support for the Trust Act, which would limit cooperation between localities and federal immigration agents.
“This was a community effort. … These were immigrant families who did this,” she said, noting several undocumented immigrants who earlier this year shared their stories of being detained and continued to lobby legislators to pass the measure.
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In the Maryland Senate, where Republicans mounted an unsuccessful effort Tuesday to preserve private-run immigration detention centers in the name of public safety, Democrats pushed back.
“This bill gets us out of the business of profiting off of family separation,” said Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery), chair of the Judicial Proceedings Commission.
Sen. Michael J. Hough (R-Frederick) warned his colleagues that the practical impact of the bill would be further family separations, with people picked up on civil immigration charges now being sent out of state where their relatives may not be able to visit.
“This law is good for social media,” Hough said, “but in terms of the law, this is good for no one.”
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The Democratic-controlled legislature overrode the vetoes of both bills on a largely party-line vote.
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Republicans lobbied to continue to allow warrantless access to the state’s database of driver’s licenses, which are issued to undocumented immigrants. Republican senators argued that unfettered law enforcement access was necessary to quickly respond to terrorist or other criminal threats. Democrats countered that immigration officials were not accessing the data for criminal prosecutions but rather to pick up and identify immigrants in the country illegally.
Earlier this year, several immigrants and their families shared their stories with legislators, including Nora Lorena Argueta, an immigrant from El Salvador who lived in the United States for 18 years before being deported. She testified virtually.
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“When I arrived in the U.S., I was always afraid of not having a regular status,” she said. “And one day that nightmare came true when I called the Baltimore police to report a crime that my car was stolen.”
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After later being stopped by a state trooper, Argueta was detained for 10 months and later deported.
During the House debate, Del. David Moon (D-Montgomery) criticized his Republican colleagues — who described undocumented immigrants as “illegals” and “aliens” and often used “criminals” interchangeably — as being xenophobic. He said the state would no longer allow “its counties to have for-profit family separations to balance budgets.”
Del. Haven N. Shoemaker Jr. (R-Carroll) said the legislation prohibiting for-profit federal detention centers in Maryland was “sanctuary-state legislation. … Let’s just call it what it is.”
Paul said the overrides are a signal of where Maryland is headed in addressing immigration reform. She said CASA plans to advocate for legislation during the 2022 regular session that would ensure undocumented immigrants have a right to counsel in immigration hearings and a measure that would expand Medicaid to immigrants regardless of status.