The Justice Department sued Maryland and Attorney General Anthony Brown on July 9, accusing the state of an active effort to block federal immigration enforcement through its new sanctuary law.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, targets the Community Trust Act, a law that took effect in May after Governor Wes Moore let it become law without his signature. The law bars local police from holding someone for Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a judicial warrant, except in cases involving felonies or sex offenses, and forbids jail officials from even asking detainees about their immigration status.
DOJ's complaint accuses Maryland of an "active and deliberate effort" to obstruct deportations, according to Fox News. The department argues the law is preempted under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause because it interferes with the executive branch's duty to enforce federal immigration statutes. Justice Department attorneys are asking a federal judge to permanently block enforcement of the law's core provisions.
Maryland is not an isolated target. The suit is roughly the twentieth the Justice Department has filed against a sanctuary jurisdiction since President Trump returned to office, following similar actions against Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois and New York. The pattern is consistent: a state or city passes a law restricting cooperation with ICE, and DOJ answers in court with the same constitutional argument that states cannot override federal supremacy on immigration enforcement, even indirectly, by cutting off the flow of information and custody transfers that make deportations possible.
Maryland's version, formally Senate Bill 791, went further than some earlier sanctuary statutes by barring officers from even asking about immigration status inside county jails. That provision is likely to draw particular scrutiny in court, since it does not merely limit detention on ICE's behalf but restricts the basic exchange of information between state custodians and federal agents.
Moore and Brown respond
Governor Moore did not sign the bill, but he has defended it since DOJ filed suit. Through a spokesperson, Rhyan Lake, the governor's office said Maryland officials would review the complaint and continue to prioritize what it called public safety over federal immigration priorities, arguing that trust between immigrant communities and local police improves cooperation on unrelated crimes. Attorney General Brown, named directly as a defendant, has not signaled he intends to change how the law is applied while litigation proceeds, and has previously said his office would defend Maryland's authority to set its own policing priorities.
State lawmakers who backed the Community Trust Act framed it during the legislative session as a response to complaints from immigrant advocacy groups and some county sheriffs who said ICE detainer requests, which are not backed by judicial warrants, exposed local governments to civil liability for unlawful detention. Federal courts in several states have previously found that holding someone solely on an ICE detainer, without a warrant signed by a judge, can violate the Fourth Amendment. Supporters of the law argue it simply codifies that legal reality rather than obstructing federal agents.
The Justice Department disputes that framing. In court filings, DOJ lawyers argue the law goes beyond declining voluntary cooperation and instead affirmatively obstructs federal officers by walling off information they say is necessary for lawful enforcement, including basic status inquiries inside jails that would previously have flagged someone for an ICE hold. That distinction, between a state simply not helping and a state actively interfering, has become the central legal question in nearly every sanctuary lawsuit DOJ has filed this year.
The Maryland suit lands amid a broader escalation between the administration and Democratic-led states over immigration enforcement. Earlier suits against Illinois and Colorado targeted statewide sanctuary statutes, while the Connecticut and New York cases focused more narrowly on specific local ordinances restricting ICE access to jails and courthouses. Legal analysts tracking the litigation say the outcomes have been mixed so far, with some district courts allowing narrower provisions to stand while blocking broader detainer bans, setting up likely appeals regardless of how the Maryland case is decided.
Immigration advocacy groups in Maryland, including the ACLU of Maryland and CASA, have said they expect to file briefs supporting the state's defense of the law, arguing that federal preemption claims should not extend to a state's ability to decide how its own police and jail personnel spend their time and resources.
A hearing date in the Maryland case has not yet been set. Given the pace of similar litigation elsewhere, a ruling on DOJ's request for a preliminary injunction could come within the next two to three months, and whichever side loses is widely expected to appeal to the Fourth Circuit. With DOJ's sanctuary-law campaign now well into its second dozen lawsuits, Maryland's case is likely to become another data point in what is shaping up as a multi-state legal fight over how far Washington can go in forcing state and local governments to participate in federal immigration enforcement.
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