Maryland scrambles for answers after surge in immigrant arrests

A recent surge in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests across the region has left some local community members reeling and Maryland’s top leaders demanding answers.

ICE reported this week that the agency carried out a two-week surge of more than 1,300 arrests this month, dubbed “Operation Safe Community,” largely targeting the Washington suburbs of Maryland and Virginia.

A spokesperson for Gov. Wes Moore said they’d only heard about the enforcement actions from the agency’s news release and are seeking answers. State lawmakers say they’re hearing from constituents too afraid to go to work or school, describing ICE’s escalating enforcement as instilling communitywide fear.

During the surge, from Aug. 1-14, ICE reported arresting 1,328 people in Maryland and Virginia, more than in any 14-day period in those states since at least October 2022, according to a Banner analysis. ICE has not reported how many of those arrests occurred in Maryland.

In recent weeks, a call-in ICE spotting hotline for We Are CASA — Maryland’s largest immigrant advocacy organization — has received an uptick in reports of immigration agents staging in nearby parking lots, said Ama Frimpong, director of services. The organization has documented an increase in arrests, she added.

“We have to ask ourselves, how many of these arrests are actually in compliance with the law?” Frimpong said. She said the organization has seen instances of arrests without probable cause or a warrant, along with an increase in violence during arrests.

Rocio Treminio-Lopez, mayor of Prince George’s County’s Brentwood, was driving her son to school Tuesday when her phone began ringing with urgent calls. Families walking children to school reported four black SUVs and a group of ICE agents arrived along streets neighboring Thomas S. Stone Elementary School.

By Wednesday, residents with signs that said “La Migra is here” — a reference to federal agents — had showed up to walk with families or offer them a ride to or from school.

“It’s every day,” Treminio-Lopez said. “It’s increasing, and I assume it’s going to get worse.”

The Trump administration once promised that its stepped-up immigration enforcement strategy would target “the worst of the worst.” But often those without any criminal background are picked up and more than two-thirds of those arrested during this month’s operation had no criminal history.

ICE said it arrested 400 people with prior criminal convictions. The agency said among them were people convicted of rape, murder and other serious crimes, but it declined to clarify the number of individuals with violent criminal histories or how many of the arrests were made in Maryland.

“When sanctuary politicians refuse to work with ICE, they force our officers to make these arrests at large in the communities — creating a more dangerous environment for our officers, the aliens we are arresting, and the general public,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Acting Assistant Director Patricia Hyde wrote in a statement.

“We could be using one or two officers to make a custodial arrest in the security of a jail cell,” Hyde wrote. “However, because sanctuary politicians refuse to cooperate, we have to expend time, manpower, and resources.”

Maryland politicians pushed back on the characterization of the state as a so-called sanctuary jurisdiction.

“Maryland is not and will never be a sanctuary for criminals under Governor Moore,” Moore spokesperson Rhyan Lake said in a statement.

The Moore administration “will always work with federal law enforcement to get violent criminals off our streets,” Lake said, adding “we don’t have to choose between holding violent offenders accountable and protecting the constitutional rights and basic dignity of our neighbors.”

Some area attorneys said the surge has come alongside a new strategy of detaining more immigrants at airports, or during routine check-ins at ICE field offices. While some of those targeted by ICE are completely undocumented, other detained have had active asylum applications or have had their lawful immigration status recently stripped away because of Trump administration policy changes.

As ICE has hired tens of thousands of officers to carry out Trump’s mass deportation agenda, Maryland and other states have also drawn legal lines between what state and local law enforcement can do to help them.

Maryland lawmakers fast-tracked immigration reforms this year, pushing back on the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.

The new laws championed by Democrats ended cooperation with federal agencies, with some exceptions, banned immigration officers from wearing masks and protected sensitive state data from being shared with federal agencies for immigration purposes.

Republican lawmakers and law enforcement leaders warned barring state and local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE would draw more street-level enforcement.

Del. Jason Buckel, a Western Maryland Republican, said he does not want to see undocumented people living and working in Maryland communities “subject to increased danger, car chases, or potentially tragic outcomes.”

“That’s why cooperating with federal partners to peacefully identify and turn over illegal immigrants in law enforcement custody for committing other crimes — including violent ones — is the right policy,” Buckel said.

Top Democrats stood by their decisions.

“I felt, and many of my colleagues felt, it was a responsibility for us to provide as much protections as a state can,” said Del. Ashanti Martinez, a Democrat from Prince George’s County.

“This administration was coming for us, regardless of if we pass these bills or not,” said Martinez, who chairs the Maryland Legislative Latino Caucus.

House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, the state’s first Afro Latina to lead the chamber, said lawmakers in Maryland “do not write our laws based on whether they will please or provoke any presidential administration. We write them based on what we believe will keep Marylanders safe.”

Maryland Democratic members of Congress said in statements to The Banner they’re seeking answers and accountability for ICE’s recent activity. They’re hearing from constituents afraid to go about their daily lives, and they rejected ICE’s claim the administration was targeting the “worst of the worst.”

“The overwhelming majority of people arrested by ICE in their last Maryland operation have not been charged with, much less convicted of, a crime,” Rep. Jamie Raskin said.