Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown is refuting the Justice Department’s claim that his state’s newly expanded immigration sanctuary policies are unconstitutional.
The DOJ filed a lawsuit last week to block Maryland’s Community Trust Act, a 2026 law that restricts how state and local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
Mr. Brown said the law does not prohibit Maryland law enforcement from working with federal authorities on criminal matters, nor does it stop federal officers from operating in Maryland.
“It governs only how Maryland’s own state and local law enforcement resources may be used,” he said in a Monday statement. “The Constitution does not let the federal government compel states to carry out federal immigration enforcement. So, when Maryland chooses not to spend its resources on that federal work, it is not defying the law, it is exercising a right the Supreme Court has recognized.”
Under Maryland’s law, state and local police agencies cannot detain illegal immigrants or transfer them at the request of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a judicial warrant, and state law enforcement officers are restricted from sharing information they gather with federal immigration authorities.
It’s not a blanket ban on coordination between law enforcement and federal immigration agents. Still, the Justice Department argues it’s preempted under the Supremacy Clause on four grounds.
The department argues the Maryland law conflicts with federal statutes that bar states from restricting information-sharing about immigration status and that it obstructs the “full purposes and objectives” of federal immigration law.
The suit also says the new policy unlawfully regulates the federal government by requiring judicial warrants that federal law does not otherwise require for civil immigration enforcement.
Also, the DOJ says Maryland’s policy unlawfully discriminates against the federal government by singling out “federal immigration authorities” for restrictive treatment.
Mr. Brown’s prior guidance to law enforcement argues the 10th Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine bars the federal government from compelling states to enforce federal immigration law and that the law’s restrictions reflect permissible state choices rather than obstruction.
The Justice Department has filed roughly 20 similar suits against sanctuary jurisdictions, and several federal courts have already dismissed comparable DOJ suits against sanctuary policies, often on anti-commandeering grounds.
Mr. Brown said his office is “committed to upholding the rule of law, and we will defend Maryland’s policies because they do exactly that.”
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