Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday that local law enforcement officers in his state are prepared to disregard a newly signed law barring cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arguing that public safety must come first.
Speaking at Politico Live’s Governors Summit, Hogan addressed legislation signed by Gov. Wes Moore that prohibits local agencies from entering into or continuing 287(g) agreements with ICE. Those agreements allow federal immigration authorities to deputize local officers to assist with immigration enforcement.
“Yesterday in my state they just passed a bill, Gov. Moore signed an emergency bill to prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE,” Hogan said. “And, you know, all the local law enforcement officers are saying, ‘We’re going to ignore that because we’re required to work with them.’”
Hogan acknowledged concerns about potential overreach but stressed that violent offenders should not be released back into communities when federal authorities seek to detain them.
“So I get the whole, you know, overreach and overstep and doing the wrong things, but, you know, when they have violent criminals that they’re holding in jail that ICE wants to be detained, they, you know, they shouldn’t be let back on the street. So there’s two sides to this argument,” he said.
Moore defended the move to ban 287(g) agreements, saying the state would still coordinate with federal officials on shared public safety priorities. According to The Baltimore Sun, Moore said at the bill signing ceremony that Maryland would continue to work toward “the lawful removal of noncitizen offenders who pose a risk to the public.”
“We want ICE to be focused on violent criminals and people who are doing true harm to our society, as was promised by the Trump-Vance administration,” Moore said.
The debate in Maryland reflects a broader national clash over immigration enforcement and the role of ICE. Moore and other Democrats have accused the agency in recent months of excessive force and racial discrimination.
Last month, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., called for what he described as “dramatic reform” of ICE following recent controversy surrounding the agency.
“ICE agents are the ones breaking the law, not the peaceful protesters,” Van Hollen told ABC News’s Jonathan Karl. “So, I believe we should not be funding an ICE operation that is completely lawless. It needs dramatic reform. You know, Donald Trump said he was going to go after the, quote, ‘worst of the worst.’”
Van Hollen added that, based on ICE’s own data, “80 percent of the people they’re apprehending around the country posed no public threat whatsoever,” and claimed the agency later removed access to that data.
Meanwhile, Congress remains locked in a standoff over funding for the Department of Homeland Security amid a partial shutdown affecting the agency. The funding fight has further intensified partisan divisions over immigration enforcement.
Last week, House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., introduced legislation that would fund every DHS agency except ICE, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Office of the Secretary.
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot be abolished, but I will not provide a single dime of funding until we see radical changes in how it operates,” DeLauro said in a statement, warning that Republicans would bear responsibility for any consequences if the bill does not advance.
As Maryland moves forward with its new restrictions, Hogan’s remarks suggest the conflict between state directives and local law enforcement priorities may be far from settled.
