ICE begins detentions from county that recently abandoned sanctuary policies

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made its first detentions in Montgomery County, Maryland, after the county’s sanctuary policies were abandoned in February, according to a Tuesday press release.

Several states and municipalities have adopted policies that limit cooperation with ICE on removal operations or the sharing of information to enable ICE arrests, describing themselves as sanctuaries for persons without lawful status in the United States. After Montgomery County executives agreed on Feb. 27 to begin cooperating with ICE, the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division made its first two detentions of incarcerated foreign nationals with criminal convictions on March 11, according to a press release.

“We are extremely happy to be working with our law enforcement partners in Montgomery County,” ERO Baltimore Field Office Director Darius Reeves said in the press release. “ERO Baltimore is looking to apprehend and remove the most egregious noncitizen offenders. The two detainees that we took custody of were both charged with sexually abusing Maryland minors. Sex offenders are certainly not the types of people that the residents of Montgomery County want roaming their streets.”

ICE, with @DHSgov & @CBP, facilitated multiple removal flights—including single adults and family units—to Albania, Georgia, Central America, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico, Romania and Uzbekistan March 4-8 as part of dozens of routine…🧵 pic.twitter.com/WfquVESNGC

— ICE (@ICEgov) March 8, 2024

A 44-year-old citizen of Honduras and a 33-year-old citizen of El Salvador, who both entered the United States unlawfully and were charged with alleged sexual abuse of a minor, were the suspects detained, according to the press release. The latter individual was convicted by the Circuit Court of Montgomery County of sex offense in the third degree on November 28, 2023.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memorandum on September 30, 2021, to ICE and other immigration-related federal agencies that narrowed the scope of immigration enforcement to focus on threats to national security, public safety, and border security. The memorandum also established several mitigating factors for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion to arrest and remove foreign nationals who may be deportable, such as their exercise of legal rights and civil liberties as well as the use of immigration proceedings to retaliate against them.

“We do not have the resources to apprehend and seek the removal of every one of these noncitizens,” Mayorkas wrote. “In exercising our discretion, we are guided by the fact that the majority of undocumented noncitizens who could be subject to removal have been contributing members of our communities for years.”

“The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them. We will use our discretion and focus our enforcement resources in a more targeted way. Justice and our country’s well-being require it,” Mayorkas wrote.

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