The Community Trust Act was thought dead. Democrats revived it in a late-night committee vote. It could be law by Monday.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
ANNAPOLIS — Three days before the Maryland General Assembly adjourns for the year, Senate Democrats resurrected a bill that was widely considered dead — and are now pushing to get it to Governor Moore’s desk before midnight Monday.
The Community Trust Act, Senate Bill 791, passed out of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee in a late-night Thursday session and cleared second reading on the Senate floor Friday. It now heads toward a final Senate vote this weekend with sine die — the session’s last day — looming Monday at midnight.
If it passes and Moore signs it, Maryland will have enacted the most sweeping restriction on local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities of any session in at least 15 years.
What the Bill Does
The Community Trust Act builds on legislation Moore signed in February banning formal 287(g) agreements — the partnerships that allowed Maryland county sheriffs and local law enforcement to act as de facto ICE deputies. That law forced nine Maryland counties to terminate those agreements immediately.
This bill goes further. Under the Community Trust Act, local and state correctional employees would be prohibited from investigating or inquiring into a detainee’s immigration status. Law enforcement would be barred from notifying ICE that someone is in custody — unless the individual has been convicted of a felony, has previously served at least 12 months in a Maryland correctional facility, is a registered sex offender, or is subject to a valid judicial warrant. Administrative detainer requests from ICE — the most common tool federal agents use to flag individuals for pickup — would not be sufficient on their own.
In short: unless a judge has signed off, Maryland law enforcement would be required to stay out of it.
How It Got Here
The bill’s resurrection was itself controversial. The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee advanced it in what Republicans are calling a “secret voting session” Thursday night — a meeting that Republican members say was not properly announced and excluded law enforcement stakeholders who had previously testified against earlier versions of the bill.
Sen. William Folden, a Frederick County Republican and former law enforcement officer who sits on the committee, walked out. “I left the voting session. I felt it violated the Open Meetings Act,” Folden said during Friday’s floor debate. “We didn’t announce it, we didn’t allow the sheriffs and the local law enforcement executives of the state to be involved in it, and we moved it through.”
Committee Chair Will Smith, a Montgomery County Democrat, pushed back, saying the meeting was open to the public and announced on the General Assembly website. Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey wasn’t satisfied. “Was it on the website that there was going to be a voting session in the middle of our floor session last night?” he demanded on the floor Friday. Smith’s answer — that it was an open session — didn’t address the timing question directly.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Clarence Lam, offered the Democratic rationale: after the 287(g) ban passed, some local officials were “outright discussing how they were going to defy the law,” Senate President Ferguson said Friday. The Community Trust Act is the response — a statewide standard that closes what Democrats view as an informal enforcement pipeline that the 287(g) ban left open.
Sheriffs Are Already Signaling Defiance
The most pointed reaction came not from the Senate floor but from the counties.
Carroll County Sheriff Jim DeWees issued a statement urging Moore to veto the legislation outright. Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins — whose county is in your backyard — had already made his position clear before the bill even revived, publicly stating his intention to continue working with ICE to advance federal enforcement priorities with or without a 287(g) agreement. That declaration, advocates say, is precisely why the Community Trust Act is necessary. From a center-right perspective, it also illustrates the bill’s core tension: elected county sheriffs, answerable to their voters, are being told by Annapolis that their judgment on public safety cooperation with federal law enforcement is no longer their call to make.
Sen. Folden put it plainly on the floor: “The irony is, we’re calling it the Community Trust Act, but we’re actually weakening a community because we’re not allowing our law enforcement partners to interact with federal law enforcement. You wonder why we have a recruitment problem, retention problem with law enforcement in the state of Maryland, right? Here’s another reason.”
The Federal Risk Nobody Is Talking About
Maryland Democrats are threading a needle that may not hold. The Trump administration has been explicit that states and localities that obstruct federal immigration enforcement face potential funding consequences. Maryland’s combination of bills — the 287(g) ban already signed, the Community Trust Act now moving, and the “No Kings Act” that passed the House Thursday — amounts to one of the most aggressive postures toward federal immigration enforcement of any state in the country.
Whether that posture survives federal legal challenge, or triggers the funding retaliation Republicans have warned about, remains to be seen. What is clear is that Maryland is making a deliberate choice to prioritize sanctuary policy over federal cooperation — in an election year, days before the session ends, in a bill revived through a process its own committee members walked out of.
Voters in the eight counties that previously had 287(g) agreements — Allegany, Carroll, Garrett, St. Mary’s, Washington, Cecil, Frederick, and Harford — will have an opinion about that choice. Their sheriffs already do.
Sources: The Daily Record, “Anti-ICE Community Trust Act pushed in MD Senate’s final days,” April 10, 2026; WYPR, “Maryland Senate revives bill to further regulate how local law enforcement can work with ICE,” April 10, 2026; Fox45/WBFF, “Effort to further curtail ICE cooperation in Maryland moves forward as session nears end,” April 10, 2026; WBOC, “Community Trust Act advances in Maryland Senate,” April 10, 2026; Maryland General Assembly, SB 791 bill history, 2026 session; Conduit Street/MACo, “Immigration Enforcement and Juvenile Justice,” December 2025.
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