Maryland Paid the Lobbyists Who Wrote the Law That Could Cost Maryland Millions

We Are CASA drafted the sanctuary agenda. Maryland taxpayers funded We Are CASA. Bill Ferguson and Wes Moore delivered the votes. Now federal money is at risk.

By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews

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Maryland is staring down a $1.4 billion structural deficit. It’s cutting $150 million from the Developmental Disabilities Administration. It’s raising taxes on families already leaving the state in measurable numbers.

And it just used taxpayer dollars to help lobby itself into a sanctuary state law that federal analysts warn could cost it significantly more.

That’s not a metaphor. It’s the documented transaction.

Maryland used taxpayer dollars to help lobby itself into a sanctuary state.

The Money Trail

According to state records, Maryland’s government provided We Are CASA — the immigrant advocacy nonprofit that organized, staffed, and directed the campaign to pass the Community Trust Act — more than $1 million in taxpayer funding last year alone. That includes approximately $826,000 from the Department of Service and Civic Innovation, $212,000 from the Maryland Department of Health, and $65,000 from the Governor’s Office for Children.

Maryland’s government provided We Are CASA more than $1 million in taxpayer funding last year alone.

We Are CASA does not shy away from what it does with its organizational power. Its own press release following the session’s final day calls the Community Trust Act “We Are CASA’s top immigrant rights priority,” describes how its members “spent countless hours in Annapolis fighting for these bills,” and features Senate President Bill Ferguson and Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chair William Smith joining CASA on stage to celebrate passage.

The governor’s office funded the organization. The Senate President stood on its stage. The governor will now decide whether to sign the bill.

What the Bill Does — and What It Risks

The Community Trust Act, passed in the final hours of the 2026 session as an emergency measure, bars local law enforcement and correctional facilities from detaining individuals for ICE transfer without a judicial warrant, and sharply limits any proactive communication between Maryland law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. Republican legislators tried to rename it the Maryland Sanctuary State Act. Democrats rejected the amendment 91-35 and passed the bill anyway.

Legislative analysts warned during the session that the bill could jeopardize federal funding. That warning has a specific mechanism: a Trump executive order directing the Department of Justice and Homeland Security to evaluate sanctuary jurisdictions and potentially cut their federal allocations. A DHS spokesperson, responding directly to Maryland’s bill, said: “When sanctuary politicians outlaw state and local law enforcement cooperation, they make their communities less safe.”

Maryland received approximately $3.5 billion in federal grants in the most recent fiscal year. No one in Annapolis has publicly quantified how much of that is at risk. No one appears to have been asked to.

House Minority Whip Jesse Pippy put it simply during floor debate: “Making Maryland a sanctuary state will further bankrupt us, if we’re not bankrupt already.”

The Feedback Loop

What makes this more than standard advocacy politics is the structure of the relationship. We Are CASA is not just a group that lobbied for a bill. It is an organization that receives state money, deploys that organizational capacity to pressure the legislature, and then celebrates the outcome alongside the legislative leaders who funded it.

The organization received a $1 million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. It has historically received federal EPA and other agency grants. It received $1.5 million from Citgo Petroleum — the oil company owned by the Venezuelan government under Hugo Chavez — in 2008. For years, nearly half its budget came from government appropriations at various levels.

CASA disputes that public funds support advocacy. “No public funds are ever used to support advocacy and protest activities at CASA,” the organization told Fox45. State officials backed that claim, saying grants are restricted to specific programs.

That framing deserves scrutiny. Money is fungible. An organization that receives $1 million in state funds for services frees up $1 million in private funds for advocacy. The organizational infrastructure — the staff, the offices, the membership lists, the relationships with legislative leaders — is built on the full budget, not just the advocacy line item.

Money is fungible. An organization that receives $1 million in state funds for services frees up $1 million in private funds for advocacy.

The Bill Is Sitting on Moore’s Desk

As of this writing, Moore has not signed the Community Trust Act. He has 30 days from receipt to act. The bill was passed as an emergency measure, meaning it takes effect immediately upon his signature.

Moore already signed the 287(g) ban earlier this session — the first item on We Are CASA’s 2026 legislative agenda — flanked by Ferguson, House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, and CASA’s own leadership at a joint press conference they organized together.

The question now is whether he signs the second item on their list while Maryland waits to find out what it costs.

Marylanders are leaving the state over affordability. The disability community is fighting $150 million in cuts. The structural deficit has no credible resolution in the current budget. And the political infrastructure funded in part by Maryland taxpayers just delivered its second major legislative win of the session — one that federal authorities have specifically identified as a funding risk.

Nobody in Annapolis is being asked to square that circle on the record. That’s the story.

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Sources: FOX45/Spotlight on Maryland; We Are CASA press releases; Maryland state grant records; Maryland Matters; WMAR2 News; InfluenceWatch.

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