Immigration legislation proposals dominate Montgomery County Council meeting

Montgomery County Council members spent most of the day Tuesday introducing and hearing testimony on bills that would restrict how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can operate within the county.

Council member Evan Glass introduced the “ICE Out Act,” a bill designed to prohibit ICE from establishing detention centers that would house immigrants in Maryland’s largest county.

Glass said the bill would do three things: provide a legal definition for what an immigrant detention center is, prohibit building permits from being issued for immigrant detention facilities and bar the county’s permitting department from issuing a use and occupancy permit to privately owned immigrant detention facilities.

“The ‘ICE Out Act’ ensures that our permitting process cannot be exploited to bring private immigration detention centers into Montgomery County,” Glass said.

The bill, Glass added, was driven by ICE enforcement actions in Montgomery County, which has a large immigrant population, and the move by the federal government to establish an immigrant detention facility in Washington County. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown filed a lawsuit in con...