There are a lot of things coming out of Washington that hurt the people and businesses of Anne Arundel County badly, but none are more inhumane and shortsighted than the treatment of our immigrants.
I say shortsighted because we have a workforce shortage. Maryland and Anne Arundel County have about three job openings for every job seeker, and recent immigrants have a higher rate of workforce participation than native born Americans.
The Trump administration says it is raising the taxes we pay on imports because it wants our country to produce more and import less. It says we need to bring factory jobs back, support our farms, and build more housing. All of those sectors rely on an immigrant workforce.
Economists note that undocumented immigrants are better for the federal treasury than the ones who become citizens. That’s because the undocumented immigrants pay taxes but don’t receive many of the benefits.
In Maryland, approximately 240,300 of our one million-plus foreign-born residents are undocumented. Their income is $6.3 billion, and they pay $1.4 billion in taxes. Our county’s share of those numbers is approximately 10%.
I’ve not seen polling on this issue, but I suspect that nearly all undocumented immigrants in the United States today want legal status. They don’t want to be undocumented. That was the case for Melania Trump, Elon Musk, and Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley when they overstayed their visas and worked here without authorization.
Getting papers depends on who you know, how good your lawyer is, and whether you reside here during a moment in history when our country’s leaders act rationally, as Ronald Reagan did when he created the amnesty program that allowed Mayor Buckley to stay and grow his businesses.
Organizations that represent business interests and people of goodwill across our country have come close in recent years to convincing Congress that it should pass comprehensive immigration reform, to secure our border while creating an orderly process that is humane and good for our economy. But blaming immigrants for whatever frustrates voters is an effective strategy for politicians who fail to understand economics and need political cover.
That, in my view, is how we missed the opportunity to reform our immigration system, and today have a President, a major political party, and corporate media describing the foreign-born workers that our economy depends on as ”illegals, invaders, and criminals.“
I should note here that US law is very clear that being in this country without proper documentation is not a criminal offense. It is a civil offense. But I do want to address crime.
Federal, state, and county data demonstrate clearly that here in Anne Arundel County, we are very effective at both prosecuting criminals and preventing crime. I spoke last week to representatives of the national body that evaluates police departments, CALEA, and they told me that our department sets a standard that few others can meet.
If you Google “Studies showing that immigrants commit less crime,” the first link is a recently-deleted United States Department of Justice study showing that undocumented immigrants in Texas are half as likely as American-born residents to commit crimes. This article reports on that study, and the Google search offers many others that confirm the finding.
It makes sense. Recent immigrants are more likely to be in the workforce, more likely to work multiple jobs, and more inclined to avoid law enforcement. Many fled gangs and lawlessness to be in this country, and they are here to create peaceful and prosperous lives.
The federal 287g program that trains and engages local law enforcement in federal immigration activities was a bad deal for Anne Arundel County during the few years that it was in effect. Our police leadership did not participate directly, saying that it blurred the essential line between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, but our detention officers did, and their leadership noted that it added responsibilities and training requirements for our officers as we suffered from staffing shortages. So we ended the program and maintained participation in the Criminal Alien Program, allowing ICE to take convicted criminals into custody after they serve their time.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is, in my view, an essential government function. The federal government must enforce its immigration laws. But crime is another matter.
Our Police Department, neighboring police departments, the FBI, and our prosecutors work together, not to deport criminals so that they can come back across the border to commit more crimes, but to arrest them, convict them, and incarcerate them.
ICE deported Victor Martinez-Hernandez, the brutal murderer of Rachel Morin in Harford County, three times before he committed that crime. Each time he returned. Once Maryland law enforcement identified him as the suspect, it was the Tulsa Police that arrested him and sent him back to Maryland for prosecution. That had nothing to do with immigration enforcement. He was a rapist and a murderer, and thanks to the effective work of local police and prosecutors, he was convicted this week after less than an hour of jury deliberation. His sentence should and will be far more severe than just another deportation.
Even as it seeks to create a false link between criminal law enforcement and immigration enforcement, the Trump administration has made a promise to deport 11 million undocumented people.
It has established impossible quotas that the hard-working men and women of Immigration and Customs Enforcement will never meet. To add to its numbers, the administration is pursuing people with legal status, denying them the due process that is the foundation of our Constitution, and sending them to countries like El Salvador where they say the US courts have no jurisdiction to demand their return.
The $6 million contract that the United States government recently signed with the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador is an effective terror strategy directed at people residing in our country. The photos of Homeland Security Secretary Noem in front of half-naked prisoners crammed into overcrowded cells were staged to demonstrate the ruthless tactics that the US government is willing to employ.
Human Rights Watch has never been allowed to inspect the 40,000-person capacity facility, but reports that it is designed as a place to hold disappeared suspects indefinitely with no access to attorneys or communication with the outside world, and where torture is an everyday practice.
President Trump brought Salvadoran President Bukele to the White House this week and told him that he wants to do “homegrown criminals next…The homegrowns …You gotta build about five more places.”
“Yeah, we’ve got space,” replied Bukele.
”All right,” Trump concluded.
I literally teared up with gratitude when I heard that Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, one of the most kind and humble people I have the honor to know, announced that he will fly to El Salvador this week to seek the release of wrongly detained Maryland father and sheet metal worker Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.
We learn about new strategies for roundups of immigrants every few days.
One is to revoke legal status from people who say or write what they believe about human rights, about international affairs, and about politics. Another is to use common tattoos as evidence of criminal activity.
Local businesses report federal agents showing up with notices that they are initiating I9 audits, whereby documentation of employee immigration status is reviewed. Federal law requires three days’ notice to initiate the actual audit, but the new practice is to arrive with the letter in hand to get in the door, and then to directly question employees on the site and detain those whose answers are suspect.
Rescinding the ban on immigration enforcement at schools, hospitals, and churches was one of the Executive Orders that President Trump proudly signed on inauguration day.
Just last week, local media reported that FBI officers will be deployed to interview migrant children at the homes where they reside. They will do so in the early morning hours before children leave for school. Some officers have refused to participate.
Last Saturday, the Washington Post confirmed that political appointees at the Social Security Administration had illegally recorded 6,100 living immigrants as dead, saying that they hoped doing so would make them ineligible to work, and encourage them to leave the country.
In recent weeks, I have asked county agencies to maintain information about households suffering from the disappearance of a family member to ICE detention. So far, nearly all were detained while working, nearly all had work authorization, all have US-born children, and none have a criminal record. On average, they have resided here for fifteen years.
Immigrants facing removal hearings do not have a right to government-appointed counsel. Even children go before the judge and plead their own cases, unless they have the funds to hire an attorney.
Legal representation drastically increases the likelihood of favorable rulings for immigrants. Annapolis Immigration Justice Network, a nonprofit that connects unaccompanied children, families fleeing violence, and indigent Anne Arundel County residents to immigration legal counsel, writes that 96% of the cases their attorneys represent have received favorable decisions to remain in the country.
Anne Arundel County has not and will not interfere with the legal activities of federal immigration authorities. But Anne Arundel County always must and always will assist families who live here when we can, regardless of their immigration status. They are our neighbors and their well-being is our well-being.
The simple, humane, and fiscally responsible solution to this “immigration problem” is to pass a bipartisan federal immigration reform bill, one that allows law-abiding, hardworking undocumented people to become documented. It will only happen when the American people demand it.
That is how we will truly make America great again.
Until next week…