DOJ Sues Maryland Over Community Trust Act, Extending Federal Anti-Sanctuary Campaign to 21 States

The Department of Justice filed suit July 9 against Maryland and Attorney General Anthony Brown, seeking to block the state’s Community Trust Act — which prohibits local law enforcement from honoring ICE detainers and restricts sharing of personal information with immigration authorities. DOJ argues the law is preempted by 8 USC §§ 1373 and 1644. The suit is the 21st in the Civil Division’s campaign targeting state sanctuary policies, following suits against Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, and New York. A June 2026 federal ruling dismissed a similar challenge to Los Angeles’s sanctuary ordinance, creating favorable precedent for Maryland’s defense.

The 21-state count makes this less an isolated enforcement action than a documented federal litigation campaign against state-level immigration-federalism policy — each new filing follows the same 8 USC preemption theory regardless of the target state’s specific statutory language, and the pattern continues even after the LA dismissal weakened DOJ’s underlying legal theory in the circuit most likely to hear Maryland’s defense on appeal.