Montgomery County committees advance 'Promoting Community Trust and Immigrant Protection Act' to full council

Chair Stewart convened a joint session of the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee and the Public Safety Committee and opened discussion on Expedited Bill 3,525, known as the Promoting Community Trust and Immigrant Protection Act. After staff summarized the measure and members approved two technical amendments, the committees voted unanimously to recommend the bill to the full council.

Ms. Wellens, council staff, told members the bill would codify the county executive's 2019 executive order (Order No. 135.19) to limit Montgomery County employees' participation in federal civil immigration enforcement. "The express intent of the bill is to ensure that all of our residents, including immigrant communities, can engage with county departments...without the fear that the engagement would be used in civil immigration enforcement or in a discriminatory manner against them," Ms. Wellens said.

Under the bill as explained by staff, county employees and departments would be restricted from asking about a person's immigration status except when required by statute, judicial order or treaty; the bill would bar threats or discrimination based on immigration status; and it would prohibit conditioning county benefits or services on immigration status unless expressly required by applicable law. Ms. Wellens also said the bill would allow Maryland-issued IDs to be supplemented with "other comparable photo IDs from the individual's country of origin" or IDs issued by an approved nonprofit in appropriate cases.

On detention and law enforcement, Ms. Wellens said the bill would prohibit Montgomery County from arresting, stopping or detaining people for federal civil immigration purposes while preserving the county's ability to enforce criminal law. She added the Department of Corrections generally would be barred from notifying immigration officials of impending releases for civil immigration enforcement; notification could occur no earlier than 36 hours before release for people convicted of certain enumerated violent crimes.

The staff presentation also said the bill would align county rules with recent Maryland legislation (House Bill 1222, 2025) regarding "sensitive locations" such as libraries, schools and health-care facilities and would bar civil immigration enforcement from entering private spaces of county facilities without a valid judicial warrant. Ms. Wellens said the county executive would report to the council every six months on requests from immigration enforcement and how they were handled.

Council members approved two technical, non-substantive amendments recommended by staff to clarify internal consistency. Chair Stewart called the question on the amendments and announced they passed unanimously for the two committees. After hearing remarks of support from Co-chair Katz and others and brief comments from Luisa Cardona of the County Executive's Office about implementation readiness, the chair called for the committee vote to forward the bill to the full council; he announced that motion passed unanimously.

The joint committees moved the bill forward; the full Montgomery County Council will consider the recommendation at a future meeting.