Mateo Forero - Can a state force sheriffs to ignore federal immigration law?

A group of Maryland sheriffs is challenging the state's new sanctuary law, arguing it prevents local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities and puts them in conflict with federal law. Does the Constitution allow states to restrict that cooperation?

Mateo Forero serves as counsel for the Federation for American Immigration Reform and represents seventeen Maryland sheriffs in the lawsuit. He joins the show to discuss the legal challenge to Maryland's Community Trust Act, the constitutional questions at stake, and whether sanctuary policies make communities safer or undermine immigration enforcement.

Transcript

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Welcome back to the program. It's a pleasure to be with you. I'll be glad to get to your phone calls and emails in a moment at 866-HLARS. That's 866-439-5277. And as always, naysayers go to the head of the line. Let me talk about the state of Maryland. Seventeen elected county sheriffs in Maryland are suing their own state, and the feds are watching this one closely. Is Maryland's sanctuary law forcing their local cops, the ones that answer directly to voters, unlike police chiefs? Are they forcing those sheriffs to commit a federal crime? Mateo Ferrero serves as counsel of record for the group called the Federation for American Immigration Reform. We love fair in this Maryland lawsuit. Mateo, welcome back to the program. Hi, Lars. Thank you for having me on. So if I've misdescribed this or inaccurately described it, please correct this. But what situation do these sheriffs find themselves in? Are they being forced by state law to violate federal law in the conduct of their duties? Yes, that's exactly right, Lars. Back in April, the Maryland General Assembly passed emergency legislation, so-called the Community Trust Act, that essentially turns Maryland into an ultra ultra-sunctionary state. And just over a week ago, Maryland's Governor Westmore announced that he was going to allow that legislation to go into the side without his veto. So last week we at FAIR decided to stand with seventeen of the 24 Maryland county sheriffs. That's roughly three-quarters of the county sheriffs in the state. Um, against this egregiously unconstitutional law that um puts the people of the state in uh dire public safety threat. Okay, so in practical terms, the sheriffs are being told if you take somebody into custody and they appear to be in the country illegally, you're not able to act by contacting ICE or CBP and having them removed. Is that it? Yes, that's exactly right. And actually the the law goes even further than that. Not only does it uh prevent um sheriffs and their deputies and correctional staff from notifying federal immigration authorities that an individual is in custody or from transferring those individuals to the immigration authorities, it actually prohibits um sheriffs and their deputies and their staff from detaining or prolonging the detention of an individual uh for the purpose of investigating their citizenship or immigration status or on the suspicion that you know they may be in the country illegally. So it actually requires them to take affirmative act to obstruct federal immigration authorities and to harbor or shield um criminal illegal aliens, which um, as you and your listeners may know, is actually a federal crime. Um so in our lawsuit, we are saying that uh this this law places the sheriffs in a completely impossible dilemma. They either follow Maryland's law, which puts them directly under federal criminal liability, or they defy the Maryland law and open themselves up to civil enforcement action by the Maryland Attorney General, and even worse, uh to potential lawsuits from private individuals and you know activist organizations who you know subscribe to the anti-borders agenda. So it's an impossible situation. It it is, but Mateo, tell me what how do you advise a client like that? You can't not follow the state law, but you also can't follow the state law. So in the meantime, while we're waiting for the courts to look at the lawsuit, what are you telling the clients to do? Well, we advised our clients uh particularly to file the action that we did um as immediately as possible. And we advised them, and this is the course we're gonna be taking in the coming days, uh, to file for a preliminary injunction from the federal court in Maryland uh to stop the um enforcement of this of this law pending, you know, uh a decision by the court on the merits. Um and that that would uh provide substantial relief to our Torah clients um and re you know keep the status quo of allowing them to cooperate with federal immigration authorities as they have done for many, many years. Yeah, because it sounds like you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. And would this same kind of approach work in all the other sanctuary states where they pass sanctuary laws and they've said uh to the sheriff or the police, don't cooperate, don't help them find people who are in the country illegally, even if the even the ones that have committed other crimes? Yes, certainly. Um that that has been an issue that's been litigated in lawsuits that have cropped up, particularly on this issue. Um, and certainly in in our case in Maryland, um that that's exactly what we're pressing, and you know, we're urging the court to to acknowledge and to adjudicate this case, saying, hey, this dilemma is actually, you know, the exact kind of harm that the U.S. Constitution under the Supremacy Clause was designed to prevent. Um, and so any law that conflict with you know with federal immigration mandates is preempted under the Constitution, and that's that's our essential legal theory in our lawsuit. Okay, so tell me this, have has the state of Maryland had any kind of statement since if they've said, well, but you know, we understand that we're putting the sheriff in a position where he or she will be violating federal law by harboring an illegal alien. But here's our answer. What what answer do they offer up, if any? So they haven't made any official appearance or response in our particular lawsuit, but um you know, the governor has made statements, um, public statements to the press that um he acknowledges that that the law that the General Assembly passed um had serious implementation concerns. Well, our response, which we highlighted in our press conference last week um with our sheriffs, was well, you know, if the governor thought that this law had implementation concerns, then his clear answer to that should have been to veto the law. And instead he chose to um align um uh on political grounds with the people in the legislature um and in defiance of public safety um and just allowed the law to pass. And so that's that's exactly why we bought this this lawsuit. I'm talking to Mateo Ferrero from Federation for American Immigration Reform. One of the things, and I'll say this in closing because we're up against the clock, but Mateo, I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding from other lawyers, if a sheriff or a police chief in America has a foreign national in custody, they're absolutely already obligated to notify that person. By the way, you can be you can be in contact with your local consulate from whatever country you're you're in. So if the state of Maryland is not identifying people who are foreign nationals in their custody and then affording them contact with, say, the Mexican consulate or the Colombian consulate or the you know the Haitian consulate, they're already violating the rights of these people, and I think setting themselves up for uh possible legal action if they don't do the right thing. That's Mateo Ferrero, who's with FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Mateo, thanks so much for the time. By the way, think about this. 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