ICE's activities have evolved to a new height of ferocity, striking immigrants, activists, and communities with mass raids, capricious arrests, and cruel detention conditions. ICE agents are now required, under new federal deportation targets, to apprehend 3,000 individuals every day, with an estimated one million deportations this year alone. These actions usually take place without judicial warrants, a violation of constitutional safeguards and international law.

Howard County has taken action, like the passage of the Liberty Act, to ban collaboration with ICE and ending the Howard County detention center's contract with ICE. That is no longer sufficient. Absent a complete ban on ICE presence within county borders, our community is still at risk of warrantless raids, disruption of schools and workplaces, and intimidation of community members engaging in lawful protest or political expression.

ICE has jailed people for protesting, kidnapped immigrant rights organizers from the streets without warrant, and put children and families in inhumane conditions that have been denounced by U.S. courts and United Nations observers alike. When ICE acts here, it puts all residents at risk and undermines the very foundations of due process and human dignity.

Howard County must do more. We must stop ICE from conducting enforcement within our borders. We must pressure state leaders to follow suit. And we must invest in legal aid, rapid-response services, and emergency relief for the victims of federal abuse.

Howard County leaders who swore an oath to the US Constitution have an obligation to protect it from enemies foreign and domestic. They are obligated to uphold the rule-of-law and that entails ensuring illegal actions by ICE are prohibited.

This is not a policy decision. This is an ethical and legal one. We will be judged by what we do to protect the most vulnerable among us. Stand with your neighbors. Stand for the rule of law. Demand that Howard County and the State of Maryland not be complicit in ICE's cruelty.