Community Voices: ICE Came to Frederick. The 287(g) Ban Didn’t Bring Them Here.

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Frederick County Sheriff Candidate Karl Bickel shares his thoughts on the recent events in Frederick involving ICE, and the end of 287(g) partnerships in Maryland.

The September 4th incident with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in the city of Frederick, Maryland, provoked a predictable political response: blaming Maryland’s ban on local 287(g) agreements.

According to that narrative, Maryland ended Frederick County’s 287(g) agreement, and now ICE has come to Frederick. That has no more validity than the sheriff’s claim that 287(g) has made our community safer. The evidence doesn’t support these sweeping claims.

Maryland’s law simply ended formal agreements under which certain local sheriff’s office personnel could perform specific immigration enforcement functions.

ICE is doing exactly what the Trump administration has promised to do: dramatically increase federal immigration enforcement. The inconvenient fact for those portraying the 287(g) agreement as indispensable is that it never produced the volume of immigration arrests necessary to satisfy the administration’s expanded enforcement demands. Ergo, increased ICE presence in Frederick.

As for rhetoric about 287(g) making our community safer, there is no evidence to support that erroneous claim either. In fact, Maryland’s legislative analysis specifically stated that a 287(g) agreement does not make communities safer.

For years, we have been told that the agreement was essential to keeping Frederick County safe. Now, after Maryland ended it, we are told that the very presence of ICE in Frederick proves how necessary it was.

An analysis for Maryland Matters showed greater reductions in crime rates for neighboring counties without 287(g) agreements, with those counties having significantly larger immigrant populations. The comparison is consistent with broader national research.

A National Institute of Justice-sponsored study using more than a decade of National Crime Victimization Survey data found that 287(g) task-force agreements did not reduce crime and were associated with increased risk of violent victimization among Latinos. Jail-based 287(g) agreements, the model used in Frederick, showed no significant impact on violent victimization.

Another NIJ-sponsored study cautions policymakers against assuming that unauthorized immigration causes higher crime rates and notes that existing research generally finds immigration associated with lower crime rates.

None of this means immigration enforcement is unimportant. The federal government has a duty to enforce federal immigration law. But it does mean we should stop pretending that turning local law enforcement into an extension of ICE necessarily makes our community safer.

The September 4 ICE operation didn’t prove that Maryland’s 287(g) ban failed. It demonstrated that ICE can, and will, operate in Frederick with or without a local 287(g) agreement.

The real question for Frederick County residents isn’t whether ICE can enforce immigration law here. It can.

The question is whether our sheriff should spend local law-enforcement resources assisting with federal immigration enforcement, and whether doing so actually makes the people of Frederick County safer.

Frederick County deserves leadership that measures public safety by results, not rhetoric.

We can have a legitimate debate about immigration policy, federal-local cooperation and the proper role of local law enforcement. But let’s have that debate honestly.

Don’t tell Frederick County residents that Maryland’s 287(g) ban brought ICE here or that 287(g) agreements have made our community safer.

Our community deserves facts, not political spin. Public safety deserves leadership, not rhetoric. And the sheriff’s office should be accountable for telling people the difference.

Karl W. Bickel is a candidate for Sheriff in Frederick County, and all opinions are his own.

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