‘How low can they go?’ Maryland Democrat seeks to punish Trump-era ICE agents for doing their job
Adrian Boafo. Photo by Eric Lee/Washington Post/Getty Images
The proposed legislation has been condemned by various officials in the state.
Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler suggested Boafo’s bill was “another poorly thought out piece of legislation and one motivated purely by political purposes.”
Gahler told WBFF-TV that ICE agents “have a legitimate law enforcement mission to fulfill, and this delegate wants to punish them for taking an oath of office and doing the job they are constitutionally sworn to do.”
“How sad can Maryland’s legislature — how low can they go?” said Gahler. “The hate, the Trump derangement syndrome would be the basis.”
Betsy Smith, spokeswoman for the National Police Association, underscored that contrary to Boafo’s suggestion, ICE agents have to undergo strict scrutiny and relevant testing in order to join state law enforcement agencies.
“It sounds as though this politician wants people to believe that an ICE agent can just come into their town and tomorrow be a patrol officer,” Smith told WBFF. “It’s simply ridiculous.”
Smith further stressed that it is “ridiculous to not hire ICE agents during a police understaffing crisis.”
“This is a dumb idea,” Republican Del. Kathy Szeliga told the Washington Post. “Law enforcement hiring should be based on the training, experience, and conduct of the candidate, not a partisan litmus test tied to some president you don’t like.”
Maryland House Minority Leader Jason Buckel (R) cast doubt on the legality of the proposed legislation and suggested it was “not worthy of serious consideration.”
Republican Del. Matt Morgan emphasized the discriminatory nature of the proposed hiring ban, writing, “What about ICE agents hired under Biden or Obama? The ICE Breaker Act of 2026 is an unserious, frankly stupid bill for the purpose of political pandering.”
Despite its vilification by Boafo and other Maryland Democrats, ICE has worked overtime to make the state safer.
For instance, earlier this month, ICE arrested Oscar Miguel Argueta-Del Cid, an illegal alien from El Salvador who was convicted of sexually abusing a minor in Montgomery County, and last month ICE arrested Kevin Alexis Mendex-Ortiz, a criminal noncitizen from Honduras who caused a head-on collision in Prince George’s County that sent an American citizen to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Blaze News has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
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