Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler says Maryland’s new sanctuary law will force his jail to release illegal immigrants flagged by federal immigration officials as public safety or national security threats, putting American families at risk of becoming the law’s next victims.
“It’s just a matter of time,” Gahler told Fox News Digital.
Gahler, a 40-year law enforcement veteran, testified before a House Judiciary subcommittee about Maryland’s Community Trust Act, which restricts when state and local authorities can question people about immigration status, hold them on civil immigration violations, or notify ICE that someone is in custody. He is leading 16 fellow Maryland sheriffs — representing two-thirds of the state — in a lawsuit challenging the law.
His central fear: correctional officers will be forced to release an inmate otherwise eligible to leave local custody instead of handing that person directly to ICE, even after federal agents have identified them as dangerous.
“I don’t want to have to open the jail door and say, ‘Welcome back to Harford County. Go victimize. Let’s create some more victims,'” Gahler said. “That is insane.”
Gahler said if someone released under the law commits another crime, the blame falls squarely on the politicians who wrote the restrictions.
“So whose hands is it on? The politicians.”
Two Harford County families already grieving
Gahler pointed to two cases in his own county to make the stakes concrete.
Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, was raped and murdered on the Ma and Pa Trail in Bel Air in August 2023. Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was convicted and sentenced to life without parole.
Kayla Hamilton, a 20-year-old autistic woman, was raped and strangled inside her Aberdeen home in July 2022. Walter Javier Martinez, a suspected MS-13 member from El Salvador who entered the country illegally as an unaccompanied minor, was sentenced to life in prison, with all but 70 years suspended.
Gahler said no one from Annapolis reached out to either victim’s family. “No one called Patty Morin” after Rachel’s murder, he said, and no one contacted Kayla’s mother, Tammy Nobles, to offer condolences or promise action.
“I simply think that there are those in Annapolis and those in Washington who do not care. It’s politics over public safety.”
A dismantled partnership with ICE
Gahler said the Community Trust Act gutted a jail-based partnership with ICE known as the 287(g) program, under which deputies did not conduct immigration raids or perform federal agents’ work — they simply identified people already jailed on criminal charges and turned them over to ICE inside a secure facility.
“We do not do ICE’s job for them. We work with our federal partners. We don’t replace our federal partners.”
He argued that handing someone over inside a jail is far safer than forcing agents to make an arrest on the street after release.
“Anytime we don’t have to do a raid in law enforcement, it’s safer. You have the person secured. Turn them over to ICE because ICE says they pose a threat to public safety or national security.”
Gahler noted Harford County joined the 287(g) program under President Barack Obama, and said opposition to it resurfaced in Maryland only after President Donald Trump returned to office — evidence, he said, that the fight is political rather than about safety.
“They’re doing it for purely political reasons and not public safety. That’s complete nonsense.”
He compared Maryland’s posture to California’s, describing the two Democrat-led states as locked in a contest over who can go further.
“I look at Maryland and California as playing a game of tennis,” whacking the ball back and forth across the court to see who can be more idiotic.”
Lessons of 9/11, Gahler says, are being erased
Gahler, who served as a Maryland State Police commander on September 11, 2001, tied his fight to the coming 25th anniversary of the attacks, which he says exposed deadly failures in communication between local, state and federal agencies — failures he believes Maryland is now recreating.
“The Community Trust Act … forbids us from talking to a federal law enforcement partner. It doesn’t get any more stupid than that. When you see terrible legislation, that’s as bad as it gets.”
The state’s response
Gov. Wes Moore allowed the Community Trust Act to become law without his signature. Rhyan Lake, senior communications strategist for Moore, defended the administration’s record in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Maryland will never be a sanctuary for criminals under Governor Moore. In fact, since Governor Moore took office, Maryland is seeing some of the largest drops in violent crime in the country. We will always work with the federal administration when it comes to making our communities safer, but untrained, unqualified, and unaccountable ICE agents arresting five-year-olds and ripping mothers from their families does not make anyone safer. In Maryland, we’ll continue holding violent offenders accountable and protecting Marylanders’ constitutional rights and basic dignity.”
Gahler and his fellow sheriffs say they will keep fighting in court. He argues the law is not a technicality but a policy choice with a body count.
“Our job should be to stop increasing the number of angel families, and stop allowing American citizens to be the victims of crime committed by people who are in our country illegally.”
