A Maryland suburb built a six-part legal firewall against ICE in a single afternoon. Here’s the playbook.
On the morning of April 7, 2026, the Prince George’s County Council passed six pieces of legislation targeting federal immigration enforcement. By afternoon, Chair Krystal Oriadha had signed them into law at a public ceremony alongside We Are CASA advocates. Most took effect immediately.
No single county in America had done all of this at once.
What makes the PG County package significant is not just what it does locally — it is that it demonstrates, in concrete legal terms, exactly how much power a county already has, without needing permission from a state legislature or a federal court.
Across the country, county councils from Kansas City to Seattle to South Fulton, Georgia are asking the same urgent question: what can we actually do? Prince George’s County just answered it — six times over.
The Stakes Are National
The backdrop matters. The Trump administration has spent 2026 aggressively expanding ICE detention capacity, purchasing a $102 million warehouse in Williamsport, Maryland and targeting industrial sites in jurisdictions from Georgia to Washington State for conversion into large-scale detention facilities. ICE is also expanding its office footprint — and advocates have documented cases where “office space” quietly becomes holding space, as happened in Baltimore.
Federal courts have begun pushing back: a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on April 15 halting construction at the Maryland warehouse. But litigation is slow, expensive, and uncertain. Local law is fast, cheap, and — when carefully designed — legally durable.
The key insight driving the best local responses is this: federal immigration law preempts direct regulation of ICE. Local land-use, zoning, employment, and permitting law does not. Counties don’t need to fight federal authority. They just need to stop lending their own authority to it.
The Six Tools PG County Used — And What They Teach
Tool 1: Cut Off Access to Public Property
The bill: CB-6-2026 — Immigration Enforcement Guidance Act
ICE agents are now barred from entering non-public county facilities without a valid judicial warrant. The county executive must issue written guidance for all employees on how to respond when federal agents arrive. Signage templates are available for private businesses.
The lesson: Warrant requirements for county property are the most legally defensible local tool available. They do not block federal law — they simply require federal agents to follow it. Howard County, Maryland did this in February. Montgomery County followed in March. San Diego passed a similar ordinance. Every county that has tried this has faced no successful legal challenge.
Tool 2: Make Agents Identify Themselves
The bill: CB-7-2026 — Resident Kidnapping Protection Act
Residents can now call county police to verify the identity of anyone conducting immigration enforcement activity in their neighborhood. PGPD must respond, document agent names, badge numbers, and agencies on scene, and publish quarterly public reports.
The lesson: Accountability creates deterrence. Plainclothes federal agents operating without identification is a documented pattern nationwide. Requiring police to document those encounters — and publish the data — puts a public record on federal activity that would otherwise be invisible. It also gives residents a number to call, which reduces panic and builds community trust in local government.
Tool 3: Ban Masked Agents
The bill: CB-8-2026 — Prohibition on Facial Coverings for Law Enforcement
No law enforcement officer operating in the county may wear a face covering that conceals their identity in public. Exceptions exist only for safety gear — gas masks, HAZMAT equipment.
The lesson: This is a simple, enforceable standard that counties can adopt with a single paragraph of local code. It targets a practice that has appeared in ICE enforcement operations across the country and has generated enormous community fear. Maryland’s General Assembly passed a similar statewide provision on April 13. Any county can do this tomorrow.
Tool 4: Lock the Hiring Pipeline
The bill: CB-5-2026 — Individuals Not Eligible for County Employment
Anyone employed by ICE or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) after October 1, 2025 is barred from future employment at any Prince George’s County public safety agency.
The lesson: This is the most structurally novel tool in the package — and potentially the most replicable. Counties control their own hiring. Using that authority to create a firewall between local public safety culture and federal enforcement culture is legally straightforward. It does not punish past employees; it draws a prospective line around the county’s institutional values going forward. No state legislation required.
Tool 5: Extend the Shield to Schools, Libraries, and Parks
The resolution: CR-8-2026 — Protecting All County Public Spaces
The Council formally urged M-NCPPC, Prince George’s County Public Schools, the county library system, and Prince George’s Community College to prohibit civil immigration enforcement on their property.
The lesson: Resolutions are not binding law — but they are public accountability tools. By naming specific institutions and putting the council on record, this resolution makes it politically costly for any of those institutions to do nothing. New Mexico’s Immigrant Safety Act, signed into law in February 2026, went further — making it unlawful for local government entities to contract with ICE for detention purposes statewide. Counties that cannot yet pass binding law can use resolutions to create public pressure and set the stage for binding legislation later.
Tool 6: Count Who Is Being Taken
The resolution: CR-9-2026 — Accounting of ICE Detainees
The county will partner with a nonprofit to build and maintain a public database of Prince George’s County residents detained by ICE or CBP.
The lesson: Data is infrastructure. Without a tracking system, families cannot find missing relatives, advocates cannot identify patterns, and policymakers cannot measure the scale of enforcement. Council Member Wanika Fisher, who led this resolution, put it plainly: “What’s really difficult right now with the current administration is that we can’t figure out how many people have been kidnapped.” Building a detainee tracking system is a low-cost, high-impact action any county can take — and it requires only a nonprofit partnership, not a legal fight with the federal government.
What’s Still Being Built
PG County is not finished. Two additional bills introduced April 7 are working through the process:
Jolene Ivey’s zoning bill rewrites the county code to define a “detention center” as any space used to involuntarily confine someone ahead of a legal proceeding — specifically to catch ICE “office space” conversions before they happen. Ivey cited ICE’s active search for expanded space in Hyattsville as the direct trigger. The bill had not yet been scheduled for a vote as of April 10, for unexplained reasons.
Wala Blegay’s CB-31-2026 blocks building permits and certificates of occupancy for any privately owned detention facility. Seattle, King County, Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri, and South Fulton, Georgia have all passed similar permit moratoriums in 2026. It is now one of the most widely replicated tools in the country.
The Resistance Is Spreading — And So Is the Federal Pushback
PG County is part of a fast-growing national pattern. As of April 2026:
- Maryland passed statewide laws banning 287(g) agreements in February and the Community Trust Act limiting all local law enforcement cooperation with ICE in April — now on Governor Wes Moore’s desk
- Montgomery County, MDÂ unanimously passed the ICE Out Act on April 22, banning private detention permits
- Howard County, MD and Baltimore County, MD passed emergency detention bans in February
- New Mexico signed the Immigrant Safety Act into law in February, ending all local ICE detention contracts statewide
- Seattle passed an emergency one-year moratorium on detention center permits in March
- King County, WAÂ passed a parallel moratorium the same week
- Virginia passed legislation conditioning local ICE contracts on due process requirements ICE is almost certain to reject — effectively triggering a ban
The federal response is escalating in parallel. Senate Republicans have introduced the End Sanctuary Cities Act of 2026, which would impose criminal penalties on local officials who refuse to cooperate with ICE. The legal battle over how far local resistance can go is just beginning.
The Bottom Line for Local Leaders
Prince George’s County proved that a county government does not need to wait for state law, federal permission, or a court ruling to act. The six tools it used — warrant requirements, agent identification mandates, mask bans, employment firewalls, institutional resolutions, and detainee tracking databases — are all available to any county council with a majority and the will to use them.
The question is not whether your county has the legal authority. It does.
The question is whether it will use it.
TANTV Local is tracking anti-ICE legislation across the DMV and nationally. Follow our coverage at tantvnews.com.
This TANTVNews immigration coverage was made possible by a grant from URL Collective, a nonprofit supporting local, diverse media.
