Each month, I do a 7:30am live interview on Fox45. It’s short, so my Director of Communications, Renesha Alphonso, and their news team agree on a single topic in advance. This week it was the Department of Homeland Security’s inclusion of Anne Arundel County on its list of states, counties, and municipalities that it classifies as sanctuary jurisdictions. Spoiler alert - they are wrong.
The list included all central Maryland counties, two on the Eastern Shore, and the whole state of Maryland. It included a statement that each jurisdiction would receive a letter explaining why they believe we are somehow violating the law by interfering with federal immigration enforcement. We have received no such letter, and after the National Sheriff's Association released a statement charging Homeland Security with overstepping its bounds, the list was removed from the website.
In my Fox 45 interview, I took the Sheriff’s Association statement to its logical conclusion. I said that the problem is not one of local law enforcement interfering with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The public safety challenge is that ICE is interfering with local law enforcement.
When people commit crimes in the United States of America, we hold them accountable. Our police departments investigate, identify suspects, obtain arrest warrants, and make arrests. Our judicial system determines whether the suspect is innocent or guilty, and those found guilty are sentenced by judges.
In its desperate attempt to meet impossible deportation quotas, ICE has begun removing suspects when they appear for judicial hearings. In the rare cases when ICE deports a violent criminal who has not served time, it is deporting somebody who would otherwise be tried, sentenced, and incarcerated. That’s interfering with our criminal justice system, and the results can be deadly. We should never forget that Rachel Morin’s murderer was deported three times before being arrested by the Tulsa Police and sent to Maryland for incarceration and conviction in a court of law. He won’t be deported again, as much as he’d like to be.
There is a reason why federal law separates immigration enforcement from criminal justice and local law enforcement. The short-lived sanctuary list demonstrates clearly that Homeland Security has little respect for the law. The courts are confirming that fact in case after case across the country. It’s the duty of local leaders like myself to stand with the courts for the rule of law, even in the face of political intimidation.
On another public safety topic, I’m very proud of the work that our Office of Equity and Human Rights is doing to prevent and respond to hate crimes. During times of political and global conflict, those incidents increase. We must stand united against the rhetoric that seeks to divide us. That means protecting our Jewish neighbors, our Muslim neighbors, our immigrant neighbors, our LGBTQ+ neighbors, all of our neighbors - regardless of who they are or what they believe - from violence.
Anne Arundel County added the words For All to our The Best Place welcome signs in response to high numbers in the Maryland State Police Hate Bias Incident Reports. And we’ve just launched an important Hate Crimes Prevention Program Community Survey that you can access here. Please support this work by going to the link and filling it out. We must maintain peace in our communities, even when we have disagreements.
I spent most of the day Tuesday with Maryland Department of Agriculture Secretary Kevin Atticks, his staff, and our Ag Economic Development team visiting some really innovative farm operations in Anne Arundel County. The tour included BowTie Bison LLC, Obligation Farm, Hopkins Family Farm, Honey Harvest Farm, Greenstreet Growers, New Roots Farm, and Rockhold Creek Barn.
Here are my takeaways.
- Profitability is sometimes only possible when the product is processed and marketed on site. That requires removing regulatory barriers that were created by legislative bodies without consideration of the impact on farms.
- Farmers - at least the good ones - are full time environmentalists. Nobody knows more about soil health and erosion control than a good farmer, and we as both consumers and government must reward the best stewards of land. Check out the blockbuster documentary Common Ground on Amazon Prime. It just might restore your optimism about the ability of humankind and nature to coexist in harmony, with the help of a lot of good farmers.
- Farmers today not only have to be good at physical labor, business management, mechanics, and science, but to really excel, they need to be IT experts. Mark Hopkins can analyze the impacts of everything he does to increase crop yields through an integrated data system on his phone.
- The failure of the state of Maryland to effectively reduce the exploding deer population through hunting has resulted in huge losses for nearly every type of farm operation in Maryland. Mark Hopkins printed crop loss maps from his phone, and the financial hit from deer is astronomical. When we introduced state legislation to allow our county to compensate hunters for donating doe to our food bank, the hunter lobby and the animal rights groups came together in opposition, and the Maryland General Assembly killed the bill. Hunters want to keep the population high. Animal rights groups want to let the deer populate. Farmers pay the price. Venison is nutritious and delicious. The solutions are simple.
My last little nugget for the week is a heads up that Pittman and Friends Podcast just keeps getting more fun. On Tuesday we release the conversation with one of my favorite public servants anywhere, Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Secretary and former Salisbury Mayor Jake Day. We dig into the hard stuff, like the role of the state versus counties in land use and housing, wins and losses in the last couple of Maryland General Assembly sessions, and differences between rural, urban, and suburban housing challenges.
But then Pittman and Friends takes a break until August. That’s when Season 2 begins, and the show opens up - to you! Stay tuned.
Until next week…