As the 2026 legislative session of the Maryland General Assembly approaches, immigration enforcement and juvenile justice are two topics likely to dominate much of the public safety policy debate.
Both immigration enforcement and juvenile justice are not new topics to the Maryland General Assembly. Juvenile justice has been a primary topic consistently for at least the last four years with multiple phases of changes taking place. Immigration enforcement came on the radar somewhat more sporadically over the last 10 years, but jumped back into the discussion in a big way during the 2025 legislative session. This coincided with a shift in strategy following the change over of the federal administration following the 2024 election. As the start of the 2026 legislative session nears, lawmakers are revealing what kinds of changes might be ahead and how those discussions might go.
Juvenile Justice and Detention
Over the years, Maryland State Delegates and Senators have made efforts to get juveniles out of the adult detention system and out of the adult courts. These strategies have taken a number of different shapes over the years but without any significant shifts to effect either of those changes. What has happened in this space is various legislative shifts around what age a child must be to come into the jurisdiction of the juvenile courts and be charged with a crime at all. Additionally, when and how youth of a certain age are able to be questioned by law enforcement has also shifted. Some regulatory shifts have been made as well such as mandatory information sharing requirements for school systems when an alleged juvenile offender is transferred between school systems, and another more recent change that mandates the Department of Juvenile Services to hold a juvenile at the request of law enforcement if they are alleged to have committed a particular type of crime.
For many legislators though, these are issues that are chipping away at the edges of a much bigger problem contributing to juvenile crime, which is the introduction of juveniles to the adult detention and court system, which Maryland does at a rate higher than most other states. This is the case even when research shows that 85 percent of these cases are eventually waived back to the juvenile court.
Senator William Smith, Chair of the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee plans to introduce a bill in the 2026 Maryland General Assembly that would focus primarily on recommendations made by the Maryland Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform and Emerging & Best Practices, Processes and System Coordination Workgroup. One of those major changes would require all cases involving minors to start in juvenile court, instead of automatically placing them in adult court upon arrest. Judges could still decide later to transfer certain serious cases to adult criminal court. The bill would also retain automatic charging for children age 16 and older charged with the most serious violent crimes — including things like first- and second-degree murder, attempted murder, first-degree rape and attempted rape, voluntary manslaughter, carjacking, armed carjacking and using a handgun in a violent crime.
These changes, if passed would significantly reduce the number of youth detained in adult jails and bring Maryland closer to compliance with the Federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. From a local government perspective this means county detention centers would not be housing juveniles at nearly the current rate, which will help them maintain compliance with federal law, and eliminate situations where staff and resources are over-extended in order to create entirely separate confinement circumstances from the rest of the facility, that often, and unintentionally, lead to isolation for young alleged offenders in local jails.
Immigration Enforcement
It is no mystery that immigration enforcement has been a politically charged topic over the last year on the national, state, and local stage. In trying to get ahead of some of the rollout of new strategies at the federal level, lawmakers in Maryland attempted to pass some additional provisions last year that would both protect residents from potential offenders that may or may not be legally present in the country, but also to ensure law enforcement and detention center facilities are not aiding federal strategies that could be overburdening local tax payer resources or unwittingly violating the constitutional rights of individuals.
In attempting to thread this needle during the 2025 legislative session, lawmakers proposed a seemingly balanced strategy that would require the mandatory holding and transfer of any individual unlawfully present and convicted of a certain type of violation. Additionally, however, they also attempted to abolish local 287(g) programs in any county detention center – these are jail only programs that run every detainee through the exact same set of protocols and then shares information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Despite the prohibition on the programs last year, lawmakers assured concerned facilities that even though the formalized agreements would be prohibited, cooperation and collaboration to the full extent of the law was still permissible.
Now a year later, lawmakers in both the House of Delegates and Maryland Senate have pledged to attempt again to prohibit the formalized 287(g) programs but without the mandatory transfer requirements that accompanied the similar bill last year. Another thing that has changed is the number of local detention centers with some type of immigration program. Last year there were only three programs. The latest numbers from the 2026 Legislative Session Issue Papers published by the Maryland Department of Legislative Services:
As of October 2025, eight Maryland county law enforcement agencies participate in 287(g) agreements with ICE. Five counties – Allegany, Carroll, Garrett, St. Mary’s, and Washington counties – have entered into warrant service officer model agreements while the other three – Cecil, Frederick, and Harford counties – participate in jail enforcement model agreements.
These numbers also do not include a formalized memorandum of understanding (MOU) that was signed between Baltimore County and ICE earlier this year, as a compliance measure with a new federal “sanctuary jurisdiction” policy. At the moment it is unclear how the new law might view the Baltimore County MOU.
Another legislative effort from last year that could be revived along similar lines is a bill, previously from Senator Clarence Lam, that was requiring certain types of non-compliance by local governments with federal agencies that may or may not be conducting customs enforcement activities. This bill, if passed, had the potential to put local governments into direct violation of federal law or face penalties from the Maryland Office of the Attorney General. If proposed in a similar manner it will likely demand a great deal of revision to successfully address the intersection of federal, state, and local laws where immigration activity is concerned.
