Montgomery County Council cracks down on immigration enforcement
The Montgomery County Council passed two significant bills to protect immigrant residents.
An amendment to Montgomery County’s housing laws bans using immigration status as a factor in the sale, renting or financing of housing. It also allows residential tenants to break their lease if detained, deported or held for more than 30 days by federal immigration authorities. (Tenants must give 30 days’ notice.)
“This has been an issue for quite a while,” Councilmember Kristin Mink said. “This is not a new issue. I think it’s important for folks to know that we are cleaning up something that has impacted folks for a while.”
The Council also passed the Community Trust in Employees Act, which bans people who have been Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection employees since October 2025 from ever holding public-serving or resource-distribution positions with the Montgomery County government. That also applies to employees of other federal agencies who were assigned to enforce immigration laws during the same time period.
The Council voted unanimously in favor of the bill.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson provided a statement to News4 that says, in part: “The Montgomery County Council is falsely casting federal law enforcement as villains while ICE officers are being targeted, threatened, and doxxed simply for doing their jobs.”
Both measures passed by the Council need the county executive’s approval before becoming law.
