WASHINGTON — The White House doubled down on its criticisms of Maryland Gov. Wes Moore Wednesday, amid Moore’s decision to prohibit Maryland law enforcement from partnering with Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in a new bill.
“It’s another just horrible, and frankly political action taken by Gov. Wes Moore. Unfortunately, the people of his state are going to reap the consequences of it,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing Wednesday.
The bill bans ICE officials from deputizing state law enforcement to aid in their immigration enforcement, but maintains that state and federal officials can continue to work together on joint task forces unrelated to immigration crackdown efforts.
“In Maryland, we defend Constitutional rights and Constitutional policing—and we will not allow untrained, unqualified, and unaccountable ICE agents to deputize our law enforcement officers,” said Moore in a press release Tuesday.
However, according to Leavitt, state law enforcement officials only benefit from coordinating with the federal government.
“It makes their jobs easier, it keeps them out of hostile and dangerous environments, it allows them to detain illegal alien criminals who have committed heinous crimes in our country.”
The dispute over ICE marks the latest escalation in a widening rift between the Trump administration and Maryland’s state leadership. Trump recently blamed Moore and other Democratic leaders in the D.C. area for the sewage spill in the Potomac River in January, one of the largest in U.S. history. The pipe, which burst and leaked more than 200 million gallons of waste into the river, is part of a water utility serving D.C. and its neighboring states.
In a Truth Social post Tuesday, Trump targeted the Democratic Party as a whole for causing environmental disasters like the sewage spill.
“This is a Radical Left caused Environmental Hazard,” Trump wrote. “With all of their talk about carbon footprints and everything else, they’re allowing hundreds of tons of sewage to pour into the Mighty Potomac, making it much less mighty.”
Trump and Moore have clashed over cleanup efforts for the Potomac River. Moore’s administration blamed the federal government for failing to act, as the pipe that ruptured was under the oversight of the government. Trump’s administration, however, has stated that they have been waiting for local authorities to signal for the federal government’s help.
“He has clearly shown he is incapable of fixing this problem, which is why President Trump and the federal government are standing by to step in,” said Leavitt.
On Monday, Trump ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist local leaders in repairing the Potomac Interceptor pipe and redirecting the wastewater flow.
The ongoing scrutiny of Moore by the Trump administration has only increased since President Trump announced that he would exclude Moore and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis from attending a White House dinner Saturday during the annual winter meeting of the National Governors’ Association in Washington.
“As the nation’s only Black governor, I can’t ignore that being singled out for exclusion from this bipartisan tradition carries an added weight — whether that was the intent or not,” said Moore.