Sheriff Chuck Jenkins of Frederick County, Maryland
Sheriff Chuck Jenkins, of Frederick County Maryland, just one county away from DC, is going to Texas to get some info on the border issues. Sponsoring his trip is
FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has a record of racist, anti immigrant views and its leaders have ties to white supremacist groups. This according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks hate groups.
Jenkins has been described as second only to Joe Arpaio on the rightwingnut law enforcement intolerance meter. Frederick is the only Maryland county to enforce/cooperate with the 287[g] program which involves the county detaining suspected immigrants for ICE. All other counties have declined or have dropped their participation agreements.
Jenkins has also been involved with the unnecessary death of a local Downs Syndrome man, Ethan Saylor, which has made national news; a lawsuit over detaining a woman with no probable cause which wound its way all the way to SCOTUS which denied cert, and several constituent deaths which were unnecessary and deaths in the County jail where ostensibly a failure of supervision and training of staff come into play.
This is an election year and Frederick County is run by a completely Republican Board of County Commissioners which voted in an "English Only" ordinance. Four of the sitting Commissioners are running for the newly formed County Council seats and Sheriff Jenkins is running as an incumbent. Next door, in Carroll County this happened:
Westminster, Maryland
Like I said, this is happening right next door to some of the richest and most diverse counties in the nation; Howard and Montgomery in Maryland and Loudoun and Fairfax and Falls Church in Virginia. Frederick City is host to Fort Detrick and has a lot of high tech and biotech industries which employ people from all over the world. Not to mention Frederick County is a bedroom community to DC and the more prosperous counties mentioned above, all of which are very diverse owing to the international activity that surrounds the nation's capital. This is the local tenor of division.
Last I checked we aren't on the border with Mexico.