Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett says he is considering legal action against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to block implementation of ICE’s Secure Communities program in September. The program checks the fingerprints of people arrested and booked in U.S. jails against federal criminal and immigration databases. By refusing to cooperate, Leggett is putting the interests of the criminals ahead of those of law-abiding county residents. ICE’s better-late-than-never effort eliminates the racial profiling argument often made against other federal attempts at identifying illegal immigrants at the local level, such as Arizona’s SB 1070, by screening the fingerprints of everybody who’s arrested and held in a local jail. The program identifies illegal immigrants for deportation only after they’ve been charged with crimes by local authorities, and then kicks them out of the country after they’ve served their sentences instead of releasing them back into local communities.

Leggett is threatening to sue the federal government to defend the county’s current policy, which is to forward to the feds only the names of arrestees accused of committing violent crimes within Montgomery County itself.But this approach has severe limitations. For example, in neighboring Prince George’s County — which is fully participating in Secure Communities and has already deported 78 violent offenders– a driver was arrested during a routine traffic stop. After his fingerprints were sent to ICE, it was discovered that the man was an illegal immigrant who was using at least three aliases to evade capture on an open FBI warrant for bank robbery in another state. That’s the kind of people the county’s current policy misses completely.