On Monday, nine attorneys general, including Maryland’s Brian Frosh, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to prevent a Texas-based company from publishing blueprints for 3D-printed guns online. This would allow the downloadable guns for unlimited public distribution in any form.

The suit filed in Seattle asks a judge to block Defense Distributed from releasing the plans for the hard to trace guns, which officials say has already been downloaded by 1,000 people. A recent settlement between Defense Distributed and the U.S. State Department will allow people to avoid background checks by using 3D printers to make their own guns at home.

“This proposal for someone to put plans up on the internet for guns to be printed on a 3D printer is extremely dangerous,” Frosh said. “The guns are untraceable because they don’t have serial numbers, and they’re undetectable in metal detectors, and it makes protecting people in Maryland more difficult.”

Last month, the Texas-based company gained authorization from the State Department to post instructions for plastic firearms—which fire conventional bullets—including a single-shot pistol called “The Liberator,” an AR-15 lower receiver, and a complete Beretta M9 handgun.

Cody Wilson, the founder of Defense Distributed who has been fighting for his right to post blueprints since 2013, says he’s not concerned about the lawsuit against his company. In fact, last week a federal judge in Texas denied a motion for a temporary restraining order filed by gun control advocacy groups against the company to halt the distribution of the plans online—the same restraining order that is being requested through this new lawsuit.

“If you want your second amendment online, this is the fight,” Wilson said on Twitter. “Join Me.”

The most recent lawsuit was filed by the attorney general of Washington State, Bob Ferguson, who said, “If the Trump administration won’t keep us safe, we will.” Along with Washington and Maryland, other states joining the suit include California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia.

The document states: “Anyone with access to the [Computer Aided Design] files and a commercially available 3D printer could readily manufacture, possess, or sell such a weapon—even those persons statutorily ineligible to possess firearms, including violent felons, the mentally ill, and persons subject to protection and no-contact orders.”

In Maryland, there are laws in place for those who wish to purchase a gun—including fingerprinting, extensive background checks, and a waiting period—but Frosh says that the ability to download and create a firearm completely destabilizes those laws. In light of this, he has signed a letter from 20 other attorneys general to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressing concerns over the federal government’s recent settlement with Defense Distributed and urging them to withdraw from the settlement.

“It’s shocking that the federal government would just allow this,” Frosh says. “It’s not just dangerous for the people, it’s dangerous for the government. Every criminal that wants to stick up a 7-Eleven or commit a murder can download the file and create their own gun. It completely undermines the law enforcement system we have in place.”

President Trump said on Monday in a tweet that the guns themselves didn’t “seem to make much sense” and that he was speaking with the National Rifle Association (NRA) about the matter.

Frosh anticipates a hearing to take place today for a temporary restraining order to stop Defense Distributed from posting those instructions online.

“We’re going to do everything we possibly can to stop this from happening,” Frosh said.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions came to Baltimore Tuesday promising to speed up the deportation of immigrants and implement broad Trump administration polices aimed at curbing overall immigration into the United States.

Sessions also said the Department of Justice was refocusing on its partnership with Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to crack down on MS-13, an El Salvador-based gang. 

From Trump’s inauguration in late January to early September, nearly 54,000 immigrants had been deported from the interior U.S., a 34 percent jump over the same period last year, according to reporting by The Washington Post. 

“Under President Trump, our immigration judges completed 20,000 more cases this last fiscal year than the previous one,” Sessions said. “We have hired 50 immigration judges since January, and we plan to hire another 60 over the next six months.”

Sessions added that he supports the president’s proposals to end chain migration—the opportunity for U.S. citizens to sponsor close members for permanent resident status—and prioritize the applications of immigrants who speak English or are highly skilled.

Later, when asked by a local reporter if the FBI planned to pick up the investigation into the death of Baltimore police detective Sean Suiter—as requested by city police chief Kevin Davis—Sessions said the move was likely. Suiter was shot in November while investigating a triple homicide from 2016. He was scheduled to testify before a grand jury the following day in an ongoing federal investigation of the Baltimore Police Department’s gun task force.

What wasn’t made clear was why Sessions, who was accompanied by recently confirmed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, chose Baltimore for the backdrop of his immigration remarks.

The attorney general recounted two grisly murders, which were attributed to MS-13, but that did not take place in the city or surrounding counties. The El Salvadoran-based gang is not prominent in the city, according to Baltimore police officials. Earlier in his remarks, Sessions highlighted Baltimore’s violent crime and murder rates—among the highest in the country—before pivoting to MS-13, which he called “one of the most dangerous gangs in America.”

“The people of this community have seen it firsthand,” Sessions said of MS-13 violence, conflating Baltimore’s crime problems with Central American immigration.

When asked how targeting MS-13 would impact Baltimore’s homicide rate, Sessions said, “I don’t know that the city itself has a high MS-13 murder rate. But this region—Northern Virginia, Islip, New York, Houston, Los Angeles—are the centerpieces of the most MS-13 violence.”

Sessions also appeared to deem Baltimore a “sanctuary” city, a description not legally defined, but which could have adverse consequences for Baltimore, in terms of crime fighting resources and grant opportunities under the Trump administration.

“City officials have declared it so,” Sessions said in a response to a Baltimore magazine query about Baltimore’s status in his view.

“We’re reviewing things to make sure of the details of each city,” Sessions continued. “I see no justification whatsoever for any city, any jurisdiction, any state to take the view that someone who enters the country illegally and then commits some other crime should be protected from the federal law to be deported.”

Police Commissioner Davis has said that tying local law enforcement to federal immigration policy “sends the wrong message” to immigrant communities and can damage local law enforcement efforts.

In February, the Department of Homeland Security named Baltimore to its list of sanctuary cities, which in large part is made up of jurisdictions that do not cooperate with DHS requests to notify them when immigrants are being detained and hold them until its officers can be present. That same month, a number of immigrants in Baltimore, including some without criminal backgrounds after arriving in the U.S., were picked up in the city, leading to a pro-immigrant march in Highlandtown.

Baltimore does not control immigrant detention policy at its jail, as Mayor Catherine Pugh noted in an interview Tuesday after Sessions’ remarks—the state of Maryland does. Currently, the Hogan administration does not detain immigrants beyond their scheduled release when requested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. The state does, however, provide advance information to ICE officers about the pending release of immigrant detainees so they can be on hand for their re-arrest.

Pugh described Baltimore not as a sanctuary city, but as a “welcoming city.”

“We can’t be a sanctuary city because we don’t control our jails or prison system,” Pugh said when asked about Sessions’ characterization. “But we are a welcoming city. We support all those who are in our city, who are working and adding to our city’s economy everyday.”

In November, Pugh announced that the city would become one of 11 jurisdictions around the country that are a part of the SAFE (Safety and Fairness for Everyone) Cities Network, a group devoted to protecting immigrants and funded by the Vera Institute of Justice. That initiative came on top of the establishment of a $500,000 legal defense fund—Safe City Baltimore—that was made in partnership with several local nonprofits, including the Open Society Institute.

On June 20, Attorney General Jeff Sessions introduced the National Public Safety Partnership (PSP) to combat violent crime in 12 U.S. cities. Baltimore residents and local officials were stunned to realize that Baltimore was not on the list.

“I’m feeling deprived and disappointed,” said Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis. “Because the criteria, as it was explained to me, really epitomizes the crime challenges that exist right now in a city like Baltimore.”

The PSP was created in response to President Trump’s executive order in February to “reduce crime and restore public safety.” The selected cities—Birmingham; Indianapolis; Memphis; Toledo, Ohio; Baton Rouge; Buffalo; Cincinnati; Houston; Jackson, Tennessee; Kansas City; Lansing, Michigan; and Springfield, Illinois—will receive enhanced federal support to identify and prioritize resources to combat crime in their cities.

The support includes structure, leadership, and crime analysis, training development, and expedited delivery of assistance with gun violence and criminal justice from the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Councilman Brandon Scott of Baltimore City’s District 2 and vice chair of public safety, was less surprised to learn that Baltimore was overlooked.

“We know that [President Trump’s] administration is known for talking about cities like Baltimore and Chicago, but they have not lifted a finger to help,” he said. “We need to step up locally, the first thing we need to do is hire a director for the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOJC).”

The MOJC was established to reduce crime, gang activity, and drug trafficking, however, the director seat is currently vacant. Scott attributes the increase of violence in the city to that vacancy.

“We need to develop a complete and comprehensive public safety strategy or gun violence reduction strategy for the city of Baltimore,” Scott said. “We have to do that, not just from a policing lens, but also through the lens of public health because violence is a disease, and we should treat it as such. We should stop treating it like it’s just one symptom of the problem.”

According to Commissioner Davis, there should be an announcement regarding the vacancy in the near future. Baltimore reached out to the mayor’s office for comment, but did not receive a response.

“The mayor is working very hard to build her office of criminal justice,” Davis said. “She’s been very thoughtful and deliberate about building the very best team for the crime fight.”

According to the DOJ, the PSP cities are selected through a process that compares the level of violence in a city to the national average, and the city should also have crime reduction strategies currently in place. Those criteria led Davis to believe that Baltimore was a shoe-in for the program.

“What we have been doing for the last couple of years with the crime fight, reform efforts, and the consent decree, has been at a breakneck pace,” Davis said. “When the Attorney General identified jurisdictions that would benefit from enhancements, we just think that Baltimore is right at the top of the list.”

Recently, the BPD has been taking the necessary steps to ensure that officers are properly trained before hitting the streets. Davis said they have doubled the number of required training hours from the state’s obligatory 40 hours to 80.

The department has also instituted a new type of training, integrated communication and tactics (ICAT), that focuses on communication with suspects. In addition, BPD is a part of law enforcement assisted diversion for crisis intervention, which is only being used by a handful of departments around the country. 

“It’s a blended approach with police officers and mental health professionals to deal with people in a mental health crisis,” Davis said.

Early this month, there were two separate quadruple shootings within two days that caught the attention of the entire city and caused Commissioner Davis and Mayor Pugh to react. Davis placed his entire foot patrol, detectives, and sworn administrative staff on 12-hour shifts to patrol the streets for a week.

“That convinced me of a couple things. Number one: More police officers in the community matter,” he said. “Number two: As police department and a community, we continue to feel the impact of having 500 fewer police officers in 2017 than we had in 2012.”

Davis said the acts of violence needed to be addressed immediately, but the increased foot patrol and mandatory overtime comes with a hefty price tag and this strategy is not feasible.

“We had to assure the community that their police department was paying attention,” he said.   

In Attorney General Sessions’ June 20 announcement, he reassured the public that more cities will be added to the PSP moving forward, but did not specify an exact date or hint at what cities may be included. Until then, Davis said that Baltimore would continue to fight to combat the violence with the current resources.

“We are taking steps, and that’s why my disappointment was tempered,” he said.  “But when an additional opportunity arises like that, one that can sharpen us just a little bit more, we’re always interested.”