Montgomery County Confronts Alarming Disparity in Latino DUI Arrests
“Person with Handcuffs Standing Near the Car” by Kindel Media, via Pexels, Creative Commons CC0
On February 28, 2025, a Montgomery County legislative analyst sent a briefing to the Council’s Public Safety Committee under the title, “Police: Holiday Traffic Safety Task Force (and Impaired Driving).” The staff report included much more than a review of the 2024/2025 holiday season effort to reduce impaired driving. The Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD), responding to a series of staff questions, detailed race, gender, and age demographics of DUI arrestees for a two-year period spanning 2023-2024. Among the statistics, one stood out: of the 2,730 DUI arrestees, 1,243 (45.5%) were Hispanic. With the county’s Latino population estimated at 21-22% of the total, the statistic means they are disproportionately arrested at a 2:1 ratio.
Montgomery Fix independently obtained MCPD arrest records for 2023 and 2024. Our analysis yielded statistics slightly higher than those in the committee report. Latino DUI arrestees accounted for 47.4% of the total, with Latino men making up 40.8%. In areas with the highest concentrations of Latino residents, the numbers are particularly stark. In Council District 4, an area including Takoma Park and Silver Spring that stretches into North Bethesda, 62.2% of arrestees were Latino. According to statistics separately provided by the City of Gaithersburg Police Department, in 2023 and 2024 Latinos made up 71.5% of the city’s DUI arrestees.
MCPD Assistant Chief David McBain said the problem is systemic and consistent. “Additional MCPD data shows that over the past two and a half years, Hispanic drivers account for 68% of subsequent impaired driving offenders, indicating a significant recidivism component. Further, over the past six years, 69% of outstanding DUI-related warrants involve Hispanic individuals,” he told Montgomery Fix. “This warrant trend has been consistent across that six-year period, well before immigration consequences became a frequent topic of public discussion,” McBain added.
Race and gender DUI statistics like those in the February 2025 Public Safety Committee report had never been disclosed in a publicly accessible report that we could find in the county’s vast trove of online documents, and came as a surprise to committee members. “When they showed me the data, I was shocked,” Councilmember Natali Fani-González said in an August 2025 interview on En Sintonía con el Concejo del Condado de Montgomery (In Tune with the Montgomery County Council). “The data made me very angry, but it was the kind of anger that pushes you to take action,” she said. As we will explore shortly, since then, Fani-González has led an effort to create awareness and bring about change.
What Drives the Imbalance?
Montgomery County, home to over a million residents, prides itself on its multiculturalism. Latinos make up 21-22% of the population, contributing vibrantly to the local economy through civic leadership, businesses, and workforce representation. When it comes to the disproportionate rate of Latino DUI arrests, officials cite a mix of reasons. “Multiple factors may contribute to the disproportionately high DUI arrest rates among Latino residents. These include language barriers, social isolation and anxiety particularly from Latino men who may be living by themselves away from family members, and limited access to culturally relevant education on DUI laws,” Jose Ortiz, Director of Community Engagement in Fani-González’s office, told Montgomery Fix. McBain acknowledged those factors play a role, and added, “Our ongoing work suggests that cultural norms surrounding alcohol acceptance and encouragement are a significant contributing factor that warrants focused attention.”
Among the elected and career county officials we interviewed, none pointed to enforcement bias. Multiple requests for comments from Latino advocacy groups, including We Are CASA, went without response. Police officials said arrests often stem from reactive responses to accidents in high-traffic areas. “Our data does not suggest enforcement bias. Instead, it points to deeper, systemic issues that extend beyond policing practices,” McBain said. “Research consistently shows that individuals arrested for impaired driving have driven impaired an average of 80 to 200 times prior to their first interaction with law enforcement. In many cases, police contact occurs not through proactive enforcement, but as a result of a traffic crash, sometimes a fatal one. Since 2020, more than 50% of Montgomery County’s fatal crashes in which substance use was deemed a factor involved an intoxicated Hispanic driver behind the wheel of the at-fault vehicle. These findings reinforce that the issue is fundamentally one of public safety and prevention, not selective enforcement.”
Gaithersburg police officials offer a similar narrative. Gaithersburg Assistant Chief of Police, Captain Shawn Eastman, told Montgomery Fix, “Most of these DUI arrests happened at night or during the early morning hours, and contributing circumstances included calls for service, traffic collisions, violations of traffic laws, and safety equipment repair orders. Each case was reviewed and verified as supported by probable cause.”
The Shadow of Immigration Enforcement
For noncitizens in Montgomery County's Latino communities, a DUI arrest carries risks far beyond a suspended license or court fees. They navigate a precarious intersection with federal immigration policies, where even a pending charge can upend lives.
DUIs aren't always automatic grounds for deportation. A single offense might not qualify as a "crime involving moral turpitude" under the Immigration and Nationality Act. But multiple incidents or those involving injury can trigger inadmissibility, especially if they suggest substance abuse. However, an arrest without conviction can still trigger deportation action. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is notified of arrests made in the county due to federal information-sharing programs. When an individual is arrested and fingerprinted by local police, that data is uploaded to the State of Maryland's databases, and the state automatically shares this arrest and biometric data with the FBI and ICE via the federal Secure Communities initiative. This means ICE is alerted to the arrest, even without direct local police involvement.
A Cato Institute analysis of early FY2026 ICE data found that 73% of people booked into ICE custody had no criminal convictions, with nearly half having neither convictions nor pending charges. Only 5% had violent criminal convictions, and a majority of those with convictions had traffic, vice, immigration, or other non-violent offenses. In November 2025, 70% of deportations from ICE custody involved individuals without criminal convictions.
In Montgomery County, this means a routine traffic stop in Gaithersburg could cascade into family separation or deportation. Nonimmigrant visa holders risk revocation; green card applicants face denials based on "moral character" reviews. A proposed federal law, the Protect Our Communities from DUIs Act, mandates detention for certain DUI charges, lowering the bar further.
“Today, more than ever, we have to be cautious. I was looking at data from the Department of Homeland Security, and I saw how people are being identified for deportation. The vast majority of cases involve traffic violations. You’re driving, you’re drunk—or almost drunk—you run a stop sign without realizing it, and the police stop you. Those traffic violations are leading to deportations,” Fani- González told En Sintonía con el Concejo.
Toward Safer, Fairer Streets
Fani-González, a Venezuelan immigrant, represents District 6. She was elected Council President at the beginning of the year, facing an onslaught of challenges like brutal winter snow and ice storms, controversial MCPS and school closure issues, workforce pressures stemming from federal reductions and furloughs, increased ICE activity, and most recently a County Executive budget proposal resoundingly rejected by the Council. Despite all that, the work she began almost a year ago has quietly yielded results.
According to Ortiz, it was last spring that Fani-González first met with MCPD and “began working and advocating for solutions to address the alarming rise in DUIs disproportionately affecting the Latino community.” She convened a high-level interagency working group including stakeholders from the MCPD, Department of Health and Human Services, Alcohol and Beverage Services, and the Department of Transportation. The group met several times last summer and bimonthly ever since.
According to Luisa F. Cardona, the county’s Assistant Chief Administrative Officer, the goal of the working group is “to better understand emerging data trends and test targeted intervention strategies. Using existing resources, the group analyzed risk factors and piloted prevention, education, behavioral health, enforcement, and public information approaches while exploring future funding opportunities to support this work. Internal strategy documents and data analyses have been developed to guide the initiative.” Cardona described several programs already launched:
Alcohol Beverage Services (ABS) conducted targeted outreach to more than 50 licensed alcohol-serving establishments in the Wheaton area, providing bilingual prevention flyers and responsible alcohol service guidance directly to owners and management.
Leveraging a predominantly digital awareness strategy supported by real-time analytics, the Latino Health Initiative produced 11 graphics and 6 video reels, reaching tens of thousands of residents, while Montgomery County Council Public Information materials generated approximately 85,000 views, 173 shares, and over 1,000 engagements.
The Department of Health and Human Services supported the initiative through prevention strategies informed by public health data and community outreach. The Latino Health Initiative led message testing to identify effective prevention communications, and Behavioral Health piloted a bilingual family support group to better understand participation barriers.
Beyond awareness efforts, ABS prioritized direct licensee engagement to reinforce responsible alcohol service practices. Inspectors met with owners, general managers, and service staff across more than 50 establishments, providing technical guidance, promoting bimonthly ALERT trainings, and supporting compliance-focused education. The initiative also promoted safe transportation alternatives through licensee outreach and educational materials.
“Expanding these efforts will likely require dedicated funding or grant support, and the workgroup is positioning the County to pursue resources that support scalable solutions,” Cardona told Montgomery Fix.
MCPD is likewise pursuing new strategies beyond enforcement. “MCPD has actively engaged in efforts to better understand the underlying causes and identify effective prevention strategies,” McBain said. “Approximately two years ago, MCPD partnered with the University of Maryland’s Behavioral Health team and Montgomery County’s Alcohol Beverage Services to hear directly from members of the Hispanic community about attitudes toward alcohol consumption, impaired driving, and substance use disorders. The University of Maryland’s forthcoming report synthesizes this feedback and provides direct insight from within the community. This work reflects MCPD’s broader goal of moving beyond enforcement alone and toward meaningful, long-term safety solutions.”
Although police officials seek prevention-based solutions to reduce ethnic disparities in arrest rates, they remain focused on impaired driving as a serious crime with potentially fatal consequences. McBain told Montgomery Fix, “Reducing disparities requires honest conversations about the real and severe outcomes of impaired driving, including injury, loss of life, and long-term legal consequences. Many impaired driving interactions with law enforcement occur only after a crash has already happened, underscoring the need for earlier intervention and prevention. MCPD remains committed to working alongside community leaders, service providers, and county partners to reduce impaired driving and save lives. Our goal is not simply to make arrests, but to prevent tragedies before they occur and to help ensure safer roadways for everyone.”
With Cinco de Mayo around the corner and the summer recreation season about to begin, Fani-González is calling on Montgomery County Latinos to come together. “We have to be responsible and work as a community, especially as immigrants. We came here to move forward, not to harm others or fail to contribute to society. This is a call to responsibility,” she said.
