Rep. April McClain Delaney has taken a lead role in opposing the proposed ICE detention facility at 16220 Wright Road in Williamsport. Her recent oversight work includes a physical inspection of ICE’s Baltimore field office, confirming overcrowding conditions, and coordinating with Governor Wes Moore to block the expansion of detention centers in Washington County.
Former Rep. David Trone’s comeback attempt will be very expensive. But it’s political theater masked as righteous indignation.
His comeback? Come on.
Mr. Trone is 70 years old and bored out of his mind, to the point that he misses the sound of his own voice in the rooms where leaders make the really big decisions. He lost his Senate ’24 primary bid, gleefully endorsed April McClain Delaney for the 6th, and now wants to come back to Congress, having accused the incumbent of failing to do her job.
Can we just level with one another here? He’s running for office because he’s bored and rich. That’s it. That’s all this is.
I just don’t understand why he has to throw April McClain Delaney under the bus?
McClain Delaney’s February 2026 Newsletter Update
Rep. April McClain Delaney realeased constituent e-newsletter today, February 3. It reads like an itemized rebuttal to David Trone’s campaign thesis, though it never mentions his name.
In the two months since the former congressman announced he’s entitled to return to his old seat, McClain Delaney has been doing something Trone cannot: representing Maryland’s 6th Congressional District.
McClain Delaney on the Ground: ICE Oversight
The marquee item in McClain Delaney’s latest update is her tour of ICE’s Baltimore Enforcement and Removal Operations facility – a visit she secured after two months of pushing for access.
What she describes is damning: a facility designed for twelve-hour temporary detention now holding detainees for multiple days in overcrowded conditions, people sleeping on concrete floors with thin mats and foil blankets, a single communal toilet per room, and detainees reporting hunger despite official claims of sanitation.
This is oversight – the actual work of congressional representation.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trone posts on his social media accounts with gusto. He exclaims, “ICE is not welcome in Washington County,” and calls for the agency to be “reined in.”
Sentiments, not actions. David Trone is a private citizen making campaign statements.
Boring.
Williamsport ICE Detention Center
He knows that April McClain Delaney is a member of Congress conducting facility inspections, confirming that viral videos of detention conditions are authentic, and working with the Maryland congressional delegation to demand answers from DHS.
The controversy surrounding the Williamsport ICE detention facility crystallizes this dynamic.
When DHS quietly purchased an 825,000-square-foot warehouse for $102.4 million to create a 1,500-bed detention facility just outside Hagerstown, my hometown, McClain Delaney was on the ground immediately.
She identified the specific address through circuit court records –16220 Wright Road, Williamsport – and called ICE’s covert acquisition “unacceptable.” She stood alongside U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen and hundreds of Washington County residents to protest.
And she’s coordinating with Gov. Wes Moore’s office and local leaders.
The Contrast: Trone’s Social Media vs. McClain Delaney’s Site Visits
What’s David Trone doing, meanwhile? Well, you know, he’s showing up on social media, huffing and puffing at ICE.
While Trone’s campaign focuses on social media volume, the actual work of the district is happening in facility inspections and legislative breakfasts.
But where isn’t David Trone these days? Recently, he was all smiles standing in front of Hagerstown’s Rooster Moon Cafe.
We always welcome Mr. Trone to Hagerstown.
McClain Delaney Is All Over The 6th District
McClain Delaney’s newsletter showcases exactly what swing-district representation looks like: attending the Boys & Girls Clubs legislative breakfast with Gov. Moore and Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, speaking at the “Mountain Maryland” PACE conference in Allegany and Garrett counties, participating in Planned Parenthood roundtables on reproductive rights, and highlighting the $12 million state investment in flood-devastated Westernport.
This funding is critical for Westernport and Allegany County families who are still recovering from the May 2024 floods, a priority that Trone’s campaign has largely overlooked.
It matters because the 6th District isn’t an entirely safe Democratic seat.
Maryland’s 6th requires a freshman congressperson to show up everywhere – the progressive suburbs of upper Montgomery County, the City of Frederick, Hagerstown, Accident – and everything west of Middeltown, you’re in Trump Country – 3/5 of the district.
McClain Delaney appears to understand this. Her newsletter balances ICE opposition (which plays in MoCo) with flood recovery and rural resilience messaging (which plays in Mountain Maryland).
She’s simply representing the district’s vast interests in where she shows up – doing the job we, the taxpayers, hired her to do.
Showing Up & Being Consistent
The June 23, 2026, primary is five months away.
Trone will likely blanket the airwaves the way he did in 2024. But it’s noise: great content, great production – but just noise.
McClain Delaney’s strategy is clear: demonstrate daily that she’s doing the job. Every facility tour, every protest appearance, every legislative breakfast is another data point against Trone’s claim that she’s “not fighting Trump.”
The irony is that Trone endorsed McClain Delaney for this seat just 18 months ago. Now he says she’s inadequate.
But what changed? The evidence suggests nothing changed about her, but Trone lost his Senate race and needed somewhere to land. So he’s landing wherever anybody will listen to him right now – and that costs a lot of money, I suppose.
McClain Delaney’s Feb. 3 newsletter doesn’t make that argument explicitly. It is made implicitly through the simple accumulation of work. ICE oversight. Community presence. Legislative action.
This is the tedious, relentless grind of congressional representation that everybody says they want but is sometimes too boring to write about.
I’d say that’s “doing the job.”
