Prince George’s organizer Imara Crooms takes the data center fight statewide
(PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MD – October 18, 2026) — A two-year moratorium on data center applications has given opponents in Prince George’s County a victory. But for advocate Imara Crooms, the demand extends beyond a temporary pause—and beyond county lines.
Crooms, a democracy and governance expert and DSA organizer who ran for the District 9 County Council seat in the June Democratic primary, is calling for a ban on data centers across Maryland.
The County Council adopted the two-year moratorium on July 7, 2026. Crooms credits the residents and organizations that mobilized against development proposals, but warns that a pause leaves communities facing the same fight again.
In a statement to BMORENews, Crooms outlined why he believes the county’s organizing effort carries a message for the entire state:
“Data centers have become politically poisonous in Prince George’s County, across Maryland and increasingly across the nation. At this point, you won’t find a competent politician willing to stand up in public and argue in favor of them anywhere. This change didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen by accident. It happened because regular people, thousands of our neighbors, stood up, got organized, and decided they’d had enough of watching their communities be stolen and destroyed, had enough of watching the costs of industry be socialized while the benefits continue as always to funnel into someone else’s private profit.
“Because of the work of these countless Prince Georgians, we’ve won a two-year moratorium on data centers in the county, and that’s a real achievement. But I want to be super clear that we were never asking for a moratorium. A moratorium just kicks the can down the road, to the next week, the next month, the next election, until eventually the cost of our organizing gets too high and we fail to show up, then suddenly industry wins. A moratorium guarantees that we’ll be back here organizing all over again in two years, or the moment permanent zoning legislation is put forward. What we are demanding at this point is a ban.
“Prince Georgians first defended our neighborhoods. Then, when industry-backed elected officials tried to snatch our rural and agricultural tier, we defended that too, and we won. Now we’re saying very clearly, no more sacrifice zones. Not in Prince George’s County, and not anywhere in Maryland. We are demanding a statewide ban, so that no other community has to fight the way we had to just to protect the place they live from corporate greed.
“As always I am very grateful for the opportunity to be heard, but I want to be clear that this isn’t about me, and it isn’t about any one organization, though so many did yeoman’s work here. It’s about the sea of Prince Georgians who came together and said enough is enough. This fight against data centers is so important because ultimately it’s another example for regular everyday folks that when we band together and we fight, we win.”
