Immigrants skeptical of program

With three more North Carolina sheriff's departments set to begin enforcing immigration law, Hispanics, advocates and academics came together Friday to express deep reservations about the practice.

"It will lead to police brutality," said Carlos A. Cortez, the pastor of a Hispanic church in Knightdale. "It will lead to police corruption."

By the end of the summer, eight law enforcement agencies in the state -- including the Wake County Sheriff's Office and the Durham Police Department -- will have the power to check immigration status and begin deportation proceedings.

Such programs were unheard of until two years ago. Now, North Carolina is a leader in signing up for a federal program that gives local law enforcement access to federal immigration databases, after they get training from federal immigration officers and sign an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Governor's Advisory Council on Hispanic/Latino Affairs devoted its quarterly meeting Friday to discussing the program, which Wake, Henderson and Cumberland counties are now training to join. The gathering turned into an emotionally charged condemnation of what many saw as discrimination.

'Profiling is prohibited'

Tony Queen, of the N.C. Sheriffs' Association, which encourages departments to join the program, said it affects only illegal immigrants who "self select" by getting arrested for other offenses. He said it is intended to go after mostly serious criminals who commit murder, rape, robbery and drug crimes, along with fraud and theft.

"Racial profiling is prohibited," Queen said. "It's illegal. It should not take place."

However, many of those who attended the meeting, including some members of the governor's commission, said the program gives power to officers who want to target Hispanics for arrest. Those who are illegal immigrants are likely to be deported, even if they are arrested on traffic violations such as speeding or driving without a license. Local sheriffs receive federal payments to keep those arrested in jail while they await deportation.

Rebecca Headen, of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, said that in Alamance County, where the Sheriff's Office has had the program for a year, 434 people were processed for deportation in 2007. Sixty-four of them were charged with felonies, while 302 were arrested on traffic violations.

Several people at the meeting complained of roadblocks and traffic stops that target Hispanics.

Hilton Cancel, a retired police officer who lives in Cary, said officers can easily arrest any driver they choose.

"I could trail the pope, and I would find a stopping charge for him," Cancel said. "They can make up whatever they want."

Hannah Gill, assistant director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at UNC-Chapel Hill, said she has spent a year researching the program. She said it is a response to the perception that illegal immigrants are behind a surge in crime. In fact, Gill said, violent crime in the state has not grown even as the immigrant population has surged.

Ebher Rossi, an Alamance County lawyer who is on the council, called the program "a disgrace."

Another member, Ilana Dubester, a Hispanic advocate in Chatham County, took on a resolution adopted last year by the Sheriffs' Association in support of the program. The resolution refers to an "invasion of illegal aliens," says Mexicans are responsible for most drug activity in North Carolina and advocates cutting the number of legal visas offered to immigrants.

"The entire tone of that resolution is, for lack of a better word, racist," Dubester said.