Orange County sheriff responds to election challenger’s immigration claims

One of the biggest questions as Orange County voters head to the ballot box this year is how the next sheriff will respond to immigration enforcement and federal agents.

Democrat David LaBarre, a Durham County Sheriff’s Office manager and former deputy, has made immigration a key issue in the March 3 primary race against Democratic Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood. The winner will take office, since there are no Republicans running.

“We’ve all seen the videos — U.S. citizens being murdered in the streets of Minnesota by ICE agents,” LaBarre said in a Jan. 31 video posted on his campaign’s Facebook page.

He pledged there would be “no law enforcement operations on any street in Orange County with individuals driving unmarked cars, wearing street clothes and masks and no agency insignia without me trying to find out who they are and why they’re here.”

His deputies would “certainly try” to monitor Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity and intervene if they see excessive force being used or someone denied medical care, he told The News & Observer. But he would not alert the community to ICE operations, he said.

“As the sheriff, I’m not going to blow a whistle. I’m not going to notify any community members. We’re going to monitor them,” LaBarre said. “They have full jurisdiction in that community, just like we do. But I think if you cross the line, you cross the line.”

Blackwood said his office took those steps in August when he found out ICE wanted to arrest a Carrboro resident. His staff met with federal agents, checked their paperwork, and encouraged them not to arrest the man in his mostly Latino neighborhood.

The agents agreed to arrest the man as he drove to work in Durham, but he didn’t go to work that day, Blackwood said. They later tried to arrest him in Wake County but didn’t follow similar guidelines and ended up in a foot and vehicle chase, he said.

“I think we did what we were supposed to do. We found out who we were dealing with, found out who they were, found out that they had proper documentation, and tried to develop a plan that would not impact the community,” Blackwood said. He later told El Centro Hispano officials about the operation in case they got questions, he said.

Thoughts about Minnesota protesters’ deaths

A Minnesota police chief and others have questioned immigration enforcement tactics that they fear damages public trust and makes it harder to do their jobs.

Blackwood took issue with how federal agents acted when they killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two Minnesota residents shot while protesting in January

Videos of Good’s death appear to show the ICE agent exceeding his authority, creating the situation in which he fired his weapon, Blackwood said. Good had stopped her vehicle in the road and was surrounded by agents, giving her no options, he said.

While law enforcement can use deadly force when in danger, he said, “the whole setup … for that event was not tactically safe.”

“Why stand in front of a car” if you’re afraid of getting hit, he said.

In Pretti’s case, the training was “horrendous,” Blackwood said, citing multiple agents with guns drawn and fingers on the trigger.

“I just don’t see five people having to shoot somebody and claiming there’s deadly force being used against them,” he said. “[Even] If they had body cameras, I don’t know that they would have responded any different, because they know that’s what they’ve been told to go do.”

LaBarre did not address Good’s death, but said Pretti’s death after being pepper-sprayed was unjustified.

“They disarmed him, and then they shot him,” LaBarre said. “You’ve got two untrained officers, and a sympathetic reflex. Me, having my finger in the trigger guard, which is not how we train, I have a sympathetic reflex, and I fire, and then just the rounds continue.”

He equated some ICE actions to human traffickers snatching women and children off the street in Third World countries, suggesting criminals might decide to also use those tactics.

“I really feel that it’s an overreach of the federal government,” LaBarre said. “It’s reckless hiring practices. It’s inadequate training.”

Sheriff candidates’ approach to immigration

Blackwood, who is seeking his fourth four-year term, has a history of reaching out to the Latino community and saying his deputies do not ask about immigration status.

But he has been criticized for some decisions, including his support for House Bill 10 as past president of the N.C. Sheriffs Association. He did not support House Bill 318, which now requires sheriffs to detain people for 48 hours if they are suspected of being in the country illegally and charged with felonies, impaired driving, serious misdemeanors and protective-order violations.

He signed the HB10 letter, Blackwood said, because the association represents sheriffs across the state with different views.

In Orange County, the Sheriff’s Office got 17 detainer requests before HB318 became law in October, and only five people were picked up, Blackwood said. Ten detainers have been sent since October, and six people were picked up.

“It is one of the most convoluted and confusing things that we have to deal with, and it changes with nuances every so often … but we just have to do what the law says we have to do,” he said.

LaBarre questioned Blackwood’s immigration stance, noting the arrest of Hillsborough resident Jorge Lopez-Duran, who was accused last year of attacking and biting three deputies during a reported larceny.

Deputies sent Lopez-Duran to Alamance County’s jail, because he had attacked Orange deputies and the Durham County sheriff said his jail was unavailable, Blackwood said. Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson, known for working with ICE, has always been a good partner to Orange County, he said.

Lopez-Duran is now in the Granville Correctional Institution for communicating threats and possession of a firearm by a felon, court and state correction records show. He could be released in March and still faces the Orange County charges.

Blackwood said a past criminal history for Lopez-Duran indicated he was a U.S. citizen, and his concern was for his deputies being blamed if Lopez-Duran was injured while in custody. The transfer policy is over 40 years old, he told Enlace Latino NC.

Lopez-Duran’s family in Georgia and ICE officials did not respond to requests for clarification.

LaBarre disputed Blackwood’s claim about the Durham County jail and said he would have held Lopez-Duran in Orange County, because working with Alamance “puts immigrants and refugees in great danger of being deported.”

“If he became violent, then we would take whatever the next necessary steps were to maybe put him in a different classification, or maybe house him in safekeeping at the state level, to include leaning on … Durham,” LaBarre said.

The News & Observer has reached out to Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead and is awaiting a response.

This story was originally published February 17, 2026 at 10:20 AM.

Tammy Grubb

The News & Observer

919-829-8926

Tammy Grubb has written about Orange County’s politics, people and government since 2010. She is a UNC-Chapel Hill alumna and has lived and worked in the Triangle for over 30 years.