NC sheriffs say forcing them to work with ICE may do more harm than good | Opinion

On Wednesday state Senate Republicans completed the override of Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of House Bill 10.

The new law’s main effect will be a massive increase in funding for private school vouchers.

But it also includes a requirement that sheriffs assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by detaining arrested individuals who are suspected of being in the country illegally. ICE could then take custody of those individuals for deportation. The law applies only to those accused of serious crimes, which may dampen concerns that 287g could result in a traffic stop leading to deportation.

But this tightening of the dragnet for unauthorized immigrants in North Carolina comes as President-elect Donald Trump is apparently preparing to carry out his pledge to deport millions of “illegals” nationwide.

Advocates for immigrants say the state’s Republican lawmakers have added to fears that have grown since Trump’s election.

“The House’s vote to override the governor’s veto of HB10 is not about public safety or education,” said Iliana Santillan, executive director of the North Carolina Latino advocacy group El Pueblo. “If it were, these legislators would be strengthening our public schools, supporting our teachers and building bridges with our immigrant communities — not tearing them apart.”

Forcing sheriffs to cooperate with ICE has the surface appeal of removing potentially dangerous immigrants, but it creates legal issues of its own.

Sheriffs in several of the state’s urban counties have balked at using local law enforcement to do ICE’s work. They say it’s unconstitutional to hold people who are otherwise eligible for release. But they also worry that turning their departments into an arm of ICE will alienate immigrant communities and discourage the reporting of crimes and assistance in prosecuting criminals.

Wake County Sheriff Willie Rowe, who opposed the requirement, said, “I remain concerned that this bill, and any misunderstanding of it, may make our immigrant community hesitant to call for law enforcement assistance, thus increasing the likelihood that they may be subjected to victimization.”

State Rep. Destin Hall, a Caldwell County Republican and the newly elected House speaker, is a backer of the ICE cooperation requirement. He says it’s about protecting the public from people who have committed serious crimes, but deportation can also be about punishing the innocent. Children lose parents, the elderly lose providers and employers lose workers.

In an interview with the News & Observer, Hall said that the sheriffs who do not want to be seen as an extension of ICE “are essentially putting partisan politics ahead of public safety.”

But sheriffs in areas with a large immigrant population are not concerned about appeasing immigrants. They are concerned with preventing and solving crimes.

Forcing sheriffs to cooperate with ICE ahead of Trump’s plans for massive deportations intensifies the wariness immigrants now feel about any interaction with the government, Santillan said.

Undocumented immigrants and those related to them, she said, will be less likely to report crimes, seek medical help or enroll their children in school. “People are not going to want to engage with any government office because of the fear,” she said.

There are an estimated 11 million people in the nation without authorization. More than 300,000 of them are in North Carolina.

As a practical matter, it’s not possible to deport all those people. It would involve tremendous costs to the government, to the economy and to the nation’s history of welcoming immigrants.

Those who commit crimes – whether citizens or not – should be prosecuted with due process. But intimidating whole communities by making undocumented immigrants who are arrested disappear from the U.S. creates more problems than it solves.

Republican lawmakers should have allowed those in local law enforcement the flexibility to use their own judgment about how best to protect the public.