ICE cooperation bill clears NC Senate committee, could be voted on this week

Legislative Republicans moved one step closer Tuesday to requiring local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

After not taking it up all of last year, Republicans in the state Senate advanced a House-passed bill that would require all 100 sheriffs in North Carolina to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement out of a key committee.

The bill could be voted on by the full Senate this week, possibly by Thursday, but an amendment that was approved Tuesday means the bill will have to go back to the House for another vote before it can be sent to Gov. Roy Cooper.

Cooper vetoed similar legislation in 2019 and 2022, and Republicans have indicated they’re prepared to use their supermajority if the bill is vetoed again.

Sheriffs are already required under existing state law to try to determine the legal status of people they arrest, and inform ICE if they can’t do so.

They aren’t, however, required to honor the federal agency’s detainer requests to hold someone who has been arrested and is believed to be in the country illegally, for up to 48 hours to give ICE agents time to come and take custody.

That’s the crux of what Republicans have been trying to change since 2018, when newly elected sheriffs in Democratic counties like Wake, Durham and Mecklenburg came into office promising to cut back and limit cooperation with ICE.

Before advancing the bill on Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amendment from Sen. Buck Newton to move the effective date of the bill to July 1, 2024, and to add a provision allowing anyone, including law enforcement authorities, to file a complaint with the N.C. attorney general, if they believe sheriffs or jail administrators aren’t complying with the provisions of the bill.

Newton, a Wilson Republican, told reporters after the committee that under his amendment, the attorney general could seek a court order compelling sheriffs who don’t comply with the bill to follow it.

Several opponents of the bill from immigrants-rights groups and other organizations spoke out against the bill during Tuesday’s meeting, telling lawmakers that they were ignoring constitutional concerns about the requirement to comply with ICE detainers.

Veronica Aguilar, an immigrant rights advocate with El Pueblo, said the bill wouldn’t make North Carolina safer. She said it would weaken trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities, and would make sheriffs vulnerable to lawsuits over potentially unconstitutional detentions.

Opponents of the bill including Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden have said they believe it would violate an individual’s constitutional rights to hold them at ICE’s request after they have posted bail and satisfied conditions of pre-trial release that have been set by a judge.

Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page, a longtime supporter of GOP legislation on ICE cooperation, spoke in favor of the bill at Tuesday’s meeting, saying that it was about “protecting our state and protecting our citizens.”