NC Senate approves GOP bill requiring sheriffs to cooperate with ICE

A GOP measure that would require North Carolina sheriffs to cooperate with immigration authorities cleared the North Carolina Senate on Thursday.

House Bill 10 is the third iteration of legislation Republicans have been trying to pass since 2019, in response to sheriffs in largely Democratic counties coming into office in 2018 vowing to cut back or end cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The House passed this bill in March 2023, but the Senate didn’t take it up until lawmakers reconvened for this year’s short session last week. The bill quickly moved through two Senate committees this week, before passing the full chamber Thursday morning in a 28-16 vote.

Sheriffs are already required under state law to try to determine the legal status of people they arrest, and inform ICE if they can’t do so. But they don’t have to honor immigration detainers from the federal agency — 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 main change HB 10 would make: requiring sheriffs to comply with those detainer requests.

The bill also requires sheriffs to notify ICE if they charge someone with certain high-level offenses, including homicide, rape and other sex offenses, kidnapping, and human trafficking, and cannot determine the person’s legal status.

While in committee this week, the bill was amended to include a provision that would allow anyone, including law enforcement authorities, to file a complaint with the North Carolina attorney general if they believe sheriffs or jail administrators aren’t complying with the provisions of the bill.

The attorney general could proceed to seek a court order to compel cooperation with ICE, said Republican Sen. Buck Newton of Wilson, who offered the amendment and said it was necessary to make sure the law is enforced.

Lawmakers debate whether ICE detainers are best way to hold suspects accountable

During Thursday’s floor debate, Sen. Mujtaba Mohammed, a Charlotte Democrat, said that even though Republicans claim the bill would make communities safer, it would actually harm public safety.

Echoing concerns shared by immigrants rights advocates who spoke against the bill at the General Assembly this week, Mohammed said that the bill would undermine trust in law enforcement in immigrant communities.

Mohammed also criticized the practice Republicans want ICE-skeptic sheriffs in counties like Wake, Durham, and Mecklenburg to follow when dealing with suspects charged with violent crimes who are in the country illegally: turning them over to ICE, rather than having them go through state courts and face prosecution.

That has been the main objection to the bill raised by Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden, who has said he believes it’s unconstitutional to continue holding someone for whom ICE has issued a detainer, after they have posted bond and satisfied the court-ordered terms of their pretrial release.

Mohammed filed an unsuccessful amendment during floor debate that would require district attorneys to notify a victim or a victim’s family, to give them a chance to weigh in on whether the offender should face prosecution in state courts, or be transferred to ICE.

Republicans argue that since these situations involve people who are in the country illegally, they should be handed over to federal immigration agents who can decide what to do next.

In an interview last month, Rep. Destin Hall, the bill’s main proponent and the chairman of the House Rules Committee, pushed back against the notion that detainers aren’t effective, and said that ICE routinely works with district attorney’s offices to determine if an individual should remain in custody and face trial, or if they should be deported right away.

“It’s not a situation where ICE is coming in, and just somehow taking this person away, and the state of North Carolina never hears from them again, as it relates to their criminal charges,” Hall told The N&O. “So, they’re cooperating, just like the sheriffs should cooperate with ICE, the local (district attorneys) cooperate with ICE the same way. And that’s the way it is across all law enforcement.”

Sen. Danny Britt, one of the chairs of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that if victims’ rights groups or the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys believed that the bill would harm efforts to hold violent offenders accountable, they would have reached out to lawmakers or spoken against the bill in committee.