NC lawmakers elevate cynical politics over common sense with immigration bill

According to the best estimates, about 10 to 11 million immigrants are living in the United States without full legal authorization. Interestingly and coincidentally, that’s right around the number of people who reside in North Carolina. It’s about 3% of the total national population. Analysts think the same basic ratio applies here – with somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 unauthorized immigrants calling North Carolina home.

The driving forces behind this situation are numerous: poverty and oppression abroad, climate change, economic opportunity, the failure of politicians in Washington to enact immigration reforms that would provide realistic paths to legal residency and citizenship. But one simple and undeniable truth made plain by these huge numbers is that there is no way the U.S. is going solve its immigration problem through deportation.

Even some sort of unimaginably draconian and un-American mass roundup of the kind associated with totalitarian regimes and nations that practice “ethnic cleansing” could not and is not going to forcibly deport 10 million people – or even a million for that matter. There are some cruel people active in American politics these days, but the notion that the U.S. is somehow capable of launching a 21st-century version of the “Trail of Tears” – the brutal forced displacement of Native Americans perpetrated by Donald Trump’s favorite president, Andrew Jackson – defies common sense.

Such a scenario is rendered even more fanciful by the fact that a large proportion of unauthorized immigrants have lived in the U.S. for many years as hard-working taxpayers who are essential contributors to the economy. According to the North Carolina Department of Commerce, for instance, immigrants – both authorized and unauthorized (a mix that’s seen in countless families) – make up more than 10% of the North Carolina workforce and nearly a third of workers in the construction sector.

Unfortunately, facts and common sense are often cast aside when politicians look to stoke and capitalize on voter fears and their baser instincts, and this is clearly what’s happening right now at the North Carolina General Assembly when it comes to dealing with our state’s immigrant population.

At issue is House Bill 10 – a bill advanced by Republican legislators that would force local sheriffs to hold people they arrest for other offenses at the request of federal immigration agents.

As with so much of the tough talk heard from the political right on immigration policy, the proposal is based on the premise that deportation and tougher enforcement of immigration laws will make American communities safer. Getting local law enforcement to aid this effort, goes the argument, will provide a swift path for deporting local immigrants who run afoul of criminal statutes.

Like so many simplistic, one-size-fits-all policies, however, the bill fails to consider other practical matters that many local law enforcement agencies have learned the hard way.

Topping the list is the fear factor.

According to many law enforcement leaders who work with and fight crime in immigrant communities, the fastest way to promote a debilitating lack of cooperation from residents is to instill fear that immigration enforcement officers are present and ready to pounce.

And so it is here in North Carolina with a number of county sheriffs. They don’t resist automatically holding and turning over someone they may have apprehended for a minor offense to immigration control because they’re bleeding-heart softies; they hesitate because they have learned through years of experience that they have much more success in fighting crime when local residents aren’t afraid to call for help.

On the other hand, when residents fear that any interaction with law enforcement is likely to lead to deportation – even for people with minor offenses or none at all – community cooperation plummets.

After all, would you invite local law enforcement officers into your home to investigate a break-in or car theft if you knew that by doing so you were putting an unauthorized immigrant friend or family member at risk of deportation?

Now add to this the concerns voiced by immigrant advocates that putting local law enforcement officials in the immigration enforcement business: a) invites racial profiling, and b) is sure to break up families and leave many destitute — and the bill quickly becomes that much more problematic.

As Gov. Roy Cooper rightfully observed in vetoing a similar bill two years ago, such a proposal “is only about scoring political points and using fear to divide North Carolinians.”

None of this, of course, is to say that local law enforcement officials shouldn’t enforce criminal statutes or that unauthorized immigrants who commit serious offenses shouldn’t face the possibility of deportation – though it’s worth noting that in some cases, crime victims may actually feel safer if offenders are imprisoned in the U.S., rather than simply turned loose across the border.

What it is to say, however, is that the solution to our state and national immigration problems lies in crafting real and systemic reforms that bring millions of good people out of the shadows, not in intimidating them with cynical, superficial and politically motivated proposals.