Senate approves bill requiring sheriffs honor federal immigration requests to hold people in jail

The state Senate moved quickly to pass legislation requiring local sheriffs to hold people they arrest at the request of federal immigration agents. 

Republicans supporting the bill say requiring sheriffs to hold people they arrest and whose legal status they cannot determine for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pick up would make communities safer. Opponents said such a requirement would make crime victims afraid to call police. 

Sheriffs’ compliance with ICE detainers became an issue about six years ago after candidates for sheriff who said they would not comply with ICE detainers won office in some of the state’s urban counties.

Republicans say that the legislation was based in their opposition to the policies of a few sheriffs, those Sen. Buck Newton of Wilson called “stubborn, hard-headed sheriffs” who didn’t want to work with ICE.

Republican legislators in 2019 and 2022 pushed bills requiring sheriffs to hold people they arrested in jail if ICE requested it. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed both bills, and Republican leaders did not try to override those vetoes. This year, Republicans have enough votes to negate Cooper’s vetoes, giving it a much better chance of becoming law. 

And this year, the issue is entangled with national politics, the presidential election, and public concerns about illegal crossings at the southern border. 

Sheriffs are already required to try to determine the legal status of people they arrest and tell ICE. Sheriffs are not required to hold people thought to be in the country illegally for 48 hours to give federal agents time to pick them up. The bill would make 48-hour ICE hold mandatory for people arrested for certain crimes. 

The bill’s opponents rallied in Raleigh on Wednesday to deliver the message that the bill would lead to racial profiling and discourage undocumented people from contacting the police, NC Newsline reported. 

“To us, it just sends a message of hate, it sends a message of racism,” El Pueblo executive director Iliana Santillan said in a radio interview with NC Newsline editor Rob Schofield. 

In Thursday’s Senate debate, Sen. Mujtaba Mohammed, a Mecklenburg County Democrat, argued that the bill would “allow criminal defendants to evade prosecution in our state courts,” and violate a victims’ rights constitutional amendment and the promise that victims would be notified about court proceedings.  

Republicans sidelined an amendment that would have allowed victims or their families to have a say in whether a defendant is transferred to ICE custody, with a district judge deciding if a sheriff should comply with a detainer request. The amendment would also have also set aside $10 million in grant funds to compensate sheriffs’ offices for complying with the law, and $15 million for the Crime Victims Compensation Fund. 

Sen. Danny Britt, a Lumberton Republican, said no victims rights groups have ever raised these questions. 

The Senate passed the bill with a vote of 28-16. The House passed the bill last year, but must take at least one more vote before the bill goes to Cooper.