A bill that would force sheriffs in North Carolina to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities may soon become law after much debate among state lawmakers.
The Senate Committee on Judiciary approved House Bill 10 on Tuesday after it passed the House chamber in 2023, the Carolina Journal reported.
The bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Destin Hall (R-Caldwell), said a detainer is a common way for ICE to remove noncitizens whom law enforcement had arrested for criminal activity.
Hall stated during a meeting on Tuesday:
As everyone knows, there’s a small number of sheriffs, probably somewhere around 10 or so now, who don’t honor ICE detainers. And in fact, in many cases, according to folks at ICE and others, some sheriffs simply don’t even communicate with ICE at all. It is a common-sense bill. I’ve been dealing with this issue now for five or six years, and it still, to me, is amazing that we even have to have a bill like this. It seems to me to be common sense that law enforcement should cooperate with one another and their first goal should be public safety.
According to the Journal article, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page supports the bill and while speaking in front of the committee he talked about Georgia college student Laken Riley, a 22-year-old woman whom an illegal alien allegedly murdered after he was released from custody.
It is important to note that Clarke County, Georgia, Sheriff John Q. Williams (D), who represents Athens where Riley was killed said he was against handing criminal illegal aliens over to ICE for deportation, Breitbart News reported February 29.
His reason was because he believes it promotes a “culture of fear.”
In addition, President Joe Biden’s (D) Department of Homeland Security (DHS) approved a work permit for the suspect in Riley’s case, identified as Venezuelan native Jose Antonio Ibarra, according to Breitbart News.
The work permit was greenlighted even after officials learned he had a prior criminal history, per federal documents detailed by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).
According to the recent Journal article, ICE authorities said the vast majority of the state’s law enforcement officers support the agency:
However, a small number of jurisdictions do not work with ICE. In particular, six North Carolina counties have regulations or policies that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from ICE: Orange, Durham, Mecklenburg, Wake, Buncombe, and Forsyth. While only six counties, those with a policy of non-cooperation with ICE represent much of the state’s largest population centers.
When speaking of the bill in North Carolina, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page (R) said, “We have over four years working on this bill,” according to CBS 17:
“It’s about protecting America, it’s about protecting our state, it’s about protecting our citizens,” he added.
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