Republican Dan Bishop blasted his Democrat opponent in the September 10 special election in North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District as part of a “sanctuary trifecta” on Wednesday.
Bishop’s comments came just a few hours after North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that would have required local sheriffs to cooperate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) branch of the Department of Homeland Security.
“We have a sanctuary trifecta in Gov. Cooper, Dan McCready and Sheriff McFadden,” Bishop said on Wednesday, the Laurinburg Exchange reported:
Bishop called on McCready to break with his party and live up to his campaign slogan by supporting a veto override that would prevent dangerous criminal illegals from being released on the public.
Sen. Bishop renewed his call for Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden’s resignation and again condemned his catch and release policy for criminal illegal immigrants that has already seen a slew of dangerous offenders — at least 22 according to ICE — back on Charlotte streets rather than in federal custody.
McFadden’s refusal to cooperate with ICE detainers has allowed illegal immigrants to be released whose alleged crimes include: first-degree rape, indecent liberties with a minor, assault on a female, communicating threats, assault by strangulation, first degree kidnapping, assault on a female, domestic violence protective order violations, and robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury. Federal officials warn this policy could make Charlotte a haven for illegal immigration.
McCready, the Democrat candidate in the September 10 special election, ran against Republican Mark Harris in the November 2018 election to select the Ninth Congressional District’s representative in the House of Representatives.
Though Harris was initially declared the victor by a margin of 905 votes in the race, the North Carolina Board of Elections (NCBE) refused to certify the results when allegations of election ballot irregularities surfaced. In January, the NCBE called for a new special election in September, and Harris subsequently decided not to run again.
The Ninth Congressional District has been without representation in the House of Representatives since the 116th Congress convened in January.
“Dan McCready’s refusal to utter a peep [about Gov. Cooper’s veto] makes a mockery of his sloganeering vow to put country over party. If there is any substance to that claim, he will break with Cooper and McFadden and support a veto override,” Bishop told the Exchange.
McCready’s campaign has apparently posted no comment about Cooper’s veto on his website or other social media accounts.
His website does, however, contain brief position statements on immigration that are entirely consistent with the Democrat Party’s generally open borders, illegal immigrant-friendly policies:
Immigration is one of the best examples of where Washington is broken. For decades, Republicans and Democrats have failed to work together to fix our broken immigration system. We need a comprehensive immigration reform that secures our border, respects our laws, and protects our American values. To secure our border, we should reinforce physical barriers with the technology Dan used in the Marines, like infrared cameras and drones.
But we must uphold our values. When politicians try to break our government’s promise to Dreamers who were brought here as children or separate young children from their parents at the border, that’s un-American. Dan will fight to restore the DREAM Act and end family separations at the border. Abolishing agencies that serve vital functions like ICE will not fix our immigration system; instead Congress needs to fix our immigration laws and fund, improve, and support agencies to operate in a way that upholds human rights while completing their missions.
As the Charlotte Observer reported last week, Mecklenburg County Sheriff McFadden, the third member of Bishop’s “sanctuary trifecta,” “campaigned on a platform of ignoring these voluntary detainer requests.”
He has pointed to appeals court rulings that say detainers violate the 4th Amendment. And he has said distancing himself from ICE improves trust among the county’s immigrant communities. Immigration officials and Republicans alike have fought hard against his policies.
Earlier this summer, they rang alarms around the case of Luis Pineda Ancheta, a Honduran man who had been twice arrested — once following a nine-hour standoff with a police SWAT team — and twice released from Mecklenburg jail. (He was later arrested by ICE.)
Bishop has been calling on McFadden to resign since June:
Republican state Sen. Dan Bishop on Tuesday called on Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden to resign over what he called the “reckless policies” that twice led to the release of a Honduran man arrested on charges related to domestic violence.
Bishop also challenged Democrat Dan McCready, his opponent in the special 9th District congressional race, to sign a petition calling for McFadden’s resignation.
While McCready has been silent about Cooper’s veto, Mecklenburg County Sheriff McFadden has praised it, as VOA reported:
Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, an outspoken critic of HB 370, which passed the House Tuesday 62-53 along party lines, praised Cooper.
“I applaud Governor Cooper on the veto of HB 370,” McFadden said in a statement. “The bill is unconstitutional and would steal the authority of all Sheriffs to make those discretionary decisions that all Sheriffs are elected to make on behalf of their constituencies.
“HB370 would negatively impact public safety in Mecklenburg and other counties whose citizens provided a clear mandate to end 287(g) and to stop honoring ICE detainers. I continue to believe that this misguided and ill-advised bill would threaten the trust that I have spent a career trying to build between law enforcement and the community, including the immigrant community.”
Last week, President Donald Trump announced that he would be visiting North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District for a rally in advance of the September 10 special election. The most recent polls show Bishop and McCready are in a tight race and the outcome hangs in the balance.