N.C. legislature overrides veto, implements ICE compliance for local sheriffs

On Nov. 20, the North Carolina General Assembly overrode Gov. Roy Cooper's veto on House Bill 10, approving both new immigration compliance regulations and allocating funding for private school vouchers. 

The private school voucher expansion will fund the waitlist of nearly 55,000 students. The waitlist increased when the General Assembly removed the income eligibility requirements for the program in 2023.

The portion of the bill relating to immigration requires all sheriffs to cooperate with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. 

UNC School of Law professor Rick Su said the bill removes local sheriff's departments' discretion in dealing with immigration enforcement.

“Essentially, any detainer that comes through, they would have to abide by it,” Su said.

N.C. Rep. Allen Buansi (D-Orange) said the compliance restriction had been introduced in legislation for several years, but Gov. Cooper vetoed the attempts.

Buansi said that the Republican supermajority allowed the party to bundle unrelated but politically aligned provisions.

“When [House Bill 10] came back later as a conference report ... that's when we saw the private school voucher component attached to it,” Buansi said.

Su also said that sheriffs across the state, including conservative sheriffs, have previously opposed similar measures because of budgetary impacts.

N.C. Rep. Kelly Hastings (R-Cleveland, Gaston) was one of the bill's 41 sponsors. He said ensuring that the state aligned with federal policies on immigration was a principal concern for this bill. 

 “As much as the law and the Constitution allow, we should do our part to make sure that people are here legally and to make sure that they follow the law to get here legally,” Hastings said. 

However, N.C. Sen. Graig Meyer (D-Caswell, Orange, Person) said policies like these impose additional burdens on local law enforcement. 

“There's also a negative impact to local law enforcement in general,” Meyer said. “Local law enforcement generally don't want to be responsible for doing the work of federal law enforcement, and particularly for immigration law enforcement, because local law enforcement needs to have trusting relationships with every community that they serve.”

Hastings also said that other countries' immigration policies influenced his support for the bill. He said that it's difficult to become a citizen in many other countries, which is a strong signal that most nation-states are protecting their borders. 

Su said the policy will create side effects beyond the bill's original intention. 

“You might get picked up for something, or you might get arrested for something and not even charged, and then suddenly you're in immigration removal procedures,” Su said. “And that's terror to the community.”

The effects of the bill also impact the wider community, including citizens and legal immigrants, by discouraging crime reporting and reducing the use of essential services, Su said.

Meyer said that while the implications for crime may change for immigrants, at the basic level, this law does not change much. 

“If you do break the law, and you are here without documentation, you are now much more likely to be deported,” Meyer said.

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