While many cities, counties, and states are passing legislation stopping cooperation with ICE, North Carolina is going a different way
NC Republicans file bill to force county sheriffs to work with ICE
North Carolina House Bill 370 has a number of sponsors, but most importantly, it has the backing of House Speaker Tim Moore.
It was filed Thursday as a direct push back against the sheriffs in Wake, Durham, Orange, and other urban counties who are fulfilling campaign promises not to work with federal immigration officials.
“This is probably one of the worst things that we think could have happened,” said Mary Jose Espinosa, a civic organizer for El Pueblo, Inc.
HB370 is the legislation advocates, like her, for undocumented immigrants have feared. It would force county sheriffs to work with immigration and customs enforcement or face fines of up to $25,500 a day.
“We have been actively having conversations about worst-case scenarios with all the new sheriffs that have removed 287g from their counties and this was definitely one of those that we definitely did not want to happen,” Espinosa said.
Of course those in favor of illegal immigration would fear this. Every single person in police custody has committed a crime other than being unlawfully present in the U.S. Many of those crimes are rape, sexual assault, child sexual assault, arson, murder, attempted murder, violence, and so many other felonies. These are the people that the Open Border asswipes want released from custody to avoid having the lawfully empowered federal immigration authorities pick up and deport.
Speaker Tim Moore is co-sponsoring the measure with four GOP state representatives.
Moore saying, “If the law-abiding citizens of North Carolina are subject to enforcement of state and federal law, then illegal immigrants detained for committing crimes should be too.”
The law would be primarily aimed at a few specific sheriff’s in NC, like Durham County, Wake County, Mecklenburg County (Charlotte area), and couple other Democrat leaning areas, who do not want to enforce federal laws.
Espinosa insists the Republican-backed measure will only serve to amplify the already overheated fears of the state’s immigrant community.
“There’s people that have been terrorized for the past few weeks,” she said. “And I think our state is very actively making the decision to continue to terrorize these communities.”
Criminals should feel afraid. They’re criminals. When it is passed, though, the Republicans do not have a veto proof majority to override the expected veto by Democrat Gov. Rory Cooper.
