Just over a month since House Bill 10 became law — requiring North Carolina sheriffs to notify federal immigration authorities if a noncitizen is arrested. However, no people taken into custody in Mecklenburg County’s jail have been picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, law enforcement officials said — and the jail and ICE are pointing the finger at each other.
The North Carolina General Assembly overrode former Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the bill to enact HB10 in November. The law is intended to strengthen the state’s immigration enforcement by putting more people who are in the country illegally and arrested for unrelated crimes into deportation proceedings.
The law, which took effect Dec. 1, requires all sheriffs in North Carolina to collaborate with ICE. Before HB10, sheriffs were not required to honor ICE detainers, although some did.
Since then, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office says they have received 38 detainers from ICE, requiring they notify the agency before releasing a noncitizen, and hold them for 48 hours after that notification.
However, none of those noncitizens were actually picked up by ICE, officials told WFAE.
“Nobody from ICE has contacted us,” an MCSO spokesperson said. “ICE must answer as to why they aren’t making any pickups. For now, we are following the law like we always, even prior to House Bill 10.”
Some counties in North Carolina have long voluntarily collaborated with ICE through an existing federal program called 287(g). However, since Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden’s election in 2018, the office had stopped doing so.
ICE, however, disputed the Mecklenburg Sheriff’s Office account, saying they have sent 48 detainers to the Mecklenburg County jail. The jail hasn’t told immigration officials about the inmates in question, federal officials said.
“ICE has no record of receiving notification from Mecklenburg County that any of the individuals subject to the 48 detainers were/are scheduled for release,” an ICE spokesperson said in a statement to WFAE.
President-elect Donald Trump takes office Jan. 20. He has promised to make increasing deportations a cornerstone of his domestic policy.
