The North Carolina State Highway Patrol has provided more information on how it will carry out immigration enforcement under its new agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in response to questions from WFAE.
The agency signed a so-called 287(g) Task Force Model agreement with ICE last month, as required by a new state law the Republican-led General Assembly passed this year over Democratic Gov. Josh Stein's veto. The agreement allows select Highway Patrol officers to perform certain federal immigration enforcement functions.
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Documents the Highway Patrol provided show that only officers in the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement and Criminal Interdiction units are eligible to participate.
Commercial Vehicle Enforcement officers inspect commercial trucks and work at weigh stations. Criminal Interdiction officers focus on drug trafficking, smuggling and other criminal activity on North Carolina highways.
Eligible officers must be selected, trained and certified by ICE through a 40-hour online course on immigration authority, civil rights and complaint procedures.
Once trained and certified, select officers can question people about their right to remain in the United States, make certain immigration-related arrests and transfer people to ICE detention.
The Highway Patrol documents say immigration enforcement actions cannot be initiated solely because of someone’s race, ethnicity, national origin or language proficiency. The documents also say officers who are not designated for the program cannot stop, detain or arrest someone based on actual or suspected immigration status.
