On Thursday, the North Carolina Senate passed House Bill 10 in a 28-16 vote.
A previous version of the controversial bill was vetoed two years ago by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.
HB10 would require cooperation between all 100 North Carolina sheriffs and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including the verification of immigration status of detainees and collaborating in deportation processes.
The bill would require sheriffs to honor ICE requests to detain – for at least 48 hours – individuals suspected of being in the country illegally. Local prisons would foot the bill for processing and housing detainees while federal officials review their immigration status. All counties would be required to share detention databases and attempt to find out the immigration status of any person in the local jail.
In 2019, Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller announced the department would no longer hold people in jail solely to give ICE more time to determine the inmate’s immigration status. The department stopped participation in the 287-G program.
Claudia Rivera Cotto, a bilingual journalist who covers politics and immigration in North Carolina for Enlace Latino NC, was in Raleigh covering HB 10 this week. She chatted with BPR after the Senate vote.
The Q&A from BPR reporter and host Jose Sandoval’s interview with Rivera Cotto is below, edited for clarity and brevity.
BPR: What is the latest version of House Bill 10?
RIVERA COTTO: House Bill 10 would require sheriff officials to collaborate with ICE here in the state of North Carolina. The bill (if passed in the Senate and adopted into law) will be effective on July 1, 2024.
BPR: What are some arguments that have been used by supporters of this bill?
RIVERA COTTO: They were discussing that this bill will not apply to minor offenses. So that was something that they were using to imply that it was specifically targeting immigrants that are detained (on) higher offenses.
BPR: What are some of the arguments that have been used by those who do not support this bill?
RIVERA COTTO: Yes, so the arguments on the part that doesn't support the bill is that there have been other bills in the past and other states that have shown, in practice, that the immigrants that are detained and sent to ICE have been detained for minor offenses such as traffic offenses. Sejal Zota, the legal director of Just Futures Law in North Carolina, said that this could be established as an unconstitutional deportation pipeline because it involves the local sheriff's to do (immigration law enforcement). So those are two of the main arguments that have been going on from the side that is against the bill.
BPR: What’s next?
RIVERA COTTO: It has to go back to the House of Representatives…most likely next week. [Editor’s Note: A version of HB 10 passed in the House but it requires a vote again since there were amendments in the Senate]. They haven't put it in the calendar yet. So we will have to keep an eye on that. And then after it's approved there, it will go to Governor Cooper. If Governor Cooper decides to veto this bill …The difference (compared to years past) is that now the General Assembly has a supermajority (of Republicans), in which case they will be able to override that veto.
BPR: Is there anything else that you would like to add on to our conversation that we haven't talked about yet?
RIVERA COTTO: The legal director that I talked to says that there is potentially violation of the Fourth Amendment specifically if these are not signed by the judge, however, the HB 10 addresses this concern. So it requires a state judge to issue the order and authorize the detention of individuals for immigration matters. The concerns that this raises for the attorney is that this could conflict with other federal law and create uncertainty about the constitutional rights of individuals. So it's not only going to impact, in their view, the Latino or immigrant community but it could also impact US citizens if they are mistakenly detained by ICE.
