After Releasing Hundreds of Alien Criminals State Passes Law to Honor ICE Detainers

Thankfully, some positive news involving the national epidemic of local governments that protect criminal aliens from federal authorities. Legislators in North Carolina overrode the veto of the state’s Democratic governor to pass a bill that requires all local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Under a program known as 287(g) local authorities are supposed to notify ICE of jail inmates in the country illegally, enhancing the safety and security of communities by creating partnerships with state and local police to identify and deport dangerous migrants amenable to removal from the United States.

Unfortunately for Americans nationwide, a growing number of states and municipalities shield even the most violent of illegal immigrants by enacting sanctuary laws that prohibit public employees, including police, from cooperating with federal authorities. As of May 2024, ICE has 287(g) agreements with 135 law enforcement agencies in 27 states, according to the agency’s latest figures. Sixty of the pacts are designed to identify and process removable noncitizens with criminal or pending criminal charges who have been arrested by local police. In agreements with 75 local agencies ICE trains, certifies, and authorizes officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on noncitizens in their jail. Most cooperating agencies are in Florida and Texas, though local police in other states such as Wisconsin and Georgia also participate in the federal partnership.

In North Carolina more than a dozen local law enforcement agencies cooperate with the feds to deport illegal immigrants arrested for state offenses but they tend to be smaller departments that do not typically encounter many alien criminals. The state’s two most populous counties have long offered illegal immigrants sanctuary. Wake County, the state’s most populous, does not cooperate with federal authorities and has released a multitude of criminal aliens. A few years ago, ICE blasted Wake County officials for putting “politics before public safety” by releasing foreign nationals with active ICE detainers arrested for serious criminal offenses. Among them were child rapists and a drug felon. About 170 miles west in Mecklenburg County, the state’s second most populous, the elected sheriff has kept his campaign promise to protect illegal immigrants by releasing from custody numerous violent offenders rather than turn them over to federal authorities for removal. They include rapists, child molesters, kidnappers, burglars, and migrants charged with gun-related and drug crimes. Other significant counties such as Guilford, Forsyth and Buncombe also do not honor ICE detainers and combined have released hundreds of criminal aliens with serious charges in the last few years.

To end the madness, legislators in the Tar Heel State recently passed a bill forcing state and local law enforcement to honor ICE detainers, which are largely issued for serious criminals. The measure requires law enforcement agencies throughout North Carolina that arrest illegal aliens for state crimes to hold them for 48 hours or until ICE picks them up when the agency issues a detainer. It also requires local jail officials to check the immigration or detainer status of suspects arrested for serious offenses such as gang-related crimes, homicide, kidnapping, human trafficking, drug, and sex crimes. “Prior to the prisoner’s release, and after receipt of the detainer and administrative warrant, or a copy thereof, by the administrator or other person in charge of the facility, the prisoner shall be taken without unnecessary delay before a State judicial official who shall be provided with the detainer and administrative warrant, or a copy thereof,” the new law states. It also shields local authorities from criminal or civil liability for cooperating with ICE.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to protect communities from serious criminals who should not even be in the country. Nevertheless, North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, vetoed the bill with his allies in the state legislature citing the worn-out rhetoric that local police need to have trusting relationships with the communities they serve and therefore should not cooperate with the feds to deport alien criminals. Fortunately, state legislators overrode the governor’s veto and every law enforcement agency in the state must comply with ICE detainers after years of blowing them off.