OPINION: HB 318 Won’t Keep Us Safe

Growing up on the east side, I remember my mom warning us when Mecklenburg County Sheriff deputies were staging checkpoints. When I was 13 years old, Sheriff Jim Pendergraph entered into the infamous voluntary 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), deputizing sheriff’s deputies as ICE agents.

Over dinner, my mom, a local Spanish language newspaper journalist, shared stories of loved ones and community members detained by local law enforcement who were transferred to ICE for minor traffic violations.
From 2008 to 2018, when 287(g) was in place, I feared for the day that one of my loved ones or myself would even come into contact with local law enforcement.

Witnessing the deportations of so many loved ones changed my life. It led to a campaign to end 287(g) in 2018 because I saw firsthand the suffering that policy caused. As someone who has felt and witnessed the suffering of family separation, I know that community safety does not mean more family separation.

All of us, regardless of our immigration status, can feel safe taking our kids to school, going to the doctor and living our lives.

Like me, NC Rep. Carla Cunningham has spent her life making the Charlotte area a healthier place to live. She spent her career as a nurse and has fought to improve our state’s health system.

But I know that House Bill 318, which will force sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration and which Rep. Cunningham has supported, will only make our community less healthy and less trusting of authority. Gov. Stein has vetoed the bill and Rep. Cunningham will now be the deciding vote on whether the Republicans who wrote it can override that veto and make it law.

Cunningham has a strong record as an advocate for mental health and preventative care for Charlotteans and people across North Carolina. However, anti-immigrant legislators in the North Carolina General Assembly have gone to great lengths to lie in pursuit of their anti-immigrant agenda.

Among the key lies that have underpinned HB 318:

This bill will make our communities safer. In fact, every bit of evidence suggests that requiring law enforcement to do the job of federal immigration enforcement makes the community less safe. Immigrants will be less likely to pursue medical care and less likely to report crime.

Rogue sheriffs are not following the law. According to the president of the NC Sheriffs Association, “It is our understanding and firm belief that all North Carolina sheriffs are fully complying with the legal requirements [regarding ICE cooperation] and we have seen no information or indication to the contrary.”

HB 318 focuses on people charged with violent crimes. The most important part of this bill requires that sheriffs hold all undocumented immigrants who are placed under detainer requests for at least 48 hours after a criminal court orders them released. Under the Trump administration, detainers are overwhelmingly placed on people with no criminal record (72% of the time) and those with a conviction are mostly low-level offenses such as traffic violations and illegal reentry.

If this bill passes, immigrants in Charlotte and the rest of North Carolina will be less likely to engage with law enforcement or participate in everyday activities for fear of encountering police. Reporting of domestic violence will go down and we will have kids less likely to show up to school.

Our local taxpayer dollars will go to funding Trump’s deportation machine instead of the health and education systems that keep our people safe.

The far-right representatives in Raleigh are selling a lie. What I know about Rep. Cunningham’s values and record gives me hope that she’s unlikely to keep buying it.

Stefanía Arteaga is co-founder of Carolina Migrant Network, which provides free legal representation to people facing removal proceedings and in Immigration detention facilities.

Read more: Advocates Speak Against Recent ICE Actions in Charlotte