Bill Requiring Sheriff/ICE Cooperation Passes Senate, Destined for Governor’s Desk

RALEIGH – The North Carolina Senate passed House Bill 370 Monday, which will require Sheriff Departments to cooperate with ICE in checking immigration status of arrests, notifying immigration authorities, and honoring detainer requests from those authorities. Under the proposed law, failing to comply would result in steep fines and possible removal of the county sheriff from office. Although the bill was sent back to the House for a final concurrence vote, the effort to more thoroughly fight illegal immigration is likely destined for the governor’s desk.

And that’s where the biggest hurdle is. Governor Roy Cooper has been a reliable friend to the progressive Left as governor, and the illegal immigration issue is no different. He has signaled a likely veto of the bill while the echoing the Left’s crafted narrative on the issue, that it’s about stoking fear and won’t make communities safer.

In a press release Cooper said:

“I know that current law allows us to lock up and prosecute dangerous criminals regardless of immigration status. This bill isn’t about that — in addition to being unconstitutional, it’s about scoring political points and using fear to divide us.”

Actually, House Bill 370 is pretty clearly about making sure that illegal alien criminals are subject to immigration laws and deported. It shouldn’t be that divisive: you illegally enter the country, then commit a crime, then the local sheriff calls up ICE to have immigration law enforced and get a criminal illegal alien out of the community.

It’s called the Rule of Law, and it’s a something that government bodies in the United States have long taken pride. Why are Democrats so resistant to the rule of law? Put simply, they see the entire issue as a good fit for their emotional pleas and smear campaigns against Republicans. The more prominent sheriffs that canceled cooperation agreements with ICE, black Democrats, have gone so far as to suggest the Republican state lawmakers are racist for forcing this on them.

It is the same dichotomy the Left sets up with nearly every issue, making sure that Republicans are cast as racist, insensitive, lacking compassion. For all the Democrats’ claims of compassion, though, the sympathy dries up when discussing victims of horrible crimes committed by illegal aliens that have been previously arrested and released back into the community.

After a likely veto from Cooper, the bill would head back to the General Assembly for an attempt to override the veto. Using the original passage vote totals as reference, the Republicans do not currently have the numbers to override, and will need Democrats that actually take the rule of law seriously to join them.

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