Fact Check: Linda Coleman and sanctuary cities

Does Triangle congressional candidate Linda Coleman support sanctuary cities?

Posted 2:41 p.m. Oct 22, 2018 — Updated 9:56 p.m. Oct 23, 2018

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — Republican 2nd District Congressman George Holding's campaign is airing a short ad criticizing Democratic opponent Linda Coleman's stance on "sanctuary cities" and playing off a local sexual assault case involving a man from Mexico.

Holding’s campaign has spent about $195,000 so far to the air the ad, according to a WRAL News analysis of estimated spending data from Kantar Media. It has appeared on all three of the major broadcast networks, airing almost 600 times in the Raleigh market since Sept. 25.

The ad: A woman looks into the camera and says:

"An illegal immigrant sexually assaulted a child in Carrboro. ICE wanted to deport him, but Orange County released him, like a sanctuary city. Linda Coleman supports sanctuary cities. George Holding opposes sanctuary cities that protect criminals. The choice is clear."

Piano music plays as a familiar picture of Holding shaking hands with a farmer fills the screen.

Stop right there: A guide to how we make our calls

Questions: Are the details of this case in Orange County correct, and does Coleman support sanctuary cities?

The backup: The case in question is that of Udiel Aguilar Castellanos, whose mugshot shows during the commercial. He was indeed arrested in Orange County for the sexual battery of an 11-year-old girl. He spent some 300 days in custody before pleading guilty and being sentenced to time served and released.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement complained earlier this year that Orange County failed to tell the agency about the release. Aguilar had been under an immigration detainer since his arrest in September 2017. Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood responded that ICE could have taken custody of the man at any time during his 10 months in jail.

He said the detention center called the Department of Homeland Security at the number on Aguilar-Castellanos' detainer and got no response. An ICE spokesman said the agency typically waits for the court process to end, and that the department should have called again.

As for Coleman, the Holding campaign provided WRAL News with video from an April candidate forum during which she answers a question on immigration policy with: "I support sanctuary cities, and I believe that there has to be a path to citizenship."

Coleman goes on to talk about gerrymandering and the lack of incentive in modern politics for the majority party to work with the minority party to compromise on issues like immigration.

The pushback: Coleman acknowledged that the ad is "not inaccurate" but also said it's "fear mongering" that distracts voters from the real issues of this campaign.

"The concern I have is it does not speak to issues that are in the 2nd Congressional District or in North Carolina," she said. "There are no sanctuary cities in the 2nd Congressional District."

In fact, North Carolina banned sanctuary cities in 2015.

The Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that opposes sanctuary polices and advocates for restricting both legal and illegal immigration, defines sanctuary cities as places with "laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from ICE." It doesn't list any North Carolina municipalities on its map of these places.

The verdict:

Green light: Go ahead, run with it. The WRAL News fact check has found no materially incorrect assertions or misleading statements. We don't demand perfection, but anything more than a rounding error or slip of the tongue will have us thinking about downgrading to yellow.

The point of the ad is that Coleman supports sanctuary cities, and she does.

Orange County might quibble with the ad's brief description of how the sheriff's department handled this particular case, and the public may not have a fully-agreed-upon definition of what "sanctuary city" means. But surely, local law enforcement clashing with ICE over potential deportations is an accepted element of the phrase.

And it's worth nothing that the ad says "like a sanctuary city."

Our methodology doesn't demand perfection to get a green light on the green / yellow / red light scale. We're looking more for false assertions and misleading statements.

So we give this ad a green light, while noting that every political ad you see is trying to sway your opinion, and that a 30-second spot ripe with context is rare indeed.

Suggest A Correction