Immigration crackdowns pass NC House, inch closer to possible veto battle with Gov. Josh Stein

Sweeping new immigration rules passed the North Carolina House of Representatives on Wednesday, as Republicans in Raleigh seek to follow President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration crackdowns nationwide.

After a fiery debate, the bill passed in a 60-45 vote along party lines.

In a departure from normal procedure, the bill's text doesn't jump straight into its proposed new policy changes but instead opens with a lengthy statement praising Trump and vowing support for his immigration stances. Since taking office in January, Trump has attempted to ramp up deportations, revoke some legal immigrants' authorization to live in the U.S., and enact other such policies.

Senate Bill 153, if it becomes law, would order all law enforcement agencies, local governments and universities in North Carolina to cooperate with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents who are trying to deport anyone ranging from criminal suspects to college students. Any towns, counties, state agencies or universities deemed to not be complying as much as they could would be open to lawsuits.

Some local sheriffs and others say that ICE's requests can violate people's constitutional rights, and that cooperating with those requests will open up local officials — and therefore local taxpayers — to other lawsuits over constitutional violations. Republicans have brushed aside those concerns, saying they want to see aggressive action on deportations.

"There are all commonsense things that need to be done to make sure we are doing what we can, at the state level, to address illegal immigration and protect our citizens," Rep. Reece Pyrtle, R-Rockingham, said during Wednesday's debate.

The bill won't yet go to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein's desk — it already passed the state Senate once but now needs a final sign-off — but it could soon pass the legislature, potentially setting up a veto fight between Stein and the legislature.

Republicans need Democratic support in the House to override Stein's vetoes this session. And on Wednesday the only Democrat who previously voted in favor of a different bill on ICE cooperation, Rep. Carla Cunningham, D-Mecklenburg, criticized this new bill as going too far by ramping up efforts to deport people who haven't committed any crimes.

"I want ICE to get the people in my communities that are devastating us, smuggling drugs," she said. "Yes, I still want that. But I don't want innocent people to be hurt."

'A culture of fear'

About 9% of North Carolina's population — roughly 1 million people — are immigrants, including an estimated 3% who are living here without legal authorization. Many are employed in the state's biggest industries: Agriculture, health care, construction and technology.

The bill would put State Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican, in charge of investigating state agencies to determine their level of cooperation with ICE and their compliance with other rules proposed in the bill.

Rep. Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, said the bill is going to stop victims of domestic violence from seeking help, stop witnesses with information about crimes from going to the police, and encourage even more racial profiling against racial and ethnic minorities.

"This bill is wrapped in the language of public safety, but its effect will be to create a culture of fear," she said. "And the consequences are not theoretical. They're real, and they're harmful, and they are measurable."

The bill would also require all state agencies and state-funded programs to check their clients’ immigration status, turn away those who are not legally in the country, and report back to state lawmakers with their findings. Many parts of the bill have drawn criticism from Democrats, but that piece on the benefits has earned particularly strong pushback.

Supporters say they want to ensure no taxpayer-funded benefits are going to undocumented immigrants. Critics say that in many cases, people who are here illegally have children who are U.S. citizens. They say the rules will stop those children from receiving the aid for food, education or other assistance they're entitled to as Americans, by threatening their parents with deportation if they apply for it.

"Think about that humanity that you supposedly have," Rep. Maria Cervania, D-Wake, told her Republican colleagues prior to the vote.

"This bill is mean spirited," said Rep. Abe Jones, D-Wake. "It's not Christian. It's not good. It's not what we learn in church on Sunday. This is bad, bad legislation. It's horrifically bad. What a piece of junk."

Concern over constitutional violations

The immigration debate, on both sides of the aisle, often focuses on immigrants from Central and South America. However, people from those countries make up only half of North Carolina's immigrant population.

Mexico is the most common country of origin for the state's immigrant population, followed by India, Honduras, China, El Salvador and Vietnam, according to U.S. Census data.

Many critics of the bill in the legislature say the Trump administration is being overly aggressive in targeting people who haven't committed any crimes, or who in some cases are living here perfectly legally. Rep. Julia Greenfiled, D-Mecklenburg, said ICE agents recently were swarming around a preschool in her district, dressed in military-style tactical gear, presumably to seize toddlers or their parents coming to pick them up.

"We were able to prevent that from happening, but I've got to be honest with you, it broke my heart," she said. "... This is not the country that I had grown to know and love. This is not how this country was built."

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, cited a recent case involving one of her constituents from Greensboro, an American citizen, who is eight months pregnant and just had her fiance — who was brought to the U.S. without documentation as a child — grabbed off the street outside a laundromat and taken away to be deported. The agents also handcuffed the pregnant woman, Harrison said, as she tried to object to her fiance being taken away.

"Her daughter is due in six weeks, and she had counted on her fiance to help with the care of that child," Harrison said. "But it looks like he's headed to a detention center."

That Greensboro man was taken by plainclothes officers who wore masks to hide their identity and who never identified themselves as ICE agents, Harrison said.

Rep. Phil Rubin, D-Wake, cited his background as a former federal prosecutor to say that the pregnant woman they handcuffed was lucky she didn't also get deported even thugh she's a U.S. citizen. The Trump administration has routinely violated detainees' due process rights, he said, leading to multiple cases of people being wrongfully detained and wrongfully deported, sometimes even sent to prison in other countries for no valid legal reason.

"You may say, 'Hey, we need to be able to deport people who are here unlawfully,' but the way we figure out if we're here unlawfully is due process," Rubin said. "Otherwise any one of us — anyone in this room — can be snatched off the street by a plainclothes officer in a mask, sent to El Salvador, and then, 'Oops, sorry, we can't get them back.'"

Democrats suggested an amendment to the bill that would say law enforcement officers and prison workers should refrain from violating people's Constitutional rights, including their right to due process. Republicans shot that amendment down in a party-line vote.

Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, said he's fine with legal immigrants but wants to get rid of people who are here illegally He doesn't give much weight to complaints about ICE violating people's constitutional rights as they work toward that goal, he said.

"Due process is a red herring," Blust said.