This North Carolina Sheriff Should Know Better
Generally speaking, police chiefs — particularly those in major urban areas — support illegal alien sanctuary policies that prohibit them from cooperating with federal immigration officials. They’re often pressured to do so by the politicians and special interests who appoint and influence them. Conversely, elected sheriffs are directly accountable only to voters. Not surprisingly then, sheriffs generally oppose sanctuary protections and support policies allowing them to work collaboratively with their federal partners in the enforcement of our nation’s laws.
Exceptions exist of course, and Wake County Sheriff, Willie Rowe, is one. This North Carolina sheriff who oversees jail operations in the state’s largest county, opposes House Bill 10, long-overdue legislation that would enhance cooperation and information-sharing between the state’s jails and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Most importantly, the bill would require that local jails honor ICE detainers so that illegal aliens are not released into local communities after they serve their sentences for local offenses. The bill is North Carolina’s third, and most promising, legislative attempt in recent years to enhance public safety and help reverse the state’s spiraling illegal alien population, now estimated at 488,000, costing state taxpayers $3.14B annually.
Sheriff Rowe’s opposition is disappointing. Equally disappointing are his “fear of law enforcement” arguments — inane talking points recycled from sanctuary-promoting mass immigration advocates, long ago debunked.
“I want to make it clear that I oppose House Bill 10 (HB 10). This bill hinders the Sheriff’s Office’s ability to build relationships with the community and takes away authority from the Sheriff to set local law enforcement priorities….I want to make our communities safer, but HB 10 will make us less safe by fomenting distrust in local law enforcement. No one should fear interacting with the Wake County Sheriff’s Office because of their federal immigration status.”
Sheriff Rowe’s claim that enforcing immigration laws would have a chilling effect on residents who might otherwise want to report crimes and offer information is hooey with no empirical basis. Virtually all police have the discretion to ignore the immigration status of a witnesses to a crime, and virtually all do. There is simply no documented evidence indicating that an illegal alien was ever deported as a result of reporting a crime or volunteering information to the police.
To the contrary, passage of House Bill 10 would enhance public safety within the immigrant community, thus building good will. When criminal aliens are released back onto the streets, there is a strong possibility that they will reoffend in the very immigrant community from which they came. As Sam Page, Sheriff of North Carolina’s Rockingham County, told FAIR, “Removing criminal alien offenders makes a community safer; that’s the bottom line. In the absence of that, sanctuary policies continue, crime increases, and every sheriff becomes a border sheriff, every resident a border-town resident.”
House Bill 10 offers an orderly transfer of criminal aliens, and in so doing, reduces collateral risks. Seamless handoffs of criminal illegal aliens from local jails into federal custody means ICE officers won’t have to go into a community to locate and arrest the released individual. When ICE does that, there is more risk to officers, the community at large, and even the criminal alien.
Fortunately, Sheriff Rowe’s arguments — as stale as they are — are unlikely to make much difference. House Bill 10 has passed both the North Carolina House and Senate. The bill is headed back to the House for some fine tuning, then moves to Governor Roy Cooper’s desk whose likely veto will be meaningless given that Republicans in the North Carolina legislature hold a veto-proof supermajority.
Sheriff Rowe is right about one thing. Trust between law enforcement and local communities is vital but the way do that is to demonstrate integrity and fairness by not letting politics influence public safety. Holding all accountable to the rule of law – including illegal aliens – enhances public safety, heightens civic trust, and builds mutual respect.
North Carolina House Bill 10 would do just that.