North Carolina will take new steps in 2008 to find illegal immigrants jailed on felony and drunken driving charges. The General Assembly approved the measures during the closing days of the legislative session.
“We’re glad to get this passed,” said House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson. “We certainly support identifying illegal immigrants who commit these crimes.”
“We take it as a victory,” said Rep. Bryan Holloway, R-Stokes, who had helped draw attention to the proposed legislation in July. “[Democrats] never, ever would have passed it if we hadn’t drawn attention to this issue.”
Holloway points to a news conference sponsored by Republican House and Senate leaders July 10. During the briefing, GOP lawmakers said they were willing to support an illegal-immigration measure that House Democrats had spelled out in their 2007 agenda, “A Plan for North Carolina.”
That Democratic agenda released March 14 included a provision to “cooperate with the federal government to curb illegal immigration.” “House Democrats will continue their efforts to reduce the number of illegal immigrants in North Carolina,” according to the document. “When a person convicted of a felony or DWI is confined in a county jail or district facility in North Carolina, the staff at the facility must verify the person’s legal status. If a prisoner is found to be in the United States illegally, then the U.S. Department of Homeland Security must be notified.”
That idea made sense to representatives on the other side of the aisle. “This is a vehicle and a method that we can use to remove illegal immigrants,” Holloway said. “They’re confined in jail or prison. They’re waiting for a hearing. We can find out whether they’re legal and move them out. Plus, it gets drunk drivers off the road. Any time you can take more drunk drivers off the road, that’s great.”
Holloway and three other Republican lawmakers had included similar language in one provision of House Bill 1485, dubbed the N.C. Illegal Immigration Prevention Act. Filed April 12, the bill spent three months sitting in the House Committee on Homeland Security, Military, and Veterans Affairs. The committee never considered the bill.
At the briefing July 10, GOP legislative leaders proposed a compromise. Noting that Democratic House leaders had taken no action on H.B. 1485, Holloway also pointed to “extensive research” that showed Democrats had not introduced any bills to enact the immigration plank from their own agenda. “Knowing that immigration is currently a highly debated issue, and that there are various ideas as to how to handle immigration policy, we are willing to offer a committee substitute that enacts a provision that both parties can agree upon.”
After the briefing, Holloway and his colleagues negotiated with Democratic leaders to find a bill that could include the illegal-immigration provisions. Rather than use a bill already filed by Holloway or one of his Republican cosponsors, Democrats instead replaced the contents of a bill sponsored by Sen. Julia Boseman, D-New Hanover.
Boseman’s original Senate Bill 229 would have subjected a murderer to life in prison without parole, if the murder victim had secured a domestic violence protective order against the murderer before the killing.
The final version of the bill sent to the governor Aug. 2 contained none of Boseman’s original language. Instead, S.B. 229 included only the illegal-immigration provisions. It’s titled “An Act to Determine the Residency Status of Persons Jailed on Felony or Driving While Impaired Charges.” With the governor’s signature, it would take effect January 1.
The House passed the measure, 109-1, and the Senate agreed to the changes. The measure moved through both chambers with little fanfare. “I think that’s the way they wanted it,” Holloway said. “[Democrats] might have been a little embarrassed that we pointed out they had no bill to address that part of their platform.”
A top Democrat disputes that assessment. “I don’t know how long they were working on their bill, but we had been working on this issue pretty much throughout the session,” Holliman said. “We had worked diligently with the sheriff’s association to come up with something workable. We wanted to be sure we did more than just pass a law. We wanted something law enforcement could support.”
It’s hard to find an objection to the compromise provision, Holloway said. “I would think that both Democrats and Republicans in Raleigh in the legislature — and citizens all around the state — could agree that when someone’s charged with a felony or DWI, that it’s not over the top to check out whether they’re legally here.”
In April 2006, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office launched with federal immigration officials a program to identify illegal immigrants at the jail. The sheriff’s office sends fingerprints and photographs from jailed inmates to a federal immigration database. Authorities say the program has identified more than 2,400 illegal immigrants, according to a Charlotte Observer report Aug. 4.
“That makes a big impact, as far as I’m concerned, with the crime rate,” Sheriff Jim Pendergraph, a Democrat, told Carolina Journal Radio in February. “If you remove that many people who have committed a crime in your community, then you’re going to make an impact on the crime rate.”
Most states have adopted new immigration laws this year, according to an Associated Press report Aug. 6. From January through June, 171 immigration bills became law in 41 states, according to the report. That compares to 84 immigration laws adopted by state legislatures across the country in 2006.
Approval of S.B. 229 does not mean the end of work to fight illegal immigration in North Carolina, Holloway said. Along with jailhouse immigration status checks, the original H.B. 1485 included: a “worker’s verification provision” that would require all businesses to verify their employees’ legal status; and a provision requiring proof of citizenship for people seeking taxpayer-funded social services.
“This one little victory doesn’t make me forget the rest of the bill,” Holloway said. “If we pass the rest of the bill brick by brick, if it has to pass under a Democrat’s name, that’s fine. We’re not so much worried about credit as about making sure this becomes law.”
Mitch Kokai is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.