An expensive and harmful immigration program that has broken trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement and resulted in the deportation of immigrant parents for even minor traffic violations could soon come to an end in one North Carolina county:
Incumbent Mecklenburg County Sheriff Irwin Carmichael conceded the sheriff's race Tuesday night as former Charlotte-Mecklenburg police detective Garry McFadden cruised to an easy win. The result signals the end of a controversial immigration program in the county's jail.
The sheriff's primary race attracted national attention as a referendum on immigration, because the candidates were split on the jail's controversial 287(g) program.
Carmichael has supported the program, which involves screening everyone arrested in the county to see whether they are here illegally. Under the program, an arrest can send people without documentation into deportation proceedings — whether they've been charged with a violent crime or a minor offense.
According to immigrant rights group America’s Voice, “through the 287(g) program, ICE deputizes local or state law-enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws … under 287(g), ICE-trained police officers screen jailed immigrants, determine immigration status, and hold immigrants for ICE agents to pick up for deportation.” It’s a program rife with racial profiling and it costs counties millions, but the human costs are immeasurable. Ask this Georgia mom:
There’s also Josefina Radilla Velasco, an undocumented single immigrant mother of six U.S. citizen children, stopped by police in Gwinnett County. She was also detained for driving without a license. Like Lizbhet, Radilla’s daughter Alondra has set up a fundraiser to raise $15,000 to get her mother out of detention. Her fundraiser talks about the constant fear of being separated from her mother. Alondra said she has since taken on her mom’s graveyard shift at the aquarium.
According to the Charlotte Observer, “McFadden is virtually guaranteed a four-year term as Mecklenburg County sheriff. No Republicans are running.” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of North Carolina, which engaged in a sheriff’s race for the first time, says “these results show that voters care passionately about crucial civil rights issues, from police accountability to the rights of immigrants, and they will vote when they see that their rights depend on it.”