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N.C. leads in immigrant crackdown
Local law enforcement agencies are hastening to join a federal program that lets them check the status of those they jail

Kristin Collins, Staff Writer
North Carolina is becoming a national leader in rooting out illegal immigrants in its local jails.

The state has largely avoided controversial municipal ordinances that crack down on illegal immigrants, their employers and their landlords. But many sheriffs and police chiefs are eager to enforce immigration law, federal officials say.

Eighteen law enforcement agencies in North Carolina, more than any other state, have asked to join a program that would allow them to check the immigration status of those they arrest and jail. Sheriff's offices in Wake, Durham and Johnston counties are among those that have applied.

Four more sheriff's offices are already enrolled in the program, and their efforts led to the deportation of thousands of immigrants in the past year.

The program allows law enforcement agencies to use a federal database to check the immigration status of every foreign person they arrest -- whether for reckless driving or selling drugs -- and start deportation of those in the United States illegally. Select officers from the agencies that enroll get about a month of training from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The program costs local agencies nothing but staff time, and the federal government pays for each night that immigration detainees spend in local jails.

"We've had tremendous interest," said Richard Rocha, a spokesman for the federal immigration agency, known as ICE. "North Carolina leads the country."

The interest has been so overwhelming that ICE created a task force this week to figure out how best to use North Carolina sheriffs and police departments in the fight against illegal immigration.

Mecklenburg Sheriff Jim Pendergraph, who in 2006 was the first in North Carolina to partner with ICE, has become a sort of folk hero to other sheriffs in the state. He says Mecklenburg County helped ICE deport more than 3,000 people last year.

"We're trying to rid the state of illegal alien criminals," Pendergraph said Wednesday. "The citizens, quite frankly, are demanding that we get involved because the federal government just can't handle it by themselves anymore."