Story by: Adele Morris
Photos and Media by: Anders Ljung
On Jan. 29, President Donald Trump signed the first bill of his second presidential term into law. This piece of legislation, known as the Laken Riley Act, received bipartisan support, passing the Senate 64-35 and the House 263-156. But the new law remains the subject of criticism, with some claiming it will increase anti-immigrant sentiment across the country.
According to the enrolled bill, the act calls for the detainment of undocumented individuals arrested for, charged with, convicted of, or who admit committing “acts which constitute the essential elements of any burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, or assault of a law enforcement officer offense, or any crime that results in death or serious bodily injury to another person.” The act also empowers states to sue the federal government for alleged failures regarding immigration enforcement.
Eric Reece, pastor of Robbinsville United Methodist Church in Graham County, said enthusiasm for the act and the Republican Party that endorsed it is widespread in his area.
“The party line is the Laken Riley Act is the most important thing in the world and should take number one precedent above everything,” he said. “And that’s what everybody’s going to fall in behind.”
Reece said the concern among Graham County residents is that undocumented immigrants receive services and opportunities that working people within the county do not. He said residents particularly fear for their job security.
“Some of it is an issue about fairness, and then some of it is just a concern, and some of it is just the fear,” he said. “There’s just so much fear, fear of everything. The fear you can almost taste it in the air.”
However, Ricardo Bello Ball, the executive director of Unidxs Western North Carolina, a nonprofit organization that supports immigrants facing vulnerable socioeconomic, educational, and cultural challenges in Graham and other rural counties of western North Carolina, said he was concerned that the new law will lead to increased targeting of the immigrant community. He noted the lack of resources available to immigrants for combating false allegations.
“The migrants, they are not going to be able to defend themselves and whatever the police write down for them is going to be the truth,” he said. “So for all these people, they’re going to be at risk for crimes they never commit.”
Other immigration advocates have voiced similar concerns. Attorney Anabel Rosa, a member of the Community Advocacy and Justice team at El Centro Hispano, an organization that serves the Latino population of North Carolina, said she feels a combination of skepticism and uncertainty about much of the recent national legislation.
After the Laken Riley Act and the President’s flurry of executive orders, she said the biggest fear among the Latino community is familial separation.
“Having kids left without parents or having older parents who have to leave — I think the biggest fear is for having family that’s missing parts,” she said.
Rick Su, an immigration professor in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Law, said the enforcement of the Laken Riley Act will be unique in North Carolina due to the state’s immigration detainer mandate, House Bill 10, which took effect in December 2024.
House Bill 10 requires all county sheriffs to cooperate with ICE by honoring detainer requests for individuals charged with certain crimes, such as felony drug trafficking, misdemeanor assault and violations of domestic violence protective orders. Additionally, sheriffs must check the immigration status of individuals arrested for criminal offenses and detain them for up to 48 hours if requested by ICE.
Previously, sheriffs exercised discretion over detainment for many reasons, Su said, including due to the nature of the offense, the cost associated with detainment, the potential to damage community trust, and, in certain counties, vows to operate as a “sanctuary” jurisdiction.
Su also said the combination of the state mandate and the Laken Riley Act, which categorizes low-level, theft-related offenses such as shoplifting as warranting detainment and deportation, will have financial consequences for the state.
“It’s going to be hitting people who are operating the jails, right?” he said. “That’s essentially where these detainer requests are coming in.”
Su noted that Wyoming, one of the most conservative states in the nation, recently voted down an immigration detainer mandate like North Carolina’s due to spending and resource concerns.
“The sheriffs complained, not because they’re somehow pro-immigrant, the sheriffs complained that this is an open check — ‘We have only so many resources. We have priorities that we have to handle. This is all taxpayers’ money,’” he said.
In North Carolina, Su said he wondered whether the financial and moral weight of the immigration detainer mandate would cause police officers and prosecutors to be more hesitant to charge undocumented individuals with low-level theft-related offenses. He voiced curiosity about whether blue and red counties would approach the matter differently.
“Now, are we going to get some blue counties that are going to maybe be not as zealous, or something like that?” Su asked. “Well, sure. But at least as a matter of law, they’re required to abide by the detainer.”
But across red and blue counties alike, Bello Ball said the Laken Riley Act has consequences on mental health. He said declining mental health is particularly prevalent among Latino youth, who he said have noticed the worriedness plaguing their parents and have overheard conversations about what to do in the event of familial separation.
Bello Ball said that Latino students are increasingly absent from schools following a directive from the Department of Homeland Security allowing ICE to carry out immigration enforcement in previously protected locations, including schools, churches and hospitals.
“Everybody’s afraid, everybody’s under a lot of stress,” he said. “And that is affecting not only the economy, but the health, the jobs — it’s a circle.”
The DHS’s directive allowing ICE into previously protected locations also extends to university campuses. At a Faculty Council meeting Jan. 24, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee Roberts announced that the University will ‘comply’ if ICE seeks undocumented individuals on campus.
The UNC-CH law professor, Rick Su, said the word ‘comply’ triggers a host of questions. He said compliance could be a spectrum, ranging from actions as benign as providing basic information in criminal cases to as severe as entering into 287(g) agreements with DHS, which would deputize state or local law enforcement officers to carry out certain immigration enforcement duties.
“If the Trump administration comes down and says, ‘We want to form a 287(g) agreement, an Immigration Task Force, to go around and ask for immigration documents and maybe do a little raid here and there with the Chapel Hill police, maybe the campus police,’ — is that part of [Roberts’] compliance?” Su asked.
As questions continue to arise over national legislation, attorney and El Centro Hispano member Rosa called for North Carolinians to support each other.
“We have so much more that unites us than divides us, and we should not give in to an environment of division,” she said.
