Work, School, and Traffic Stops: Part I

Two Years of Migration Debates at the North Carolina General Assembly

One week after the coming election, the NC House Select Committee on the State’s Role in Immigration Policy will convene to discuss its recommendation to the full North Carolina General Assembly (NCGA) on how to proceed with immigration policy (see this post for background on demographic change and the growth of anti-immigrant politics in North Carolina, including the Select Committee). For all the NCGA’s hostility toward migrants, it has succeeded only once over the past two years in passing into law a bill that explicitly targets undocumented residents. However, several other bills have received extensive debate in Raleigh, and together they paint a picture of the type of legislation that many Select Committee members likely hope to recommend. The immigration-related bills debated during this NCGA session fall generally into four categories: employment, identification, law enforcement, and education.

Employment

House Bill 36 (Employers and Local Government Must Use E-Verify): Passed

House Bill 36 was the only employment-related immigration bill seriously debated during this NCGA session. It also became the only bill aimed at migrants to pass both houses and be signed into law by Democratic Governor Bev Perdue. The law (which, notably, at the urging of North Carolina agribusinesses, exempts seasonal or temporary employees) requires all public agencies and private businesses with 25 or more employees to use the federal E-Verify program to confirm their employees’ citizenship or immigration status.

Identification

·      House Bill 351 (Restore Confidence in Government): Passed Both House, Vetoed by Gov. Perdue

The “Restore Confidence in Government” Act, which would have required all North Carolinians to show photo ID before being permitted to vote, was part of a nationwide trend among Republican-controlled state legislatures inveighing against voter fraud. While the bill did not explicitly address immigration, lawmakers who favor such legislation have suggested that without ID laws, we risk allowing non-citizens to fraudulently participate in U.S. elections. The Immigration Policy Center recently released an excellent roundup of studies that debunk this claim. Federal courts have blocked many of the strict voter ID measures that have passed in other states, finding that they violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act by restricting access to the voting booth for people of color (who are also far more likely to vote for Democrats, a trend which has certainly not escaped the attention of the GOP lawmakers pushing for voter ID laws). Speaking earlier this month in Asheville, Governor Beverly Perdue defended her decision to veto House Bill 351, referring to it as a “voter suppression” measure that would have effectively disenfranchised more than 1 million eligible voters across North Carolina. In contrast, NC House Speaker Thom Tillis met with anti-immigration activists in June to discuss the future of voter ID measures in North Carolina. Later in the summer, he promised that if Republicans remain in power in Raleigh, “we will have voter ID in North Carolina.”

House Bill 33 (Consular Documents Not Acceptable as ID): Passed House, Not Considered by Senate

House Bill 33, which would have barred all NC municipalities from accepting consular documents as valid identification, was co-sponsored by both Frank Iler and Harry Warren, who now serve as co-chairs of the House Select Committee on immigration. The bill was never taken up by the NC Senate and will not become law. However, when considered together with legislation passed in recent years that blocks undocumented North Carolinians from renewing their driver’s licenses, this bill reflects a desire among many NC lawmakers to make it as difficult as possible for undocumented immigrants to legally identify themselves, which substantially increases the risk that any encounter with law enforcement can lead to arrest and subsequent deportation.

Stay tuned for WNC Migration Review's analysis of education- and law enforcement-related bills from this session of the North Carolina General Assembly.