The Mecklenburg County sheriff says a proposal to strengthen a law ordering local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities does not fix problems he sees in transferring suspects.

Sheriff Garry McFadden has criticized the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement for lack of cooperation as President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration has been unfolding.

McFadden has insisted that although his agency has communicated with ICE and has detained suspects, immigration officials have not responded and have failed to pick up detainees. The sheriff says he has been compelled to release detainees before ICE officers picked them up.

ICE officials, in turn, have criticized McFadden, saying he has freed dangerous criminals. In March, ICE said the sheriff’s office did not honor detainer warrants before federal agents arrested 24 people in the Charlotte area suspected of being in the country illegally.

Even before Trump took office, North Carolina lawmakers late last year passed a law – House Bill 10 – requiring law enforcement agencies to communicate with ICE and honor detention requests. This week, the state House passed a bill that would strengthen that 2024 law.   

The measure that advanced Tuesday in the General Assembly, House Bill 318, would expand the number of suspects subject to inquiries into their immigration status and would clarify that jail officials must communicate with immigration authorities when they are holding someone sought on an ICE detainer or administrative warrant. HB 318 is now in the Senate’s Committee on Rules and Operations.

But McFadden said in a news release Thursday that the measure does not address issues at the heart of cooperation with ICE.

“HB 318, like its predecessor HB 10, still fails to rectify the legal issue of transferring an undocumented immigrant with pending state charges to ICE for civil immigration proceedings,” McFadden said. “ICE agents must obtain a judicial writ for MCSO to legally transfer custody.”

In March, McFadden said the sheriff's office did not honor the detainers because they were not signed by a judge. 

ICE officials could not be reached Thursday to comment.

McFadden has previously said his agency has followed the law and tried to work with ICE but that holding immigration detainees has come at a cost to taxpayers and has burdened his staff.

In his statement Thursday, he said: “Again, I will continue to follow the law, but I will also remain committed to serving every member of the community with dignity, fairness, and transparency, despite the political winds in Raleigh.”

The North Carolina Sheriffs' Association supports HB 318, the group’s Executive Vice President Eddie Caldwell told lawmakers this week.

But Latino advocate Mario Alfaro, of the group El Pueblo, said the measure "amplifies anti-immigrant narratives.”