What brought Netflix’s ‘Immigration Nation’ to Charlotte? ICE raids and a new sheriff
Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden was voted into office almost two years ago on the back of a controversial immigration program he promised to abolish.
Now that battle is on television screens around the world.
On Monday, Netflix released the six-part documentary series “Immigration Nation,” which delves into the operations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — better known as ICE — and the individuals targeted by its policies. It centers in part on tensions in Charlotte during and after McFadden’s election in 2018.
McFadden’s race against former Sheriff Irwin Carmichael hinged on what’s known as the federal 287(g) program, which allows state and local law enforcement agencies to carry out some immigration enforcement duties inside local jails.
Carmichael supported the program. McFadden did not. Both are Democrats.
McFadden’s victory was among a “blue wave” that swept North Carolina’s urban counties in 2018 after he defeated Carmichael in the primaries and ran unopposed in the general election. In Raleigh, Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker, who also opposed 287(g), beat out a four-term incumbent with better name recognition and deeper pockets, The News & Observer reported.
Ending their counties’ 287(g) agreements was a focal point of both sheriffs’ campaigns.
McFadden disbanded the program his first full day in office in December 2018, The Charlotte Observer reported. ICE responded with a weeks-long enforcement operation that rounded up hundreds of individuals across the state.
Episode four of “Immigration Nation” captures several days of that operation, showing agents pulling over work crews in unmarked vehicles while local activist Stefania Arteaga, an organizer with Comunidad Colectiva in Charlotte, records their encounters.
She wanted to know what the operation was and who was behind it.
“I can’t tell you,” an officer responded in the documentary.
Back at the office, “Immigration Nation” shows ICE Field Office Director Sean Gallagher and two agents watching what she’s recorded on Facebook Live and chuckling.
Gallagher held a news conference recapping the operation in February 2019, which is also shown in the episode. During the conference, he tells reporters at least 200 people were arrested across North Carolina — 50 of whom had criminal convictions and 40 of whom had pending criminal charges.
The uptick in arrests were a “direct result of some of the dangerous policies that some of our county sheriffs have put in place,” Gallagher said, adding that the arrests were targeted at immigrants living in the United States illegally who were charged with crimes.
“Ninety-one percent of the people that were arrested were somehow either criminally convicted or criminally charged,“ he said.
Before the press conference, Gallagher had told ICE spokesperson Bryan Cox only about 30% to 35% of arrests during the operation were criminals.
According to an Observer investigation of ICE data in July 2019, the agency had “steadily been arresting more immigrants who lack a criminal record.”
The number of monthly arrests in Georgia and the Carolinas remained the same, the Observer reported, but the percentage of those arrested without any criminal convictions or pending charges jumped almost 50% over two years — climbing from 7.75% to more than 11.5%.
“I mean just own it,” Cox told Gallagher in the documentary. “Yes, we got non-criminals on this one, but it’s because of the way we were forced to do the arrests.”
He called it the “new normal” after the revocation of Mecklenburg County’s 287(g) agreement.
“What, you didn’t believe us?” Cox said. “You thought we were bluffing and whatnot? The whole goal here is to get them to change their policy. Put it back on them so they go to the sheriff and say, ‘What are you going to do?’”
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that former Mecklenburg County Sheriff Irwin Carmichael is a Republican. He is a Democrat.
This story was originally published August 5, 2020 at 4:03 PM.
