North Carolina General Assembly (File Photo)

North Carolina sheriffs must comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests with the passage of House Bill 10 over Governor Roy Cooper’s veto Wednesday.

The bill will also funnel more than $2 billion to the state’s Opportunity Scholarship school voucher program over the next decade — expanding the program to allow students of all income levels to receive taxpayer funding for tuition at private schools in the state.

The state House of Representatives voted to override Cooper’s veto by a 72-44 margin Tuesday, with three Democrats joining all Republicans present in favor. On Wednesday, the state Senate followed suit, overcoming the veto with a 30-19 vote.

Cooper vetoed the bill days after its passage in September, calling private school vouchers “the biggest threat to public schools in decades.” He has since framed his opposition to the veto override effort around insufficient aid to western North Carolina, calling on lawmakers to put the billions this bill will use to fund school vouchers toward Hurricane Helene recovery efforts.

The bill, labeled a “mini-budget” by Republican leaders, also includes several other appropriations, including $377 million to support Medicaid, $55 million for water and sewer expenses in Chatham County, and funding for various cultural, veterans, and agricultural projects around the state — enough for a few Democrats in the House to support the bill despite opposition to vouchers.

Republicans have sought passage of the legislation multiple times in various forms in recent years and GOP senators declined to debate its contents when the override motion was brought forth.

Senator Natasha Marcus (D-Mecklenburg), however, criticized the bill as a “massive and expensive and reckless expansion” of the school voucher program, which she called a “means of perpetuating white flight from public schools.” She cited a ProPublica report identifying 39 schools in the voucher program likely founded as “segregation academies” in the wake of the desegregation of public schools.

Marcus also criticized the lack of regulation of private schools in the state, the absence of licensing for their teachers, and inadequate oversight over what children are being taught and their educational outcomes.

“Parents are going in blind, and this body doesn’t seem to care whether these kids are getting a good education with the money that we are funding,” she said.

The North Carolina Association of Educators decried the bill’s passage in a statement Tuesday, warning that the state’s public schools would suffer as a result.

“Spending billions of taxpayer dollars to fund private school vouchers while public schools remain underfunded, while public school educators are asked to do more with less, and as the western part of our state is still recovering from the devastating impact of Helene is irresponsible,” said Tamika Walker Kelly, the association’s president.

The new requirements for North Carolina sheriffs include an expansion of the circumstances in which they must check the immigration status of detainees, a requirement to withhold bond and turn over undocumented immigrants to comply with ICE hold orders, and protection from civil and criminal liability for these actions.

These changes come as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to oversee sweeping immigration enforcement in his first days in office, with proposals on the table to deploy the U.S. military to carry out mass deportation and to create sprawling detention camps for the purpose of holding undocumented immigrants.

In a statement Wednesday urging the Senate to vote down the veto override, Carolina Migrant Network Co-Executive Director Stefanía Arteaga condemned the bill as “devastating” to students and families.

“House Bill 10 forces local agencies to act as immigration enforcers, creating an environment where families live in constant fear and are less likely to report crimes or seek critical services,” Arteaga said.

NC Senate joins House in overriding Cooper veto of voucher expansion-immigration enforcement bill

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