MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump has promised mass deportations, and the man he has tapped as border czar, Tom Homan, is telling local authorities to help. Here's Homan on Fox News.
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TOM HOMAN: As elected mayor, elected governor, are you telling me that you don't want public safety threats out of your communities? That is your number one responsibility is protecting your community, so smarten up and work with us.
MARTIN: Now, the Feds cannot force local cooperation, but, as NPR's Martin Kaste reports, state governments can.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: In North Carolina, sheriffs have traditionally cooperated with immigration and customs enforcement, but some of them, in recent years, have stopped honoring something called detainers. That means they've stopped holding people in jail for ICE to pick up, and Republican state representative Destin Hall does not like that trend.
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DESTIN HALL: It's unbelievable to me that any law enforcement officer who truly is trying to do everything that they can to keep their folks safe would not already cooperate with ICE. And I think it's unfortunate that we even need this bill.
KASTE: That's Hall speaking in the state House on Nov. 19, as the legislature was poised to override the governor's veto and pass a law requiring sheriffs to honor those ICE detainers.
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HALL: I hope you will take into consideration the overwhelming opinion shown by the voters again of this state and the country in this past national election. I hope you'll vote yes.
KASTE: That bill is now law, requiring North Carolina sheriffs to hold noncitizens an extra 48 hours when requested by ICE. In Charlotte, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden is prepared to comply, but he has misgivings about the cost.
GARRY MCFADDEN: For the 48 hours, this person is here free. So that's like, let me stay at the Marriott for an additional 48 hours after I check out.
KASTE: His jail gets about 280 ICE detainer requests every year, and now that he's forced to comply with them, that could be another $100,000 out of the jail's budget. He's also not convinced that local judges will let him extend someone's time in jail based solely on a request from ICE. But mostly, he's worried that this will harm his department's reputation with immigrants.
MCFADDEN: When people are victims of crimes, they're not going to report it. When people are witness of crimes, they're not going to report it. Because they are afraid of deportation.
KASTE: ICE has long argued that this is why it wants to pick people up from jails. Its priority is noncitizens who've committed crimes. And if it can take those people into custody directly from local law enforcement, it says there's less cause for its agents to go hunt for those people in the immigrants' neighborhoods. Stefania Arteaga doesn't buy it.
STEFANIA ARTEAGA: There is no way ICE can pick up people in all the county jails in the state.
KASTE: Arteaga is co-executive director of the Carolina Migrant Network, an advocacy group. She says ICE doesn't have enough agents or holding facilities to act on all of its detainer requests. She thinks the real point of this law and similar legislation in other states - such as Georgia - is to send a message.
ARTEAGA: What this bill does is continue to push this narrative that immigrants aren't welcomed here, and that is just horrible.
KASTE: But even in blue states, some people think it is time for local police and jails to cooperate more with ICE. Robert Holden represents Queens on the New York City Council.
ROBERT HOLDEN: I wrote to Governor Hochul and the mayor to reevaluate and amend sanctuary city policies.
KASTE: Holden says the city has gone too far in blocking cooperation, and he says some of his fellow moderate Democrats have been alarmed by high-profile cases of noncitizens who've been released from jail in New York only to commit more crimes.
HOLDEN: I hope that the Trump administration holds New York City accountable for the sanctuary city policies.
KASTE: What's not clear is how the Trump administration could do that. The border czar designate, Tom Homan, has hinted about enforcing a federal law against harboring noncitizens who are in the country illegally, and there are also reports that the incoming administration is considering cutting federal funding to jurisdictions that don't cooperate, as it tried to do during Trump's first term.
Martin Kaste, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIROCRATIC ET AL.'S "RARE GARDENS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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