States, Counties Begin to Enforce Immigration Law

Philip Turtletaub, a Charlotte immigration lawyer, says he sometimes receives six or seven calls a day from relatives of illegal immigrants caught by the program. He tells them not to waste their money.

"Most people I can't do anything for," he said.

While he ventured no opinion on the program's fairness, he said he thinks it could make life as an illegal immigrant in the region so uncomfortable that fewer illegal immigrants would choose to live there.

"They're putting the pressure on these people. They're scaring them. People say we can't deport 10 million. But you don't have to. If you deport enough of them, others will go back voluntarily because they don't want to live in these conditions."

Besides Mecklenburg, six other state and local law enforcement agencies have started similar programs in recent years. A dozen more are being worked out with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And in the past three months, hundreds of state and local departments have inquired about similar efforts, said Robert J. Hines, who heads the program for the ICE.

"When you are removing the criminal element from the community, it's hard to point a finger and say it's a bad thing," Hines said.

The vote to at the packed Herndon Town Council meeting last night was 6 to 1 in favor of joining the program. If the town's application is accepted, officials would negotiate an agreement on the training police would be given and what type of enforcement activities they could carry out. Herndon would become the first town police force to receive such training, officials said.

Loudoun County Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson said his department also is considering participating. Officials in Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax and Prince William said they are not considering the idea, and police officials in suburban Maryland say there is lukewarm interest in deputizing officers to enforce immigration laws.

"In the Montgomery County area, we've taken more the track that we celebrate diversity," said Gaithersburg Police Chief Mary Ann Viverette, who is also the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Immigration is "not an issue we want to enforce."

In federal testimony from August, Pendergraph, the Mecklenburg County sheriff, said "political correctness" is preventing some communities from adopting the program, and that "will eventually be the downfall of this country if someone doesn't wake up."

Like much of the mid-Atlantic region, Charlotte has seen a rapid rise in the number of Latino immigrants over the past 15 years, many of them here illegally. Between 2000 and 2005, the estimated number of illegal immigrants in North Carolina rose 38 percent, from 260,000 to 360,000, according to a Department of Homeland Security report.

The influx, particularly conspicuous in a metropolis clinging to its small-town past, has caused ripples of concern.

"Texas, New York and California might be used to large influxes of illegal immigrants -- but we're not," said Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James, who favors stronger enforcement. "James Carville had it right: We're just Mayberry with a major airport."

Local support for broad enforcement coalesced in July 2005 after a truck driven by an illegal immigrant whose blood-alcohol level was nearly triple the legal limit, hit a car, killing a local teacher and leaving the teacher's wife in a vegetative state. The accident resulted in Ramiro Gallegos's fifth impaired-driving charge in five years -- and led to the new enforcement policy.

"No more excuses," U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick (R) said at a news conference at the time, calling for tougher enforcement. "You're drunk. You're driving. You're illegal. You're deported. Period."

Staff writers Bill Turque, Karin Brulliard, Ernesto Londoño and Candace Rondeaux contributed to this report.