Republican North Carolina Senate candidate Michael Whatley blamed Democratic foe former Gov. Roy Cooper for recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Charlotte.
ICE arrested at least 120 illegal immigrants in Charlotte and planned to go to Raleigh on Wednesday.
Whatley is running against Cooper for North Carolina’s Senate seat in 2026. He said Cooper’s governance of the state forced the federal government to intervene in immigration operations.
“If Roy Cooper had not vetoed legislation that would have forced sheriffs to honor the ICE detainers, then these people would not have been on the street,” Whatley told Fox News.
“It’s unfortunate that the Trump administration has to go into a city like Charlotte and help to clean up the city. It would be great if the state and the local officials were to be as concerned for their citizens as they were for the illegal immigration advocates that they’re pushing,” he added.
Cooper vetoed bills during his tenure as governor, such as one that would have allowed local law enforcement to honor ICE detainers and hold suspected illegal immigrants until federal law enforcement could apprehend them.
The former governor said the 2019 immigration bill was “about scoring partisan political points and using fear to divide North Carolina.” He also said the law was “unconstitutional” and weakened law enforcement in North Carolina by “mandating” them to do the job of federal officers.
He said the recent federal law enforcement actions in Charlotte amounted to “randomly sweeping up people based on what they look like, including American citizens and those with no criminal records, risks leaving violent criminals at large while hurting families and the economy.”
A Cooper spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the Republican immigration legislation he’s vetoed did not receive the backing of sheriffs in Wake, Mecklenburg, and Durham counties.
“Roy Cooper is the only candidate who spent his career prosecuting violent criminals and keeping thousands of them behind bars, and numerous North Carolina sheriffs spoke out against this legislation at the time because of a lack of resources; a problem that Washington, D.C. insider and Big Oil lobbyist Michael Whatley has made worse because of his support for cuts to local law enforcement,” the spokesman said.
MICHAEL WHATLEY RAISES RECORD $6 MILLION TWO MONTHS INTO NORTH CAROLINA SENATE CAMPAIGN
The three sheriffs stated in a letter that the Republican legislation would impose “substantial administrative burdens” on jailers and court staff.
Whatley wants the sheriffs to cooperate. “For anybody to say that they want to keep these violent criminal illegal aliens in their city, that is a huge problem, and that is exactly what we’re looking at right now. We need to have sheriffs who are going to honor ICE detainers, and be able to move this criminal element out of North Carolina,” he told conservative journalist Benny Johnson.
