Vigil held to protest expected veto override of North Carolina immigration bill HB 10

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- A vigil was held outside the state legislature to protest HB 10 -- the bill changing the laws on how North Carolina's sheriffs will need to process undocumented people that they've arrested.

That bill, vetoed by Governor Cooper in September, is expected to be overridden by the state's Republican supermajority this week.

The vigil came just hours after President-elect Donald Trump took to social media, confirming that he would declare a national emergency and use the military to carry out the mass deportations he promised along the campaign trail.

"Where there is injustice we will stand, we will push back," said Ana Ilarazza-Blackburn, founder of Women Leading Together and an organizer for El Colectivo.

Ilarazza-Blackburn's been a vocal critic of HB 10 and made the drive up to Monday's event from Moore County. She said she was stunned by the President-elect's post about a national emergency on social media.

"It blows my mind. I never thought our country would come to this," she said.

HB 10 would require North Carolina Sheriffs to follow new protocols should they learn someone who they've arrested is undocumented. It requires those sheriffs -- once a court order has been issued -- to keep those undocumented people in custody until federal agents from ICE can step in. It's a law that advocates in the immigrant community say will devastate trust among North Carolina's Latino community.

"What humane, civilized society targets at a community that has helped build them? Where's the empathy for that and where's the moral in that?" asked Ilarraza-Blackburn.

Willie Rowe and Clarence Birkhead, Sheriffs of Wake and Durham counties respectively, have publicly spoken out against HB 10 -- arguing it takes away their ability to determine how to best serve their communities. Neither sheriff was available to comment for this story.

Conversely, the North Carolina Sheriffs' Association supports the latest version of HB 10, saying:

"The Association appreciates the legislature for its willingness not to impose onerous recordkeeping requirements on our state's 100 sheriffs; and not to interject the Attorney General into these judicial matters."

Monday's vigil in opposition to that bill -- attended by dozens of advocates for North Carolina's Latino and immigrant communities -- stuck a different tone.

"We can see the different ways that the attacks and the racism and the anti-immigrant sentiment is going to be more out there," said Pilar Rocha-Goldberg, CEO of El Centro Hispano.

Rocha-Goldberg said they'll continue to organize despite the news out of Washington on Monday.

"We saw it in the past. We saw it here, ice coming to take people from our community with really not the right way to do it. So, yeah, we are very concerned about that," she said.