North Carolina's immigration bill HB10 veto expected to be overridden Tuesday
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Governor Cooper's veto of House Bill 10 is expected to be overridden by Republican state lawmakers Tuesday afternoon.
The controversial bill covers two significant topics, including school vouchers and undocumented immigration:
If overridden, it will clear the backlog of 55,000 families who are on the waitlist for opportunity scholarships. These are private school scholarships using taxpayer money to send children of different income levels to private schools.
It would also require North Carolina Sheriffs to follow new protocols should they learn someone who they've arrested is undocumented. Sheriffs -- once a court order has been issued - is to keep those undocumented people in custody until federal agents from ICE can step in.
It's a law that advocates say will devastate North Carolina's immigrant communities. A vigil was held outside the state legislature to protest HB10.
WATCH | Vigil held to protest expected veto override of HB 10
"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," Pilar Rocha-Goldberg, CEO of El Centro Hispano, said.
The North Carolina Sheriffs' Association however supports the latest version of HB10m 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."
Wake and Durham County sheriffs have spoken out against the bill, arguing that it takes away their ability to determine how to best serve their own communities.
