Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood is pushing back hard on accusations that his office quietly cooperated with federal immigration agents in a controversial jail transfer that has rattled a Carrboro neighborhood and spilled into the sheriff’s race. Challenger David LaBarre says the move handed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement an opening. Blackwood insists it did the opposite, arguing his staff tried to keep a volatile situation from erupting in a largely Latino community as in-person early voting rolls on ahead of the March 3 primary.
Blackwood told The News & Observer that before House Bill 318 took effect, his office logged 17 ICE detainer requests and that federal authorities ultimately picked up five people. He cited that tally to argue his department was not automatically turning people over to ICE. According to Blackwood, deputies met face to face with federal agents, reviewed their paperwork and urged them not to carry out an arrest in a Carrboro neighborhood with a large Latino population. He has framed the later decision to move a detainee to another county as an administrative call made after deputies were injured during the arrest, not a favor to immigration authorities…