WUNC: North Carolina Highway Patrol Signs 287(g) Task Force Agreement With ICE Under State Law Passed Over Governor's Veto

WUNC (reporting from WFAE) reported that the North Carolina State Highway Patrol signed a 287(g) Task Force Model agreement with ICE “last month” (September 2026; the article gives no exact signing date), as required by a new state law the Republican-led General Assembly passed this year over Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s veto. Documents the Highway Patrol provided show that only officers in the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement and Criminal Interdiction units are eligible. Once trained and certified through a 40-hour ICE online course, select officers can question people about their right to remain in the United States, make certain immigration-related arrests and transfer people to ICE detention. The Highway Patrol documents say enforcement actions cannot be initiated solely because of someone’s race, ethnicity, national origin or language proficiency.

This puts state highway traffic stops, not only jails, into the 287(g) pipeline, under a legislature-imposed mandate rather than an agency choice. The article gives no count of eligible officers or training timeline. Compare the state-level 287(g) mandates in 2026-05-10–tennessee-hb2219-287g-sheriff-mandate-signed-law and the opposite direction in 2026-05-29–hochul-signs-ny-ice-cooperation-limits-287g-ban-mask-ban.