Her son was deported from Charlotte under this policy. NC lawmakers could revive it | Opinion

In 2018, Laura Carnevalini’s son Gustavo was arrested in Charlotte for riding the light rail without a ticket.

After two years of legal battles, paperwork and court hearings, during which Gustavo remained in a federal detention center, he was deported to a country he had never known.

Carnevalini brought Gustavo to the United States from Argentina in 2002, when he was just 2 years old. At the time of his arrest, he was 18, just a few months away from graduating from South Mecklenburg High School. He spoke both English and Spanish, and active in his church. Charlotte was the only home he had ever known.

Gustavo told the police officer who arrested him that he was undocumented, and he was taken to jail. But by the time Carnevalini arrived at the police station, Gustavo was already in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The next day, Carnevalini got a call from Gustavo. “Mami, mami, me van a deportar.” (“Mom, mom, they’re going to deport me.”)

Gustavo had been detained under the 287(g) program, a voluntary agreement under which state and local law enforcement agencies can act as immigration enforcement agents. According to the American Immigration Council, the program has historically targeted people with little to no criminal history, or who commit minor, nonviolent offenses such as traffic violations. Mecklenburg County’s 287(g) program sent more than 15,000 people into deportation proceedings between 2006 and 2018, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.

Gustavo was taken to Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, where he remained for the next two years. During those two years, Carnevalini and her husband tried desperately to obtain legal status for Gustavo. The legal fees piled up, and Gustavo attended hearing after hearing in his orange jumpsuit. The worrying and constant lack of sleep took a toll on Carnevalini’s health, and Gustavo fell into a deep depression.

“He had illusions, he had dreams,” Carnevalini said. “And I just let him know we wouldn’t give up on those.”

Just when it seemed like things might work out, the pandemic happened, and visa processing ground to a halt. At his final hearing, the judge issued a deportation order, and in June of 2020, on what Carnevalini describes as “the worst day of my life,” Gustavo was deported.

“It’s easy to retell the story, but to live through it is something completely different,” Carnevalini said. “The mental health issues that went with it, the pills, the doctors, paying for the lawyers. Everything I had to go through — the excruciating worry, the letters that we were writing constantly to ICE, to the judge.”

Now, Gustavo is living the life Carnevalini hoped to spare him from by bringing him to the United States 22 years ago. Argentina is in the midst of an ongoing economic crisis, and although Gustavo has a job, Carnevalini has to send him money to help him afford the cost of daily necessities. She hasn’t seen her son in almost two years, because she cannot afford the cost of travel.

“He always tells me, ‘What am I doing here? I have no future,’” Carnevalini said.

Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden ended the county’s 287(g) agreement following his election in 2018. Sheriffs in many other North Carolina counties, including Wake County, also have ceased cooperation with ICE.

Now, however, state lawmakers want to compel law enforcement to cooperate with ICE once again through the passage of House Bill 10, which would require sheriffs to notify ICE if they cannot determine the legal status of a person charged with certain high-level offenses. It would also require sheriffs to honor voluntary detainers issued by ICE. It’s their third attempt to pass such a bill in recent years; Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed similar legislation in 2019 and 2022.

Advocates warn that the bill could lead to racial profiling of Hispanic and Latino communities and discourage them from contacting the police. Even people believed to have committed minor offenses, like Gustavo, could be deported.

“I just want to say that with this law, and with what happened to Gustavo, they’re essentially taking away our dream. They took away his dreams,” Carnevalini said. “And I don’t want this to happen to other families, for people to go through what I did.”