Hot Air, July 3, 2016 by Jazz Shaw

If North Carolina was tired of all the controversy surrounding HB2 [intended to keep transgender men out of the ladies room] there’s no better way to move the conversation than by passing yet another bill which gets liberals up in arms. That seems to be what’s happening with the passage of HB100, an addition to the existing Protect North Carolina Workers Act. This legislation is aimed at weeding out illegal immigrants and ensuring that jobs go to citizens rather than paving the way further for law breakers, while putting penalties in place for any nascent “sanctuary cities” that don’t comply. An article by Tanvi Misra at Route Fifty exemplifies the liberal outrage which immediately erupted.

On Tuesday, the Senate passed another bill, HB 100, which aims to hold school and road funds hostage if cities don’t comply with anti-immigrant state laws.

HB 100 sharpens the teeth of HB 318, which Governor Pat McCrory signed into law in 2015. That legislation was a swarming nest of policies explicitly targeting undocumented immigrants in the state. Via WRAL:

House Bill 318, dubbed the Protect North Carolina Workers Act, also requires state and local government agencies to use the E-Verify system to check the legal status of job applicants and contractors, bars government agencies or law enforcement from using consular or embassy documents to verify someone’s identity or residence and limits food assistance for able-bodied, childless adults who are unemployed.

This bill does a number of things, including eliminating the use of “local ID” (specifically designed for illegals) when dealing with the police, reinforces the use of E-Verify to ensure that employers are hiring citizens, records the legal status of people seeking to be excused from jury duty and makes it easier for citizens to report instances of illegal aliens being hired. Perhaps most importantly, it provides the ability to suspend state funding to municipalities which refuse to comply with these requirements. In short, this prevents the establishment of so called sanctuary cities in North Carolina and it’s precisely what we should be doing on a national level.