Fact check: Does Mecklenburg trail Wake in ICE pickups from county jails?
North Carolina legislators accurately portrayed a gap between how many people Immigration and Customs Enforcement picked up from Mecklenburg and Wake County jails through much of 2025. But data show Charlotte’s numbers are picking up.
Members of the Republican-led House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform questioned Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden about cooperation with ICE Monday as he joined other Charlotte-area leaders for a hearing on public safety.
The committee said data shared by McFadden’s office and the Wake County Sheriff’s Office with a Charlotte Observer reporter showed 16% of people held in the Mecklenburg County jail that ICE issued a detainer for were picked up by the immigration agency, compared to a pickup rate of 65% in Wake County.
Some members questioned the discrepancy, noting the counties are similarly sized, have Democratic sheriffs and, they said, receive a similar volume of detainer requests.
ICE detainers are requests to federal, state or local law enforcement agencies to notify ICE as early as possible before releasing someone in the country illegally and to hold the person for up to 48 hours beyond when they would normally be released so immigration authorities have time to take the person into their custody.
McFadden, whose opposed state legislation requiring more cooperation from sheriffs with federal immigration authorities, told the committee his office follows the law.
“We are two different counties. We have two different populations,” McFadden said of the situation in Mecklenburg compared to Wake.
The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office did tell an Observer reporter in early December ICE had sent 445 detainers so far in 2025 and picked up 72 people, a pickup rate of 16.2%. Wake County said at the time they’d received 441 detainer requests from January 2025 to Nov. 19, and ICE picked up 288 people, a pickup rate of 65.3%.
Mecklenburg’s percentage ticked up through the end of 2025 and is up again so far in 2026.
The sheriff’s office ultimately received 559 detainers for all of 2025, and ICE picked up 133 people, according to updated data from the sheriff. That equates to a pickup rate of 23.8%. ICE didn’t pick up anyone at the Mecklenburg jail before House Bill 318 took effect in October, sheriff’s office spokeswoman Sarah Mastouri added.
Mecklenburg has received 111 detainers so far in 2026. ICE has picked up 56 people, MCSO data show, a rate of 50.5%.
Wake County reported 533 detainer requests in all of 2025 and 365 people taken into custody by ICE, for a pickup rate of 66%. The sheriff’s office said they received 65 detainer requests in January, and 59 people were picked up by ICE. That’s a rate of 90.8%.
McFadden clashed with ICE at times in 2025 over the federal agency’s handling of detainers and arrests. But he told reporters the relationship improved after an October meeting, a message he reiterated at Monday’s hearing.
ICE increased arrests and deportations in Mecklenburg County and across North Carolina in 2025, the Observer reported previously. Agents arrested a growing number of people with no criminal records, while picking up fewer people with convictions or pending charges, an Observer investigation found.
This story was originally published February 13, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Fact check: Does Mecklenburg trail Wake in ICE pickups from county jails?."
