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I'm Laura, the editorial director at NC Local.
Most of the time, we report and produce the news without pulling back the curtain on our process, but we recently took some action that I think is important enough to tell you what we did and why we did it. And the timing is right because this is Sunshine Week, an annual national recognition of the importance of government being open and accountable to the public.
Let me back up and make sure you know the background: Last month, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis requested information about the immigration enforcement actions by ICE and Border Patrol late last year. Then, in a hearing this month, he confronted now-former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the agency's failure to respond.
The conversation continued when Vice President JD Vance appeared in Rocky Mount last week. When asked about the request, he said new leadership at the department would get a response to Tillis' questions.
We reported on those immigration actions last fall in partnership with several other news outlets in Charlotte and the Triangle. Federal officials released 20 names and photographs of detained people they deemed "the worst of the worst."
At the time, we had the same questions Sen. Tillis later asked.
We asked ICE spokespeople for more details about the remainder of the more than 400 people they said were detained. When they refused to give us any details, reporter Jacob Biba filed multiple public records requests asking for the status of all arrests and detentions beginning in mid-November. Since then, the federal government has not responded to those requests other than to confirm receipt of, or deny, our requests.
We have been waiting for more than 100 days for any information about the arrests or the location of those who were detained, and our attorneys are now working to help us try to get the government to comply with our requests.
Several dozen community leaders and organizations issued a letter backing the ACLU's similar request for transparency about the immigration action, according to our partner WFAE.
Here's the bottom line: We believe the public has a right to know the details when our government arrests and detains people in our communities. We believe the press has a responsibility to pursue that information. And we believe the law requires it.
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