Her vote didn’t surprise anyone, but her speech did.
Democratic Representative Carla Cunningham broke ranks with her party and voted with the Republican majority to override the governor’s veto and sign into law the anti-immigrant bill HB318, which puts more undocumented immigrants in North Carolina at risk of deportation.
Cunningham, who represents House District 106, had voted in favor of HB318 during every legislative debate, just as she did last year to help Republicans pass the anti-immigrant law HB10, which requires all sheriffs in the state to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
But in all of those debates, Cunningham had argued—as had the Republican sponsors—that her position was driven by public safety concerns, as she believed sheriffs like the one in her district, in Mecklenburg County, were putting their community at risk by not turning over immigrants to ICE who, she claimed, were responsible for the increase in criminal activity, drug trafficking, and fentanyl deaths.
However, on July 29, when the Legislature voted to override the governor’s veto of HB 318, Cunningham didn’t even mention the issue. She took off the mask of public safety to reveal her true anti-immigrant face, using hateful rhetoric and a dangerously divisive message that seeks to pit African American and immigrant communities against each other.
Cunningham spoke of a cultural division: “Not all cultures are the same.” She warned that the massive influx of immigrants “can change a country forever,” that those who arrive in the country “refuse to adapt and assimilate the laws,” and that, therefore, “new rules” are needed to address immigration in a way that doesn’t “destabilize our communities.”
A speech that seems inspired by the same hateful rhetoric against immigrants as President Donald Trump, who during his campaign repeatedly claimed that immigrants “were poisoning the blood of the nation” to justify the cruel campaign of mass deportations he is now carrying out without due process or respect for people’s basic rights.
Cunningham went even further. She said that “because of the blood of her ancestors,” the enslaved people who built the country with their sweat in the cotton, rice, and tobacco fields, she was not willing to support those who now ask her to defend immigrants: “If they ask me to stand behind another group of people to raise awareness about their plight, I unapologetically say no,” she stated shortly before voting for HB318.
Cunningham’s speech, however, betrays a political tradition within the African-American community- solidarity with the most vulnerable communities, such as immigrants today, and incites a dangerous division among these minorities.
Cunningham forgets that immigrants are the ones who today carry out the hardest work that no one wants to do in the country. They are in the fields, on farms, in construction, and in restaurants, working nonstop, without fair pay, and without receiving any benefits in return.
The federal government is currently pursuing them, accusing them of being criminals. And they are going to be hunted by sheriffs and local law enforcement thanks to legislations like HB318, which Cunningham supports.
Her vote and divisive speech contradict the natural solidarity among the country’s hardest-hit minorities and weaken them.
Within District 106 alone, in Mecklenburg County, which Cunningham represents, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians together make up more than 57 percent of the population, but when separated, their influence is diluted, making everyone vulnerable once again.
Instead of creating division and fomenting hatred, Cunningham should call for unity and solidarity among all minorities to jointly confront perhaps the greatest threat to democracy the country has faced since the days of their ancestors.
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