Charlotte’s sheriff, a former homicide detective and TV personality, has a history of taking on ICE
By Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN
(CNN) — Garry McFadden, a charismatic and opinionated detective-turned-TV personality, was elected sheriff of North Carolina’s Mecklenburg County years ago after promising that he’d limit the jail’s cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But this month, agents with ICE’s sister agency, Customs and Border Protection, marched into Charlotte and other parts of his county without meeting with him, arresting more than 350 people in an immigration crackdown the Trump administration dubbed “Operation Charlotte’s Web” – a move that some say the sheriff invited with his previous tussles with ICE.
The move came even after recent state laws forced the sheriff – who had ended a formal cooperation agreement with ICE as promised – into more of a working relationship with the agency.
CBP ended its operation in Charlotte this week, but McFadden, whose jurisdiction is limited to the county jail and court system, remains a central figure in Charlotte’s immigration debate. The sheriff said his requests to meet with the CBP officials involved in the operation were unfulfilled.
“I don’t think you can make someplace safer when you are in fear … of deportation,” he said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” on Monday. “We would have liked to have (a) conversation with Border Patrol while they’re here.”
His stance on cooperation with immigration authorities is just part of what makes him known in the area. He’s earned recognition as a Charlotte police detective who solved hundreds of homicides, and has just announced a run for a third term as sheriff after months of calling out immigration enforcement tactics and fielding allegations of a toxic workplace.
From homicides, to TV, to sheriff
Originally from Sumter, South Carolina, McFadden made a name for himself in his 36 years with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, becoming a detective who would have one of the highest murder solve rates in the department’s history, his office says.
He led the Cops and Barbers program, aimed at bridging a communication gap between officers and the community, which received national recognition, including by former President Barack Obama’s administration.
In the last couple years as a Charlotte detective, McFadden starred in the 2016-17 reality show “I am Homicide,” made by Investigation Discovery (now part of CNN’s parent company, WarnerBros Discovery). He’s also made appearances on other national shows.
“In Charlotte, North Carolina, many know him as Homicide. His real name is Detective Garry McFadden, and he seeks justice for the deceased by using his charisma to sniff out clues and hunt down leads,” a description of the show reads.
McFadden parlayed that publicity into a 2018 bid for the county sheriff’s office, which presides over Mecklenburg’s jail and court system, partially on a promise to curb the agency’s cooperation with ICE.
McFadden said stopping the 287(g) program, which allows ICE to delegate some immigration activity to local authorities, would help people from immigrant communities feel more comfortable in reporting crime, The Charlotte Observer reported that year.
After he won and took office in December 2018, he kept his word, stopping deputies’ participation in 287(g). In the jail, that program encouraged deputies to alert the feds about inmates suspected of being in the US illegally. McFadden also declined to honor ICE detainers – requests for local law enforcement to hold people in their custody beyond their ordinary release time, allowing federal agents to pick them up.
Relationship with ICE and changes to law
ICE took notice. In 2020, it launched billboards in Charlotte featuring people it said were in the US illegally, previously convicted of crimes and released rather than being transferred to ICE custody. In a news release, the agency mentioned the jail’s refusal to honor detainers, and said the billboards aimed to “educate the public about the dangers of non-cooperation policies.”
The introduction of two state laws in the last couple of years expanded the cooperation mandated between sheriff’s offices and ICE officials, including requirements for jail administrators to check inmates’ immigration status, honor ICE detainers and notify the agency in advance of releasing someone who is held on a detainer.
McFadden emphasized that while his office would adhere to the law, it would not participate in actual enforcement measures with ICE.
McFadden said he sat down with ICE’s regional representatives last month to discuss their working relationship – a meeting he described as productive. The sheriff criticized Customs and Border Protection for making no attempt to have a similar conversation with him before or during its operation.
“We are all law enforcement. At least respect me enough to come and have a conversation with me while you’re operating in my county,” he said on CNN Monday.
The Department of Homeland Security did not name McFadden when announcing its Charlotte operation, but some Republican officials have suggested the sheriff is responsible for the decision.
“Border Patrol is in Charlotte because Sheriff McFadden refused to do his job. His sanctuary policies blocked hundreds of ICE detainers and pushed criminal illegal aliens right back onto the streets,” the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Destin Hall, said on X Monday.
A number of factors could have led to the deployment, including Charlotte’s growing immigrant population, immigration court and large ICE field office, Stefanía Arteaga, co-founder of the Carolina Migrant Network, told CNN. The move could also be seen as retaliation for the sheriff’s previous decision to curb collaboration with ICE, she said.
In a statement about the operation, DHS said it was standing up for North Carolinians “who live in fear because of violent criminal illegal aliens,” arresting those with “extensive immigration and criminal histories, including domestic violence, assault, breaking and entering, larceny, and driving while intoxicated.”
US Rep. Alma Adams of North Carolina, a Democrat, decried the deployment, saying that the presence of CBP and ICE officials “threatens the wellbeing of the communities they enter.”
The surge in CBP agents in the county has left residents in a state of “fear, anxiety and uncertainty,” McFadden told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday.
“Everyone’s asking me, ‘When are they going to leave?’ And I told them I did not have that answer, because I have not talked to anyone from Border Patrol,” he said.
It’s also caused some people to retreat from daily life, he added, noting that his officers told him many students from predominantly Black and Latino areas did not attend school on Monday.
More than 30,000 students, about 20% of enrollment, were absent across 185 Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools Monday, the district said.
Business owners also say that employees are not showing up for work amid the increased immigration enforcement in the area, McFadden said.
Community relations
McFadden came onto the scene as a first-time sheriff in 2018, but quickly gained a profile on the national level, Jonathan Thompson, executive director and CEO of the National Sheriff’s Association, told CNN.
“He’s, in many ways, larger than life. But he’s also one of these people that you know when he says something, you can go to the bank on it,” Thompson said.
McFadden approached the organization after his election and went through its training program for first-time sheriffs, Thompson said. He now sits on the board.
“The best way to take a command and leadership role in this organization is to speak out and to be active, and he has become very, very active and sought a spot on the board, and he has become one of our go-to people,” Thompson said.
Thompson said he’s never watched McFadden’s show, but he’s visited his agency and jail many times.
“As we say, he’s a cop’s cop, and believes in the rule of law, believes in the cooperation of law enforcement between one another and amongst one another as agencies,” he said.
When asked about McFadden’s expectation that CBP should have communicated with his office about its operation in Charlotte, Thompson said law enforcement partners need to be able to trust each other “to maintain operational security.”
“I think he’s got a rightful bone to pick here, which is, ‘Hey, if you’re coming into our jurisdiction, you need to come visit with me and my command staff,’” Thompson said Monday.
Despite his recognition as a leader at the national level, McFadden is seen by some as a divisive figure locally, especially when it comes to his stance on immigration enforcement.
“We’ve never had a working relationship with Sheriff McFadden,” Daniel Redford, who heads the union representing local police officers, told CNN. He described McFadden as “self-serving.”
“It always has seemed that he has found a way to kind of buck the system in enforcing immigration,” Redford said.
Redford wrote a letter on behalf of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #9, last month requesting federal aid and National Guard deployment due partly to police staffing shortages.
He said it’s the first time his lodge has requested that kind of assistance from the federal government and believes the letter may have helped focus the administration’s attention on Charlotte.
His letter mentioned a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed to death on Charlotte public transit by a man with a history of arrests and mental health problems in September, drawing national attention to the city’s policing and public safety.
The suspect arrested in that case is a US citizen, but Trump used the incident as an example of what he has framed as a rampant crime issue in Democratic-run cities across the country, pledging to send in the National Guard.
“The fact that Customs and Border Protection are here in Charlotte now, you know that falls well within the request that we made,” Redford said Monday.
CNN reached out to McFadden, who declined to be interviewed for this story.
Controversy
McFadden’s workplace has been plagued by controversy in recent years.
A former business director for his office sued the sheriff in federal court in September, alleging the McFadden illegally fired her as retaliation for reporting racial pay disparity in the agency and declining to alter records about the sheriff’s travel expenses.
The sheriff denied the allegations in a November court filing. CNN has sought comment from an attorney representing him in the suit.
In the last year, The Charlotte Observer reported on several former employees who criticized the sheriff’s treatment of them, with some accusing him of emotional abuse and being narcissistic or vindictive. One of them, a former chief deputy, submitted a resignation letter accusing the sheriff of running the office like a dictatorship, the Observer reported.
That person also released a recording of McFadden using racial slurs to refer to a White captain and a Black former chief deputy, CNN affiliate WBTV reported. Shortly after, McFadden released a video message apologizing for the language.
McFadden’s office declined to comment on the former workers’ allegations, but pointed CNN to videos he released.
Two months ago, the sheriff posted a video message addressing staff departures and allegations former employees have made. He said he’s legally unable to discuss personnel matters in detail, but he stressed he felt deeply betrayed.
“You hear them saying words like narcissist and godlike and all of that,” he said. “What they should be saying is progressive, innovative, forward-thinking, always direct and always clear. Highly motivated; have high expectations; demands accountability; but most of all, caring.”
“I just wish each one of them good luck, and wherever they may work again, I just ask that they don’t be as deceiving and they do not betray their other employers as they betrayed me,” he added.
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CNN’s Dianne Gallagher, Zoe Sottile, Rebekah Riess, Elizabeth Wolfe, Jeff Winter, TuAnh Dam and Chris Boyette contributed to this report.
