North Carolina Mayor Gary McFadden stumbled over a fifth-grade civics question during questioning
North Carolina Republican state representative. Allen Chesser said he was surprised when a Democratic mayor, who has long been opposed to cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), couldn’t answer a basic question about how the government works.
A North Carolina House Oversight Committee hearing, sparked by the murder of A Young Ukrainian woman Irina Zarutska In Charlotte, it took an unexpected turn when Chesser asked Mecklenburg County Sheriff Gary McFadden, “What branch of government do you work under?”
McFadden, the top law enforcement official in the county where Zarotzka was killed, answered simply: “Mecklenburg County,” prompting Chesser to repeat: “What branch of government do you work under, Sheriff?”
“The Constitution of the United States,” replied the Sheriff, to which Chesser replied, “that is what defines the branches of government; and I ask what branch they fall under.”
After McFadden answered, “Mecklenburg County,” again, Chesser said, “This is not the place I expected to stumble upon. Are you aware of how many branches of government there are?” The sheriff quickly replied, “No.”
After a long pause, Chesser continued: “For the sake of discussion, let us say that there are three branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. Of these three branches, which do you fall under?”
Al-Sharif replied: “I think I fall under the latter… judicial.”
“You are wrong, sir,” said Chesser. “You are under the authority of the executive branch.”
Chesser then continued to press McFadden on how to reconcile his responsibility as a law enforcement branch officer with his opposition to cooperating with ICE. Chesser asked McFadden how he reconciled his responsibility with a previous statement in which the sheriff said, “We have no role in enforcement at all. We don’t have to follow the rules and laws that our legislators in Raleigh govern.”
The sheriff said Chesser took his quote out of context, saying it referred strictly to immigration enforcement.
Although he declined to provide further context for the statement, McFadden confirmed that his office now adheres to state law that requires cooperation with ICE, saying, “We follow the law, and when the law is passed, we follow the law.”
In an interview with Fox News Digital the day after the hearing, Chesser, an Army veteran and former police officer, said: “Obviously those were not the questions I thought we were going to ask him.”
“I had several statements that he made to the media and the local press and in various interviews that kind of contradicted some of the testimony he gave yesterday about following the law. It was (just) one of those statements because we were stopped with what I thought was a baseline, just kind of setting a baseline of how to prove that his role was to enforce the law,” he explained, adding, “I didn’t expect to have to take a fifth-grade civics class with a lesson properly.” Elected Sharif.”
McFadden “decided to make himself central to the refusal to enforce immigration law here in North Carolina,” he said, adding: “It’s not that he refused to enforce immigration law, but he refused to enforce a state law that says he must cooperate with ICE and ICE detainers when people are detained in his facilities.”
“Last summer, we witnessed the unfortunate death of a young Ukrainian citizen who had sought refuge in our country and in our state,” Chesser continued. “I think all North Carolinians, all people who find themselves in the state of North Carolina, should be able to rely on one thing when it comes to public safety, which is whether or not you’re safe, whether or not the law will be enforced, does not depend on the county you find yourself in.”
“North Carolina is a safe state for all people who choose to come here, and that’s the goal of the Oversight Commission (hearing) that we’ve been holding, is to make sure the law is applied evenly and applied fairly across all the imaginary lines in our state,” he said.
The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
