NC WANTED staff and AP

Posted: Aug 26, 2008
Updated: Aug 26, 2008

ICE Executive Jim Pendergraph has resigned, NC WANTED has independently confirmed.  Pendergraph's last day with the federal agency will be October 24, 2008.

A few weeks ago, Pendergraph gave an exclusive interview to NC WANTED and vented concerns about U.S. Congressman David Price's control over  funding allocations for ICE, which Pendergraph believed was preventing growth of immigration enforcement in the workplace. 

Immigration enforcement in the workplace is considered to be an effective way to stop rampant illegal immigration and identify theft.

Pendergraph's interview with NC WANTED angered U.S. Congressman David Price.  

After giving Price's office more than 24 hours to respond, the NC WANTED article featuring Jim Pendergraph was published.

But after the NC WANTED article went public, David Price himself quickly established a time for NC WANTED to conduct a follow-up interview, during which Price denied Pendergraph's accusations, dismissing them as “fallacious."

Soon after Price's response, NC WANTED received an unconfirmed report that Price contacted Michael Chertoff with Homeland Security to complain about Pendergraph.

NC WANTED is currently producing a special on the local law enforcement partnership program with ICE known as 287(g).

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From the Associated Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The former Mecklenburg County sheriff who quit his post last year for a federal immigration job said he is coming home after less than a year in Washington, but denied it's because he criticized a congressman over funding for immigration enforcement.

Jim Pendergraph resigned last year and began a job in December to increase state and local coordination of immigration laws. The Charlotte Observer reported Tuesday that Pendergraph said he has resigned the federal post, effective Oct. 24

Pendergraph challenged a congressman who wanted to change immigration enforcement spending and a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Pendergraph didn't have authority to speak on spending.

The former sheriff says he isn't being pushed out because of the clash weeks ago, but wants to spend more time with his family.

"If they were trying to force me out, I certainly wouldn't stay two months," he said. "If I was mad about something, I'd give them a week's notice and be out of here."

In July, Pendergraph told a television interviewer that he was concerned about a lack of federal funding for enforcement of immigration laws in the workplace. He said Rep. David Price, D-NC, who is head of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, was emphasizing only criminal enforcement.

Price has said ICE spends too much on workplace enforcement and should focus on criminals who have been released. Price said after Pendergraph's comments that next year's budget includes about $2 billion for identifying criminals and other enforcement.

Price's office said Pendergraph's comments were disavowed in calls to the congressman by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and ICE head Julie Myers.

ICE spokesman Richard Rocha said it was Pendergraph's decision to leave the agency.

"Sheriff Pendergraph's relationships with local law enforcement agencies across the country has been an asset for ICE as the agency's first director of the office of state and local coordination," Rocha said.

Pendergraph, who was a police officer in Charlotte for 23 years and served four terms as sheriff, attracted national attention by his local work against illegal immigration. He was an early supporter of a program that allowed him to put county inmates into deportation proceedings.