RALEIGH, NC (June 25, 2026) – On June 24, 2026, with little notice and virtually no floor debate, the North CarolinaHouse overrode Governor Josh Stein’s vetoes of Senate Bill 153 (SB 153), Senate Bill 227 (SB 227), Senate Bill 558 (SB 558), and House Bill 171 (HB 171). SB 153, SB 227, and SB 558 now become law, and HB 171 heads to the Senate for a final override vote.
Under the cover of silence, this legislature has launched a deliberate attack on Black, brown, and immigrant communities across North Carolina. These bills dismantle the legal and institutional protections that generations of North Carolinians sacrificed to secure. Instead of promoting fairness, lawmakers have chosen to entrench inequality and strip away the very mechanisms built to remedy it.
HB 171 will prevent state and local agencies from addressing the disproportionate environmental harm inflicted on Black and Brown communities, while chilling the civic participation of the very people those agencies are meant to serve. SB 227 tells K-12 students that their history is a disruption, and SB 558 tells college students that their identities are unwelcome on campus. The claim that DEI and merit are in opposition is legally and factually false. Merit cannot be measured equitably in a system built on generations of exclusion.
“North Carolina did not build its reputation, its economy, or its future on erasure. It built them on the contributions of every community that has ever called this state home,” said Adrienne Kelly, Executive Director for Democracy North Carolina. “What the General Assembly did yesterday was tell Black and brown North Carolinians that their presence is tolerated — at least sometimes — but their power is not. And we refuse to accept that. We will organize, we will mobilize, and we will make clear that you cannot legislate away our worth.”
SB 153 compounds this harm with particular cruelty. It is a calculated attack on immigrant families, engineered to manufacture fear, accelerate family separation, and erect systemic barriers to basic human rights and essential services. It compels state law enforcement to collaborate with ICE, deepening the climate of fear that immigrant families already live with every day. It increases scrutiny on people seeking public benefits they desperately need. It punishes local governments that try to protect their own residents, and it bars UNC system campuses from adopting any protections from immigration enforcement, ensuring there is no safe harbor left anywhere in this state.
The consequences will be felt in every corner of North Carolina. Families will be separated, and vulnerable communities will be pushed deeper into poverty as access to critical services is stripped away. Immigrants will be driven from seeking medical care, with public health consequences that reach every resident. And children will face new threats to their education and welfare, carrying trauma that no child should bear.
“Think about what we are asking children to carry: The weight of wondering, every single morning, whether their family will still be together when they get home. Think about what we are asking parents to do: to send their babies off to school while carrying that same fear in their chest all day long. That is not protection, it is trauma. And this legislature chose to turn that trauma into law,” said Kelly.
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Democracy North Carolina is a statewide nonpartisan organization that uses research, organizing, and advocacy to strengthen democratic structures, build power among disenfranchised communities, and inspire confidence in a transformed political process that works for all.