Former Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC), the front-runner in the Democratic primary for North Carolina’s open Senate seat, was successfully lobbied in 2019 by an anti-deportation group with financial ties to a dark-money hub. After a pressure campaign from the group, Cooper rejected legislation that would have helped immigration authorities track illegal immigrants who had been arrested in the state.
That same activist group, a North Carolina-based nonprofit organization named Siembra NC, is now gearing up to rally behind Cooper’s 2026 Senate bid.
Attempting to win a Senate seat that Republicans have held for years in a battleground state, Cooper’s record on immigration could draw scrutiny, particularly as Democrats attempt to navigate intense outrage on the Left over immigration enforcement that roughly half of Americans still generally support.
Cooper vetoed 2019 bill on statewide compliance with ICE detainers
Siembra NC, the beneficiary of dark money meant to influence ballot initiatives, is a well-funded cohort of “community organizers” leading the state’s boots-on-the-ground resistance against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In 2019, Siembra NC started a petition calling on Cooper, then the governor, to “stand against” state legislation that would have mandated local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
“A veto by Governor Cooper may be our best and only way of preventing this anti-immigrant bill from passing,” Siembra NC informed its followers. Cooper went on to veto the measure, House Bill 370.
As part of this pressure campaign, Siembra NC formed an alliance of activist organizations called the #StopHB370 Coalition. Siembra NC’s coalition fought to prevent the enactment of HB 370, a bill dubbed North Carolina’s “Show Me Your Papers” Law by its opponents, who had sought to drum up fear that if passed, the law would require police to demand proof of citizenship from people arbitrarily while out patrolling the streets and accordingly hand the “undocumented” over to ICE.
“This bill is literally a matter of life and death for our communities,” Siembra NC said of HB 370. “It would also dramatically increase racial profiling, detentions, deportations, and the separation of families and communities in North Carolina.”
In reality, the legislative proposal would have required local jails to try to determine whether already jailed suspects, charged with a crime, are lawful United States residents and then temporarily hold such suspected illegal immigrants on behalf of ICE, but only if federal officials requested it.
ICE issues detention requests, known as detainers, that ask jails on a case-by-case basis to keep criminally charged illegal immigrants behind bars for up to 48 hours past their typical release time, ordinarily until federal immigration officers can assume custody of the suspects. HB 370 would have compelled all jails across North Carolina to comply with ICE detainers, overriding certain jurisdictions’ sanctuary policies.
Cooper, however, vetoed the bill after Siembra NC and other organizations demanded that he strike it down.
In an accompanying statement explaining why he vetoed HB 370, Cooper said, “This legislation is simply about scoring partisan political points and using fear to divide North Carolina.”
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As the bill headed to Cooper’s desk, the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, a member of the #StopHB370 Coalition, circulated a letter claiming that HB 370 would authorize sheriff’s deputies to “interrogate individuals about their immigration status,” effectively “turn[ing] any police interaction into an immigration status check and cause of deportation.”
Siembra NC and many members of the #StopHB370 Coalition were among the letter’s signatories telling Cooper to veto the legislation.
A day before Cooper rejected the bill, ACLU North Carolina sent another letter, titled “Veto Request,” addressed to the governor, saying that HB 370 would “foment fear” if enacted.
Republicans have controlled both chambers of the North Carolina legislature since 2011. In the lead-up to the bill’s passage, the ACLU of North Carolina’s press arm warned that the GOP-majority General Assembly was about to advance HB 370, as “part of an anti-immigrant agenda,” and that it was “up to Gov. Cooper to put a stop to it.”
To immigration activists, who wanted a guarantee that he would squash the bill, Cooper’s public opposition to HB 370 was not enough of an assurance. “Governor Cooper has said he opposes the bill …but he has not yet promised to issue a veto,” the ACLU advisory said.
The call-to-action linked to a portal for supporters to flood Cooper’s office with pre-crafted #StopHB370 messages urging him to “veto this dangerous bill before it becomes law.”
ACLU North Carolina, a longtime ally of Siembra NC, previously listed Siembra NC as one of the lead organizations it supported in a statewide coalition against ICE.
That year, alongside the ACLU’s North Carolina chapter, Siembra NC also organized a #StopHB370 march in Raleigh that ended at the executive mansion, where Cooper resided as governor. Dozens of protesters chanted outside Cooper’s residence, reportedly accompanied by a mariachi band.
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When asked by the Washington Examiner about Cooper’s veto of HB 370, a spokesperson for the Cooper 2026 campaign pointed to numerous North Carolina sheriffs, primarily from Democrat-led counties, who had spoken out at the time against the legislation due to a lack of police resources.
The campaign spokesperson said that Cooper’s GOP rival, former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley, made this problem worse by allegedly supporting federal cuts to local law enforcement.
“Roy Cooper was a strong supporter of the toughest border security bill in decades that Michael Whatley opposed and D.C. Republicans torpedoed,” the spokesperson told the Washington Examiner, ”and Roy Cooper is the only candidate who spent his career prosecuting violent criminals and keeping thousands of them behind bars as attorney general.”
Dark money ties
Cooper has spoken strongly in favor of cracking down on secretive political spending and vetoed legislation that would have helped conceal the flow of campaign cash.
In 2021, Cooper vetoed Senate Bill 636, a donor privacy bill that would have protected the identities of individuals who gave money to nonprofit groups in the state. In a brief statement, Cooper cited transparency concerns with shielding donor lists from public disclosure.
In 2024, Cooper vetoed HB 237, which loosened reporting requirements for federally registered political committees. Though his veto was overridden, Cooper raised concerns about the amendment creating “a gaping loophole” in campaign finance law, especially during an election year, that would benefit wealthy outside interests.
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“While voters are kept in the dark, this scheme allows anonymous out-of-state billionaires to flood North Carolina with campaign contributions to rescue extreme right-wing candidates that Republicans now fear will lose,” Cooper said.
Democrat-aligned entities registered in North Carolina, however, have benefited significantly from foreign funding and donations gifted by confidential sources. One shadowy backer of liberal causes, in particular, dumped hefty sums into the state during the 2024 election cycle.
The year of HB 237’s passage, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a left-wing lobbying giant bankrolled by Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, reportedly gave more than $1 million in grants to groups in North Carolina, including Siembra NC.
Tax filings show that Siembra NC received $160,000 in 2024 from the Sixteen Thirty Fund for “civil rights, social action, [and] advocacy.” In 2021 and 2022, the Sixteen Thirty Fund awarded Siembra NC $50,000 and $75,000, respectively.
Dark money watchdogs consider the Sixteen Thirty Fund, an alleged “clearinghouse of undisclosed cash,” one of the political Left’s largest pass-through vehicles for funneling campaign funds.
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While foreign interests cannot spend directly on individual candidates or super PACs, in some states, they can circumvent federal restrictions by passing funds off to tax-exempt entities, such as the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which can back campaigns for or against ballot measures.
As of December 2024, the Sixteen Thirty Fund has spent over $130 million on influencing the outcomes of ballot campaigns all around the country.
Siembra NC now: Eyes on the 2026 election and anti-ICE agitation
As Cooper seeks to succeed retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and thereby help Democrats flip the Senate, Siembra NC is mobilizing its forces ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Siembra NC, in response to recent ICE raids in North Carolina, is actively organizing outreach efforts to shift the balance of power at the federal, state, and local levels by way of its Latino base.
In 2024, Siembra NC’s field teams registered 5,000-plus voters and knocked on the doors of over 125,000 Latino households, reaching about one-third of the state’s registered Latinos, a critical voting bloc in play next year.
For years, the Democratic Party has relied on nonprofit groups to generate votes for Democrats via voter registration drives. This longtime left-wing strategy, used to elect Democratic candidates, involves left-of-center charities targeting key demographics, such as racial minorities, who they expect to vote blue.
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As a Siembra NC operative explained in January, “When we started Siembra NC eight years ago, our members—who largely did not participate in political activity before we recruited them—would say ‘yes’ to opportunities to turn out voters for elections after being involved in fights to stop sheriffs from collaborating with ICE.”
Siembra NC said its 2020 get-out-the-vote operations “register[ed] our people to vote in historic numbers,” and now, the group’s voter turnout arm is positioned to achieve the same level of success in 2026.
“We have to do the work of taking care of our people, and we have to do the work of helping them navigate the system. And we also want to build the kind of political power to ensure that this does not happen again,” Siembra NC co-founder Nikki Marín Baena said in November, referring to the raids.
Baena outlined Siembra NC’s operational plans for 2026 in an interview with Facing South, a social justice magazine focused on “Defend[ing] democracy in the South.” In particular, the piece mentioned the marquee race between Cooper and Whatley.
Siembra NC, like other anti-ICE activists taking to the streets, acts as a line of defense against deportation officers.
Serving as a rapid-response network, Siembra NC operates a “community defense” hotline in which callers can report ICE activity, and so-called “safety patrols” are dispatched to such sightings, with the intent to impede ICE. “Once we’re able to verify the threat, we will alert our community,” Siembra NC says.
Siembra NC also trains other organizations to scale up their own surveillance and obstruction operations. Through its Defend & Recruit initiative, Siembra NC hosts “ICE Watch” workshops and provides toolkits to help fend off Border Patrol.
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On the policy front, Siembra NC distributes a playbook for “laying the groundwork to build anti-[Make America Great Again] local governing majorities.”
Siembra NC was contacted for comment.