A top Border Patrol commander touted dozens of arrests in North Carolina’s largest city Sunday as Charlotte residents reported encounters with federal immigration agents near churches and apartment complexes.
The Trump administration has made the Democratic city of about 950,000 people its latest target for an immigration enforcement surge it says will combat crime, despite fierce objections from local leaders and data showing declining crime rates.
Gregory Bovino, who led hundreds of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on a similar operation in Chicago, went on social media to document some of the arrests he said numbered more than 80 in Charlotte. He posted pictures of people the administration commonly dubs “criminal illegal aliens,” in reference to people living in the U.S. without legal permission who are alleged to have criminal records. That included one of a man with an alleged history of drunk driving convictions.
“We arrested him, taking him off the streets of Charlotte so he can’t continue to ignore our laws and drive intoxicated on the same roads you and your loved ones are on,” Bovino wrote on X.
The effort was dubbed “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” a play on the title of the beloved E.B. White children’s book, which isn’t about North Carolina — and whose story of friendship and solidarity with a seemingly doomed farm animal would appear antithetical to the federal crackdown.
The flurry of activity immediately raised questions, including where detainees would be held, how long the operation would run and what agents’ tactics that have been heavily criticized elsewhere would look like in North Carolina.
Bovino’s operations in Chicago and Los Angeles triggered a series of lawsuits and investigations over questions about use of force, including wide deployment of chemical agents. Democratic leaders in both cities said that agents’ presence inflamed community tensions and led to violence. During the Chicago area operation, federal agents fatally shot one suburban man during an attempted traffic stop.
Bovino and other Trump administration officials have called the use of force an appropriate response to growing threats on agents’ lives.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Customs and Border Patrol, did not respond to inquiries about the Charlotte arrests. Bovino’s spokesman did not return a request for comment Sunday.
Elsewhere, Homeland Security has not offered many details about who it is arresting. For instance, in Chicago, the agency provided names and details on only a handful of its more than 3,000 arrests in the metro region from September to last week. In several instances U.S. citizens were handcuffed and detained during operations, and dozens of demonstrators were also charged, often in community clashes over arrests or protests.
By Sunday, reports of CBP activity were “overwhelming” and difficult to quantify, Greg Asciutto, executive director of the community development group CharlotteEast, said in an email.
“The past two hours we’ve received countless reports of CBP activity at churches, apartment complexes and a hardware store,” he said.
City Councilmember-elect JD Mazuera Arias said federal agents appeared to be focused on churches and apartment complexes.
“Houses of worship. I mean, that’s just awful,” he said. “These are sanctuaries for people who are looking for hope and faith in dark times like these and who no longer can feel safe because of the gross violation of people’s right to worship.”
Tareen, Witte and Dale write for the Associated Press. Tareen and Dale reported from Chicago, Witte from Annapolis, Md.