A top Border Patrol commander touted dozens of arrests in North Carolina’s largest city on 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 downtrending crime rates.
Gregory Bovino, who led hundreds of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents on a similar operation in Chicago, took to social media to document some of the arrests, which he said had reached more than 80. He posted pictures of people the Trump administration commonly dubs “criminal illegal aliens”—individuals living in the U.S. without legal permission who have alleged criminal records. One such post included 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” as a play on the title of a famous children’s book that isn’t about North Carolina. However, the flurry of activity immediately raised questions about where detainees would be held, how long the operation would run, and what agents’ tactics—heavily criticized elsewhere—would look like in North Carolina.
Bovino’s operations in Chicago and Los Angeles triggered a wave of lawsuits and investigations over use of force concerns, including the wide deployment of chemical agents. Democratic leaders in both cities said federal 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 defended the use of force as appropriate given growing threats to agents’ safety.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees CBP, did not respond to inquiries about the Charlotte arrests. Bovino’s spokesman also did not return a request for comment on Sunday.
Elsewhere, DHS has provided limited details about the individuals it is arresting. For example, in Chicago, the agency disclosed names and charges for only a handful of the more than 3,000 arrests made in the metro region from September through last week. In several instances, U.S. citizens were handcuffed and detained during operations, and dozens of demonstrators faced charges amid clashes over arrests or protests.
By Sunday, reports of CBP activity in Charlotte were described as “overwhelming” and difficult to quantify, according to Greg Asciutto, executive director of the community development group CharlotteEast.
“The past two hours we’ve received countless reports of CBP activity at churches, apartment complexes and a hardware store,” he said in an email.
City council member-elect JD Mazuera Arias said federal agents appeared to be focusing on churches and apartment complexes.
“Houses of worship. I mean, that’s just awful,” Arias 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.”
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Tareen and Dale reported from Chicago. Witte reported from Annapolis, Maryland.
https://ktar.com/national-news/border-patrol-commander-touts-dozens-of-north-carolina-arrests-leaving-residents-overwhelmed/5777521/
