In the week leading up to Thanksgiving, Charlotte experienced an invasion. This occupation wasn’t from an enemy nation or foreign army – it was a division of the United States Dept. of Homeland Security tasked with carrying out a mission to pick up undocumented residents in the area.
On Nov. 15, the Dept. of Homeland Security launched Operation “Charlotte’s Web” – a mission designed to “target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to the Tar Heel State because they knew sanctuary politicians would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets,” according to the department’s release on the operation.
Starting on Nov. 16 in Mecklenburg County and spreading to its surrounding counties, Operation Charlotte’s Web reportedly led to more than 370 people being arrested. Border Patrol and ICE’s presence in the Queen City created an atmosphere of fear and tension, something quite the opposite of the South’s known hospitality.
“People are terrified, they’re angry, they’re hiding,” Susan Rodriguez-McDowell, a Democratic county commissioner in Charlotte, said of her constituents to Reuters. “They’re mad as hell that this happened in our community, and they want to know what the hell we are going to do about it.”
Videos started to emerge online of masked federal agents detaining folks they suspected of being undocumented, emerging from unmarked cars and moving to cuff and arrest anyone officers believed to be a potential undocumented person. One video showed Charlotte resident Rheba Hamilton confronting federal agents when they emerged from an unmarked, gray minivan to ask two men working in Hamilton’s yard for “papers.” Hamilton started filming from her cell phone, asking the agents to get off her property and that they weren’t welcome there. After yelling for her husband, the agents retreated and left, allowing the workers in Hamilton’s yard to leave and find safety.
Hamilton’s confrontation with agents wasn’t the only one of its kind – multiple videos of Charlotteans standing up for their neighbors have taken the internet by storm, demonstrating how a community shows up for one another even in times of uncertainty.
The community didn’t just stand up to federal agents — thousands of folks flocked to training sessions hosted by Siembra NC, a grassroots advocacy group for immigrants and Latino communities in the state, to learn how to observe and report on ICE activity in North Carolina even before the enhanced enforcement.
Activists, including those from organizations such as Siembra NC, worked to patrol neighborhoods where CBP and ICE had been seen operating, following vehicles and at times honking horns in warning. Others have observed CBP and ICE units at local hotels, logged vehicle details and checked parking lots for potential early-morning staging locations around Charlotte.
“It’s actually not totally out of our control to know where these guys [are] hunting people down,” Andrew Willis Garcés, a senior strategist with Siembra NC, said. “We can know that and we can also be much more in communication about what we see and where we see.”
Unlike other recent raids in large American cities – such as Chicago, New York City and Portland – Operation Charlotte’s Web marked the first mass immigration enforcement operation in a state which went to President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
“North Carolina is not Illinois,” Garcés said. “We all know it’s not the same political train, it’s not the same playbook about how to defend against these particular kinds of federal attacks. But overall, I think there is too much instinctual cautiousness. There’s a little bit of an overcautiousness in terms of what we won’t even explore … You don’t have to use the same talking points and don’t have to have the same policies, but what if the question is just: What can we do?”
A couple of days after the launch of Operation Charlotte’s Web, Siembra NC posted video of what appeared to be a 47-vehicle convoy on its way to Atlanta — much earlier than the reported timeline for the operation’s conclusion. Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden confirmed Border Patrol left his jurisdiction, with Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles expressing her gratitude for the operation’s end.
“I’m relieved for our community and the residents, businesses and all those who were targeted and impacted by this intrusion,” Lyles wrote on X. “As we move forward, it is essential that we come together – not as separate groups divided by recent events, but as one Charlotte community.”
While DHS publicly maintained the crackdown in the Queen City is ongoing, separate internal documents state Border Patrol’s operation there concluded, with agents demobilizing from the area last week — aligning with the video captured by Siembra NC.
CBS reported fewer than one third of those arrested by Border Patrol during the Trump administration’s operation in Charlotte were classified as criminals. In a document from DHS obtained by CBS, it was stated roughly 200 Border Patrol agents recorded nearly 300 immigration arrests in Charlotte. Fewer than 90 of those arrested were noted as “criminal aliens” in the document.
The impact of Charlotte’s Web was immediate and far spreading. According to recent reporting from Axios, a survey showed businesses were experiencing daily losses of around $2,500, though the amounts varied widely —from $200 for smaller tiendas to a reported $12,000 for a general contractor. Of the 90 surveyed businesses, 47 percent were closed for at least three days, with 70 percent of survey respondents located in east Charlotte.
Greg Asciutto, executive director of CharlotteEast, told Axios he estimates it will take at least one fiscal quarter — and maybe longer — for east Charlotte’s business district to regain “normalcy” for their business’ performance.
North Carolina Republican Party spokesperson Matt Mercer touted the crackdown a success, and fellow Republicans have joined him in praising DHS and ICE for their work in the Tar Heel State. The truth couldn’t be further from Mercer’s and others’ disillusioned claims: The Trump administration orchestrated a federal operation against one of the United States’ own cities, resulting in economic losses and a new found fear among all North Carolinians. That isn’t a successful implementation of American justice — it’s a tactic to disempower and divide, with the hopes of molding the United States and its people into whatever those in power wish.