U.S. Border Patrol Arrested 81 People in Charlotte, N.C.
A flea market that is typically filled with Hispanic vendors was canceled this weekend. Nightclubs that play reggaeton music on Saturday nights decided not to open. And Catholic churches, which tend to have many immigrant parishioners, were unusually empty on Sunday morning.
The Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigrants arrived in Charlotte this weekend, resulting in 81 arrests on Saturday. It continued on Sunday, with Border Patrol agents fanning out across the largest city in North Carolina.
An immigrant rights group said the tally, reported by a senior Border Patrol official on social media, was the largest number of immigrant arrests in the state’s recent history.
The presence of the agents, led by Gregory Bovino, who directed similar operations in Chicago and Los Angeles this year, has startled people in one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. Much of that growth has been spurred by international migration, especially from Latin America. The city is also home to large corporations in the retail, banking and manufacturing sectors.
The increase in immigration has drawn the attention of Trump administration officials, who have been targeting communities with large immigrant populations for enforcement efforts.
The North Carolina operation, dubbed “Charlotte’s Web” — a reference to the children’s book that tells the story of friendship and an effort to save the life of a beloved barnyard pig — has already drawn criticism for its aggressive tactics, with local officials telling people to record their interactions with agents.
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Mr. Bovino has already declared the North Carolina mission to be a success, confirming the 81 arrests in a social media post on X. He also posted photos of six detained people who he said had criminal histories.
Neither Mr. Bovino, who is from western North Carolina, nor the Department of Homeland Security has said exactly how many of the 81 people arrested on Saturday had criminal histories.
Few of the hundreds of people who were arrested in earlier operations in Chicago and Los Angeles had serious criminal backgrounds. But the Trump administration has said that it considers anyone who is present in the United States without legal status to be a criminal, and have used that view to justify its enforcement operations.
In Charlotte, lawyers and immigrant advocacy groups said a familiar pattern appeared to be emerging there as well. The people who were arrested or approached by agents on Saturday, they said, included a man participating in a church cleanup day, workers at a Home Depot, a landscaper putting up Christmas decorations and a Hispanic U.S. citizen whose truck window was shattered by an agent.
“This is a day of shame,” said Nikki Marín Baena, co-director of Siembra NC, an immigrant advocacy group. “It’s a shameful day for the North Carolina Republican Party, who hailed the arrival of so-called law enforcement officers carrying out terrorist operations, and echoed Greg Bovino’s talking points about ‘going after criminals.’”
Siembra NC said that before Saturday, the largest numbers of immigrant arrests in the state in one day were 30 people in June and 27 in February 2019.
On Saturday, Matt Mercer, a spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party, said: “We’re grateful to see these brave men and women in federal law enforcement following through on President Trump’s promise to remove violent criminal illegals from our country and those stoking fear about these targeted operations must stop at once.”
Peter Han, whose family owns Super G Mart, an international grocery store chain in North Carolina, said that more than half of the 80 employees at the store’s Pineville location had called out of work Sunday after an altercation with the Border Patrol on Saturday afternoon.
Mr. Han said that around 2 p.m. on Saturday, five of his employees were in the parking lot bringing grocery carts back into the building when several SUVs pulled to a stop in front of them. Some of the employees, intimidated by the armed officers, panicked and ran, he said.
Mr. Han said two border patrol agents dragged an employee in his twenties outside the store, pinned his face into the concrete and then put him in the back of their vehicle. The agents also took two other employees, he said. Mr. Han said customers were yelling and some of the store’s cashiers, who are still in high school, were so afraid they hid in the bathroom.
On Sunday morning, Mr. Han said he saw border patrol agents drive by again. “Everybody’s on high alert right now,” he said. “It’s definitely taking a toll on our business.”
Officials in Charlotte and in Mecklenburg County, which includes the city, had been bracing for Mr. Bovino’s operation this week, and had warned residents who wished to protest to do so peacefully and not allow the agents’ presence to provoke them. Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, expressed concern about the agents’ arrival, saying in a statement that “when we see injustice, we bear witness.”
“If you see any inappropriate behavior, use your phones to record and notify local law enforcement, who will continue to keep our communities safe long after these federal agents leave,” Mr. Stein said. “That’s the North Carolina way.”
The arrival of the Border Patrol in Charlotte, a moderately Democratic city known for its booming banking industry, has puzzled many people in the state. Federal law limits the Border Patrol’s focus to the country’s 6,000 miles of international borders and a zone extending about 100 miles inland from the borders and the coastline. Charlotte is about 170 miles from the nearest point on the coast.
It remains unclear how long the operation in Charlotte will last. The federal agents are expected to head next to New Orleans. Mayor Esther Manheimer of Asheville, N.C., said on Friday that her city might also become a target in the future.
Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C.
Sonia A. Rao reports on disability issues as a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early-career journalists.""
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