CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Federal officials confirmed Saturday that a surge of immigration enforcement in North Carolina’s largest city has begun, as agents were seen making arrests in multiple locations.
“Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens hurting them, their families, or their neighbors,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed.”
Local officials including Mayor Vi Lyles criticized such actions, saying in a statement that they “are causing unnecessary fear and uncertainty.”
“We want people in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County to know we stand with all residents who simply want to go about their lives,” the statement said. It was also signed by Mecklenburg County Commissioner Mark Jerrell and Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board member Stephanie Sneed.
Crime is down in the city this year through August, compared with the same months in 2024. Homicides, rapes, robberies and motor vehicle thefts fell by more than 20%, according to AH Datalytics.
But President Donald Trump’s administration has seized upon the fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutskaha on a Charlotte light-rail train to argue that Democratic-led cities fail to protect residents. A man with a lengthy criminal record has been charged with the woman’s murder.
Enforcement begins after rumors
The federal government had not previously announced the push. But County Sheriff Garry McFadden said this week that two federal officials told him Customs agents would be arriving soon.
Charlotte is a racially diverse city of more than 900,000 residents, including more than 150,000 who are foreign-born, according to local officials.
Willy Aceituno, a 46-year-old Honduran-born U.S. citizen, was on his way to work Saturday when he saw “a lot of Latinos running,” chased by “a lot of Border Patrol agents.”
Aceituno said he himself was stopped — twice — by Border Patrol agents. During the second encounter, they forced him from his vehicle after breaking the window and threw him to the ground.
“I told them, ‘I’m an American citizen,’” he told The Associated Press. “They wanted to know where I was born, or they didn’t believe I was an American citizen.”
After being forcibly taken into a Border Patrol vehicle, Aceituno said, he was finally released after showing documents proving his citizenship. He had to walk some distance back to his car and later filed a police report over the broken glass.
Spokesperson Paola Garcia of Camino, a bilingual nonprofit serving families in Charlotte, said she and her colleagues have observed an increase in stops by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents since Friday.
“Basically what we’re seeing is that there have been lots of people being pulled over,” Garcia said.
Greg Asciutto, executive director of the community development group CharlotteEast, said via email that the “significant border patrol activity” was seen Saturday.
“Most have been extremely quick, targeted arrests; others have been them ‘fishing,’” Asciutto said.
An encounter in a front yard
In east Charlotte, two workers were hanging Christmas lights in Rheba Hamilton’s front yard in the morning when two Customs and Border Patrol agents walked up. One tried to speak to the workers in Spanish, she said. They did not respond, and the agents left without making arrests.
“This is real disconcerting, but the main thing is we’ve got two human beings in my yard trying to make a living. They’ve broken no laws, and that’s what concerns me,” said Hamilton, who recorded the encounter on her cellphone.
“It’s an abuse of all of our laws. It is unlike anything I have ever imagined I would see in my lifetime,” the 73-year-old said.
Amid reports of the crackdown, she had suggested the work be postponed. But the contractor decided to go ahead.
“Half an hour later, he’s in our yard, he’s working and Border Patrol rolls up,” she said. “They’re here because they were looking for easy pickings. There was nobody here with TV cameras, nobody here protesting, there’s just two guys working in a yard and an old white lady with white hair sitting on her porch drinking her coffee.”
Some businesses close
JD Mazuera Arias, who was elected to the City Council in September, was among a group standing watch outside a Latin American bakery in his east Charlotte district.
Another bakery nearby closed for fear of the crackdown, he said, showing the harm to livelihoods and the economy.
“This is Customs and Border Patrol. We are not a border city, nor are we a border state. So why are they here?” he said. “This is a gross violation of constitutional rights for not only immigrants but for U.S. citizens.”
Asciutto said many businesses in his part of town were closed and “We’re brainstorming ways to keep them afloat, as we don’t know how long this is going to last.”
The Trump administration has defended unprecedented federal enforcement operations in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago as necessary for fighting crime and enforcing immigration laws.
Some in North Carolina welcomed the blitz. Mecklenburg County Republican Party Chairman Kyle Kirby said Democratic officials “have abandoned their duty to uphold law and order” and are “demonizing the brave men and women of federal law enforcement.”
“Let us be clear: President Trump was given a mandate in the 2024 election to secure our borders,” Kirby said in a statement. “Individuals who are in this country legally have nothing to fear.”
But several hundred people protested Saturday in a Charlotte park.
Democratic Gov. Josh Stein said the previous day that the vast majority of people detained in such operations have no criminal convictions, and some are citizens. He urged people to record any “inappropriate behavior” and notify local law enforcement.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has emphasized that it is not involved in federal immigration enforcement.
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Associated Press writers Maryclaire Dale in Chicago, Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, Jeff Amy in Atlanta and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed.
