Border Patrol official says dozens arrested in North Carolina
immigration enforcement surge
[November 17, 2025]
SOPHIA TAREEN, BRIAN WITTE and MARYCLAIRE DALE
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, apartment
complexes and stores.
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
agents in a similar effort in Chicago, took to X to document a few of
the more than 80 arrests he said agents had made. He also posted a
highly-edited video of uniformed CBP officers handcuffing people.
“From border towns to the Queen City, our agents go where the mission
calls,” he posted on X, referring to Charlotte.
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.
Some welcomed the intervention, including Mecklenburg County Republican
Party Chairman Kyle Kirby, who said in a post Saturday that the county
GOP “stands with the rule of law — and with every Charlottean’s safety
first.”
Fear and many questions
The flurry of activity prompted fear and questions, including where
detainees would be held, how long the operation would last and what
agents' tactics — criticized elsewhere as aggressive and racist — would
look like in North Carolina. On Saturday, at least one U.S. citizen said
he was thrown to the ground and briefly detained.
At Camino, a nonprofit group that offers services to Latino communities,
some said they were too afraid to leave their homes to attend school,
medical appointments or work. A dental clinic the group runs had nine
cancellations on Friday, spokesperson Paola Garcia said.
“Latinos love this country. They came here to escape socialism and
communism, and they’re hard workers and people of faith,” Garcia said.
“They love their family, and it’s just so sad to see that this community
now has this target on their back.”
Bovino's operations in Chicago and Los Angeles triggered lawsuits over
the use of force, including widespread deployment of chemical agents.
Democratic leaders in both cities accused agents of inflaming community
tensions. Federal agents fatally shot one suburban Chicago man during a
traffic stop.
Bovino, head of a Border Patrol sector in El Centro, California, and
other Trump administration officials have called their tactics
appropriate for growing threats on agents.
Bovino posted pictures Sunday of people the Trump administration
commonly dubs “criminal illegal aliens,” meaning people living in the
U.S. without legal permission who allegedly 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 said.
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People protest against federal immigration enforcement Saturday,
Nov. 15, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
Residents report activity at churches and apartment complexes
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, did not
respond to inquiries about the Charlotte arrests. Bovino's spokesman
did not return a request for comment Sunday.
Elsewhere, DHS has not offered many details about its arrests. In
the Chicago area, the agency only provided names and details on a
handful of its more than 3,000 arrests in the region from September
to last week. U.S. citizens were detained during several operations.
Dozens of protesters were arrested.
By Sunday, reports of CBP activity around Charlotte 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 council member-elect JD Mazuera Arias said federal agents
appeared to be focused on churches and apartment buildings.
“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.”
DHS says so-called sanctuary policy plays a role in Charlotte
operation
Two people were arrested during a small protest Sunday outside a DHS
office in Charlotte and taken to a local FBI office, said Xavier T.
de Janon, an attorney who was representing them. He said it remained
unclear what charges they faced.
DHS said it was focusing on North Carolina because of so-called
sanctuary policies, which limit cooperation between local
authorities and immigration agents.
Several county jails house immigrant arrestees and honor detainers,
which allow jails to hold detainees for immigration officers to pick
them up. But Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, does
not. Also, the city's police department does not help with
immigration enforcement.
DHS alleged that about 1,400 detainers across North Carolina had not
been honored, putting the public at risk.
“We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans
are safe and public safety threats are removed," Assistant Secretary
Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
___
Tareen and Dale reported from Chicago. Witte reported from
Annapolis, Maryland.
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