ICE swept up 130 people in Charlotte this weekend, including landscapers and a church volunteer

Rather than criminals, ICE and Border Patrol agents over the weekend rounded up people going about their days. Most had no serious criminal record, local officials say. 

In an operation said to target dangerous criminals, ICE and Border Patrol agents over the weekend detained or arrested 130 people in Charlotte, including a landscaper hanging holiday lights, and a man volunteering at a church “clean up” day.

The federal incursion in Charlotte followed similar operations in Chicago, Portland, and other big cities, where few of those detained had serious criminal records. On Saturday alone, ICE and Border Patrol agents arrested 81 people, the most immigration arrests in the state ever in a single day. Only seven had criminal records, JD Mazuera Arias, who recently won a seat on the Charlotte City Council, told CNN.

“I do not see this as an improvement of public safety, if anything it’s doing the opposite. It’s causing chaos, it’s causing fear, it’s causing confusion,” Arias said. 

Social media was full of videos over the weekend of masked ICE and Border Patrol agents breaking car windows, dragging people from their vehicles, and pointing guns at passersby. Nearly every video also showed the public shouting at the masked agents, honking their horns as warnings to area residents, and recording the arrests. Large protests popped up across the city as a result.

Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official who has led the nationwide raids, posted photos of eight people he alleged were among those arrested, claiming that they had DUI, DWI, or assault charges on their records.

He did not provide names or documentation to prove the accusations.

Trump officials have frequently said that ICE raids across the country target “the worst of the worst,” but several reports show that 72% of people arrested nationwide had no criminal record. 

“This is a day of shame,” Nikki Marín Baena, a co-director of the immigrant rights group Siembra NC, said in an emailed statement.

She said state Republicans, including NC Rep. Destin Hall, the NC House speaker, who has applauded Trump’s immigration policies, shared responsibility for what happened.

“Tell me, Speaker Destin Hall, which of the teenage workers that were abducted on the job yesterday do you most want exiled from the Tar Heel State?” Baena wrote.

“Which of the people shopping at Walmart with their families deserved to be chased down and held on the pavement? Which churchgoer, arrested while literally cleaning up his own neighborhood, did you most want taken away as his children screamed nearby?”

She continued: “This is not the North Carolina we want to live in.”

‘Bear witness’

The Charlotte raids drew widespread criticism from immigrant rights groups, state Democrats and local officials.

On Friday, soon after the plan to send ICE agents to Charlotte was confirmed, Gov. Josh Stein harshly criticized the decision, urging residents to “bear witness.”

Stein encouraged the public “to remember our values” and document any perceived abuses by federal agents.

“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.”

He added: “We follow the law. We remain peaceful. We do not allow ourselves to be provoked,” Stein wrote. That’s the North Carolina way.”

In a video message on Sunday, Stein repeated previous criticism of the raids, accusing agents of “targeting American citizens based on their skin color.

Going after landscapers simply decorating a Christmas tree in someone’s front yard, entering churches and stores to grab people … [is only] stoking fear and dividing our community.”

US Rep. Alma Adams, who represents Charlotte, also urged constituents to report any abuses to her office.

“Charlotte, our community is under siege,” Adams said in a video posted to X.

“ICE and Border Patrol are roaming this community, profiling people, picking people up. It does not matter who you are: You can be an immigrant, you can be legal, illegal, or US citizen.”

Protests and resistance

Adams is right. Many of the people detained by ICE and Border Patrol over the last several months have been American citizens. Take for example Willy Aceituno, who told The New York Times over the weekend that federal agents walked up to him in a parking lot as he prepared to head to work at a construction site.

They asked him if he was in the country illegally. 

He first offered to buy the agents breakfast, he told Times, then showed his paperwork confirming he was a citizen. They left. 

He got in his truck and then a separate group of agents knocked on his window with the same demands. They broke his truck window, dragged him out, threw him to the ground and handcuffed him, he told The
Times. 

A crowd gathered, shouting at the agents. They kept Aceituno in the back of their car for 20 minutes. 

Then they let him go,

In a separate encounter, Border Patrol agents stopped a couple who had been selling flowers by the roadside. The couple fled into the woods and agents pursued. Video shows a crowd following the agents as they wandered through the trees, shouting at them, filming them, yelling at them to get out of Charlotte. 

Soon, the agents left without appearing to find the couple they were looking for.