U.S. Border Patrol arrests over 130 in first 48 hours of Charlotte immigration operation

Over 130 individuals suspected of being within the U.S. illegally have been detained in Charlotte, North Carolina, authorities mentioned on Monday (November 17, 2025), as President Donald Trump’s nationwide mass deportation marketing campaign ramped up within the South.

Rob Brisley, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, mentioned that Border Patrol brokers had arrested over 130 individuals on Saturday (November 15) and Sunday (November 16) in Charlotte throughout the first two days of the federal operation focusing on undocumented migrants.

“We won’t cease implementing the legal guidelines of our nation till each legal unlawful alien is arrested and faraway from our nation,” Mr. Brisley mentioned.

He didn’t give particulars on ongoing operations Monday (November 17). It was not clear when the operation within the southern metropolis would finish.

Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell, a Democrat, mentioned the North Carolina operation would broaden to her metropolis, the second largest within the state after Charlotte, and that Raleigh police haven’t participated in any planning.

“I ask Raleigh to recollect our values and keep peace and respect by any upcoming challenges,” Ms. Cowell mentioned in a press release.

Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, a Democrat, mentioned that the constitutional rights and protections of each individual in Charlotte, no matter their immigration standing, have to be upheld, and mentioned that metropolis officers had been working to help the impacted individuals and communities “whereas working inside sophisticated authorized boundaries.”

“To everybody in Charlotte who’s feeling anxious or fearful: you aren’t alone,” Ms. Lyles wrote on social media. “Your metropolis stands with you.”

Charlotte has seen peaceable protests in response to the crackdown, together with a walkout on Monday (November 17) by the scholars of East Mecklenburg High School, and movies of arrests have been posted throughout social media, together with one exhibiting masked brokers smashing a pickup window and dragging a person out.

Some Latino-run companies closed over the weekend and remained shuttered Monday (November 17) in Charlotte, a metropolis of 943,000 individuals and one of many quickest rising areas within the U.S., in accordance with the Census Bureau. Many persons are drawn by higher-paying jobs within the rising finance, tech and logistics sectors.

Mass deportation and strict enforcement of immigration legal guidelines have been a key a part of Mr. Trump’s home coverage agenda. Since Trump, a Republican, took workplace in January, federal immigration brokers have carried out raids in largely Democratic-run cities reminiscent of Los Angeles and Chicago, and in additional conservative rural areas.

The aggressive immigration enforcement by federal brokers has led to some giant protests throughout the nation, and confrontations between federal brokers and bizarre residents, lots of whom take video of the operations as they play out of their neighborhoods.

North Carolina Governor Josh Stein, a Democrat, sharply criticized the operation in Charlotte over the weekend, saying in a video handle that “we’ve seen masked, closely armed brokers in paramilitary garb driving unmarked vehicles, focusing on American residents based mostly on their pores and skin colour, racially profiling and selecting up random individuals in parking tons and off of our sidewalks.”

The Department of Homeland Security has mentioned that the raids in Charlotte had been a response to the refusal of native officers to adjust to nearly 1,400 requests by immigration officers to carry suspects for as much as 48 hours past the time they’d ordinarily be launched, in order that immigration brokers may take the suspects into custody as they’re launched.