Feds ‘Swarm’ Western North Carolina in Immigration Roundup

Things are a little different in my home region, the Piedmont of North Carolina, ever since DHS launched “Operation Charlotte’s Web” to target criminal illegal aliens here on November 15. There’s seemingly less traffic for starters, and a whole lot less construction in one of the fastest-growing regions of the country. Here’s some background on why greater Charlotte, N.C., has become the latest area to fall within DHS’s cross-hairs.

“The Queen City”

As its name suggests, the operation is focused on the city of Charlotte, N.C., and the neighboring area. “The Queen City”, as it is known, sits in Mecklenburg County — a liberal enclave in a fairly conservative region.

Case in point, in the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris won nearly two-thirds (65.2 percent) of the votes cast in the county, compared to the 53 percent of voters who opted for Donald Trump in neighboring Cabarrus County, or the 62 percent of voters who pulled the Trump lever in adjacent Union and Gaston Counties.

Mecklenburg is “liberal” in the D.C. sense — lots of “In this House We Believe” signs, a criminal justice system heavy on excuses and light on punishment, high local taxes, etc.

But Democrats only took complete control of the County Board of Commissioners there in 2018 and as recently as 2000 a majority of voters in Charlotte voted for Republican George W. Bush for president.

The switch occurred when what had been a sleepy Bible-belt town (a major artery is called “Billy Graham Parkway”, not to be confused with “Graham Street”, which runs through the middle of town) became a financial hub.

As Yahoo! Finance explained in 2019:

Thanks to a history of friendly regulations and a hunger for credit during industrialization in the South, Charlotte is currently the second biggest banking town in the U.S. Today, the Queen City is an attractive alternative for talented bankers and has rapidly expanded its population to around 870,000, about double the size of Atlanta and about 10 times smaller than the No. 1 city for banking, New York City.

Covid only drove more growth; when cities like New York and San Francisco were suffering under lingering shut down orders, schools in Charlotte were up and running.

The neighboring counties are uniquely conservative, however. Deeply religious (there are over 700 churches in Gaston County alone, one for every 330 residents), the locals are heavy on both mercy and criminal punishment.

If you are looking for a Saturday men’s prayer breakfast, I can give you some leads; you’ll be guaranteed to meet some cops, a couple of judges, a 70-year-old who coaches basketball to keep kids off the street, and a guy who’ll come out later to look at your irrigation system after the Clemson game.

Locals in the more distant exurbs largely want to be left alone by government, trusting more in their neighbors to provide when things go wrong than any agency, commission, or panel. They also have their own ideas on which laws should be followed and have a healthy indifference to the rest.

There’s no real tension between Mecklenburg and its neighboring counties, but many outside of Charlotte look at their urban neighbors with a mixture of bemusement and concern that population growth could soon push the urban hub’s questionable laws and policies their way.

“A Gruesome Murder in North Carolina”

But it wasn’t Democratic control of Mecklenburg that drew DHS to the county; it was the perception that lax law enforcement had triggered out-of-control criminality there.

Which brings me to the tragic death of Iryna Zarutska. Her name may not ring a bell, but you’ve likely seen at least part of the video in which the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee was stabbed and murdered on a Charlotte light rail train as she was coming home from work at a pizzeria on August 22.

As the New York Times described the backlash to the attack two weeks later, “A Gruesome Murder in North Carolina Ignites a Firestorm on the Right”, though I would question whether concerns about random and brazen attacks on defenseless women by crazed lunatics on public transportation are limited to Republicans.

That’s especially true given that the alleged attacker, 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr., had allegedly been arrested 14 previous times when he was taken into custody for Zarutska’s killing, with convictions dating back a decade for “larceny, breaking and entering and armed robbery”.

As the local NBC affiliate reported in September:

Brown had cycled through the criminal justice system for more than a decade including serving five years for robbery with a dangerous weapon in Mecklenburg County, according to court records. He was arrested earlier this year after repeatedly calling 911 from a hospital, claiming people were trying to control him. A judge released him without bail.

Brown is facing both federal and state charges, the former for “committing an act causing death on a mass transportation system” and the latter for murder.

The attack prompted the state auditor to launch an investigation of the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), but more importantly triggered the passage through the (heavily Republican) state legislature of “Iryna’s Law”, which was signed by Gov. Josh Stein (D) on October 3.

The law “ends most forms of cash-free bail in serious cases, requires judges to review a defendant’s criminal history before setting release conditions, and mandates mental health evaluations when a suspect shows signs of instability or danger”.

In addition (and likely most significantly), it lifts a moratorium on the death penalty that’s been in place for two decades, though the governor decried a firing squad option in the bill, which he termed “barbaric” and vowed never to use.

To many in the surrounding area, however, Mecklenburg’s response to Zarutska’s murder is closing the barn door once the cow is gone, and even defense attorneys complain that it doesn’t address key deficiencies in the county’s decrepit judicial system.

Flip-Flop on Immigration Enforcement

There are, of course, many big cities in the United States with crime issues that local governments either abet or are unwilling to address. So why Charlotte?

Rewind to 2006, when the Mecklenburg sheriff’s office entered into a 287(g) immigration partnership agreement with ICE, which “led to the deportation of 15,000 Mecklenburg residents”.

As soon as a new sheriff, Gary McFadden, was elected in 2018, however, he quickly dropped out of the program, and as NC Newsline reported at the time:

During the 2018 elections for sheriff in Mecklenburg and Wake counties, the ACLU invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in a nonpartisan campaign to educate voters about the candidates’ positions on crucial civil rights issues, including the 287(g) program.

Voters responded by electing McFadden and new Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker, who both vowed during their campaigns to end 287(g) programs and voters elected them both.

The county thereafter did a 180-degree turn on assisting ICE in immigration enforcement, and by February 2020 then-U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, Andrew Murray, was condemning the Mecklenburg sheriff’s office for adopting “‘sanctuary’ policies that endanger our communities and shield criminals from immigration enforcement”.

Operation Charlotte’s Web

McFadden went out of his way to “reaffirm[] that Mecklenburg County is not a sanctuary county” in August, but when DHS announced the roll-out of “Charlotte’s Web” on November 15, the department noted:

This DHS operation will target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to the Tar Heel State because they knew sanctuary politicians would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets. Nearly 1,400 detainers across North Carolina have not been honored — releasing criminal illegal aliens into North Carolina’s neighborhoods.

That raises the question of why any ICE detainers aren’t being honored in North Carolina, given the passage in 2024 (over the veto of then-Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper) of H.R. 10.

Among other things, that law requires local sheriffs offices “to hold any suspect with a detainer in their jail for up to an extra 48 hours in jail to allow time for ICE agents to come and take them into custody”.

Perhaps the detainers DHS is referencing pre-date the December 1, 2024, effective date of the law, or maybe some local officials aren’t complying.

Responses from Government Officials

What is clear is that some government officials in the state haven’t been thrilled by the DHS operation, while others are wholly supportive of what ICE is doing.

Gov. Stein, for one, isn’t a fan. Wake County, home to the state capital of Raleigh and the other target of the ACLU’s anti-287(g) ad blitz in 2018, was included in the operation, and on November 17, Stein packaged any number of strawmen into his tweet about immigration enforcement there:

Then there are the state’s two Republican senators, who are seemingly split over the operation.

At a hearing on November 20, Sen. Thom Tillis (who’s not running for reelection) called for oversight of Border Patrol operations in Charlotte, explaining:

I want to make sure that Homeland Security can provide me with the definitive list of people who were detained, how long they were detained, whether or not they were released and, when property was damaged, whether or not they’ve been provided proper restitution. … We’re the party of law and order, and I want to make sure that we’re also orderly in the process of enforcing it.

The junior senator from the Tar Heel State, Ted Budd, however, appeared all in, tweeting on November 19:

Impact

There are conflicting reports as to whether the operation, which netted 370-plus arrests, has wrapped up or continues, but it definitely had an impact.

More than 30,000 students stayed home from Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools on November 17, local construction sites (and they are legion in the booming suburbs) seemed eerily quiet, leaves still clutter normally well-kept lawns, and traffic has seemed lighter than usual (though that’s debated, and speed limits are among the laws locals consider “optional” in the area, which is home to NASCAR).

And, not surprisingly, multiple groups of plain white vehicles in close proximity have spurred rumors that agents are making a “sweep” — most of which have come to naught.

The hornet’s nest is a symbol of Charlotte, but it’s been less of a beehive of activity during the past week, and the DHS operation has almost definitely played a role in the relative quiet.

The Migration Policy Institute estimates that there are 450,000 illegal aliens in North Carolina, 100,000 of whom have been here for less than five years. DHS can’t arrest them all, but it can — and has — given them plenty of reasons this week not to get too complacent, and to leave on their own.