Even as Trump’s immigration gestapo continues to terrorize Chicago, Portland, and elsewhere across the country, on November 15 ICE and Border Patrol began a new crackdown on yet another city—this time, Charlotte, North Carolina.
By November 20, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the operation, which they call Operation Charlotte’s Web, had netted more than 370 arrests—only 44 of the people had any kind of criminal record. Earlier that week, Border Patrol agents expanded their operation into North Carolina’s Research Triangle region—the cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill—and arrested over a dozen people.
Resistance to these gestapo raids broke out all over. On November 18, over 30,000 high school students were absent from school in protest with many thousands walking out and pouring into the streets. On the 19th, 100 or more people protested at a Home Depot in Charlotte. November 21, hundreds of high school and college students walked out to protest Border Patrol operations in the Research Triangle and gathered in a lively protest in downtown Durham. The anti-ICE protesters in the streets in Charlotte and other cities have been overwhelmingly young—with people of different nationalities acting together.
A CNN report described the scene in a trendy Charlotte neighborhood called Plaza Midwood. A beloved bakery is “shuttered Saturday after people were tackled outside the store by men in green uniforms.” A grocery store takes phone orders from immigrant customers who are staying off the streets because of the raids, and delivers for free. When the store manager receives a phone tip that Border Patrol was seen a couple of blocks away, she “walks over to the store’s entry and stands watch, ready to lock the front door at the first sign of federal agents. Her friendly eyes turn slightly dark. ‘They don’t have no right to be in here,’ she says.” All along the avenue, there are “ICE is not welcome here” signs. A Saturday protest outside the shuttered bakery, started by just one man, grows to dozens of people and stretches the strip mall parking lot to its limits.
There have been conflicting reports about whether the ICE/Border Patrol operation has left Charlotte. But on Friday, the DHS assistant secretary wrote on X, “Operation Charlotte’s Web isn’t ending anytime soon.”
ICE Surges Into North Carolina With 'Charlotte's Web'
On December 1, Border Patrol is slated to begin operation “Swamp Sweep,” centered in New Orleans. According to the Associated Press, the two-month crackdown “aims to arrest roughly 5,000 people across southeast Louisiana and into Mississippi.” Preparations began November 21 and include “federal officials ... securing a network of staging sites: A portion of the FBI’s New Orleans field office has been designated as a command post, while a naval base five miles south of the city will store vehicles, equipment and thousands of pounds of ‘less lethal’ munitions like tear gas and pepper balls.... Homeland Security has also asked to use the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans for up to 90 days beginning this weekend….”
As with Los Angeles, Chicago, and Charlotte, the New Orleans escalation will be led by Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, a vicious Nazi. The AP notes that Bovino “has become the administration’s go-to architect for large-scale immigration crackdowns.… His selection to oversee ‘Swamp Sweep’ signals that the administration views Louisiana as a major enforcement priority for the Trump administration.”
And last week Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” said that “We’re going to do operations in New York City” soon, adding that “I’ve said it from day one: Sanctuary cities, we’re flooding the zone…”
These mass protests in Charlotte and elsewhere in North Carolina are righteous. Like the resistance to the armed and lawless ICE/Border Patrol bullies in Chicago, they are an inspiring example and these struggles need to grow. At the same time, these gestapo raids and other horrors will continue and escalate—unless the fascist regime is driven from power. For that reason, the courage, unity, and spirit of resistance of people in these different struggles need to be strategically fused with the growing nationwide movement demanding “Trump must go NOW!”—focused especially in Washington, DC, the seat of power.
