The American Immigration Council is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. Pictures and videos poured onto social media over the weekend and early this week showing unsettling images of Border Patrol agents descending on Charlotte, North Carolina. The city had been on high alert since last week, as reports surfaced that the operation would involve armored vehicles and as many as 200 agents.
Immigrants in Charlotte are the latest target of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement blitz.
It was only a matter of time before a city in the American South became the subject of a CBP operation. Cities across the United States like Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Chicago had been previously targeted with excessive and unnecessary enforcement tactics.
Yet, Charlotte has a different history of immigration than those cities—one that makes these raids, arrests, and tactics especially worrisome for the city’s Latino community.
North Carolina’s Latino population does not stretch back generations like in cities such as Los Angeles or Chicago. Rather, the Latino population in the state has grown exponentially since the 1990s. Charlotte is a prime example of how Latino immigrants contributed to the development of cities across the South as well as other non-traditional immigrant gateways. As the immigrant population in the city increased, construction boomed and Charlotte grew into a thriving economic hub, serving as the home of Bank of America’s headquarters. It is not unusual for cities to grow on the backs of immigrant workers, but it is particularly true for Charlotte. Immigrants not only contributed to the city’s traditional industries like construction and hospitality; they also opened new businesses and revitalized neighborhoods in the Queen City. Now, those same businesses that propped up Charlotte’s economy are in jeopardy of closing as a result of the fear fostered by these aggressive enforcement tactics.
The politics of immigrant rights issues in the city have been complex. Back in 2006, Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, was one of the first jurisdictions in the nation to implement a 287(g) agreement – a section in the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows local law enforcement agencies to deputize local officers to carry out certain immigration enforcement functions. This type of collaboration between local law enforcement and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) then spread throughout several other counties in North Carolina and throughout the country.
However, the collaboration had its costs. First, it eroded the trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement. Why would noncitizens report crimes committed against them if they thought that by doing so, they could attract police officers who could ask them for proof of immigration status and potentially deport them? Fewer crimes reported means fewer crimes investigated and solved.
Second, the U.S. Department of Justice brought a lawsuit against the sheriff in Alamance County, North Carolina – about an hour and a half drive from Charlotte – for racial profiling Latinos through the 287(g) program. The lawsuit against Alamance led to the termination of the 287(g) agreement in that jurisdiction.
Fueled by the movement away from continued cooperation with ICE, and after arduous advocacy from grassroots organizations, several candidates running for sheriff in North Carolina counties in 2018, including in Mecklenburg, vowed to discontinue their 287(g) agreement if elected; and they were. This did not make Charlotte a “sanctuary” jurisdiction by any means, but the shift gave Republican lawmakers in the state the pretext they sought to brand the Mecklenburg County as such and invite harsher enforcement tactics.
The administration’s latest assault in Charlotte is an effort to stifle the dissent communities have expressed against fueling the administration’s deportation pipeline. The administration’s, and now Republican lawmakers’, talking point is that the deployment is to keep communities safe and assist efforts to reduce crime.
But that explanation doesn’t check out. Charlotte Police figures show reductions in violent crime in the city over the past years. What crimes was CBP targeting when agents were filmed shattering the car window of a Latino U.S. citizen and violently dragging him out? None. CBP let him go, and Charlotte Police were not called. In the eyes of CBP, he looked undocumented. In fact, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein came out and claimed that CBP’s actions amounted to racial profiling.
What is most alarming is that the U.S. Supreme Court implicitly sanctioned these tactics. In Vazquez Perdomo v. Noem, the Court paused a lower court order that had set limits on immigration enforcement agencies’ use of “roving patrols” to target those who appear to be noncitizens. Justice Sotomayor gave a stark warning in her dissent, noting that Latinos would bear the brunt of SCOTUS’ action.
In a previous life, I worked in immigrants’ rights did more Know-Your-Rights (KYRs) presentations than I can remember. KYRs are always tricky because the audience expects to hear magic words that will lead law enforcement officers to respect people’s rights. In practice, however, law enforcement will likely find an exception to the rules that gets them the result they seek – be it the right to interrogate or even search an individual. As such, the right to remain silent was the most crucial piece of information one could share with community members. And while that piece of advice still applies, such words don’t seem to stop the Border Patrol officers conducting these enforcement actions from interrogating, harassing, and threatening Latinos who fit the profile of who they think is an undocumented person.
Charlotte’s vibrant immigrant community heavily contributed to and continues to power the growth of the city. Time and time again, however, immigrant communities are scapegoated by politicians looking to score partisan points, blaming noncitizens for crime despite statistics that show the contrary, and Charlotte is no exception.
The inspiring news is that the people of Charlotte have risen to voice their opposition. It is no secret that the immigrants’ rights infrastructure in a city like Charlotte is not as robust as other larger cities that have faced these actions. But community members, elected officials, organizations and attorneys are leveraging their limited resources to respond to this crisis.
With news that CBP is expanding its operations to other cities in North Carolina and in the American South, it is important that communities organize to push back. It is crucial to show the Trump administration and its masked agents that these types of unfettered arrests, not only of immigrants in our communities but also of U.S. citizens, will never be normal.
