Sen. Tillis pushes again for answers on Charlotte Border Patrol operation

In a letter sent this week, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis pushed for more information about U.S. Border Patrol agents’ operation in Charlotte last year.

“The operation resulted in the apprehension of several criminal illegal aliens with extensive criminal records, an outcome I applaud,” Tillis wrote to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “At the same time, multiple public reports allege that U.S. citizens were detained, subject to force, and experienced damage to personal property.”

The longtime Republican senator, set to retire at the end of his term, has been increasingly critical of Noem since masked federal agents shot and killed two American citizens in Minnesota last month.

Tillis’ letter referenced an incident in which agents busted an American citizen’s window in Charlotte, and another in which a different citizen in Cary was arrested at his workplace before agents dumped him and his belongings in the woods.

“If these accounts are inaccurate, North Carolinians would welcome that clarification,” the senator wrote. “If they are accurate, then they represent a breakdown in safeguards that demands corrective action. Either way, the absence of clear, encounter-level data has made objective evaluation difficult and unnecessarily eroded public confidence.”

For months, The Charlotte Observer has asked DHS for a full list of people arrested in the operation. DHS has not provided that information. The Department of Homeland Security has not released the names and information of most people arrested or taken by federal police in Charlotte, making it unknown to the public if they had criminal records or not.

Tillis asked for Noem to produce information as well, including the total number of people arrested in Operation Charlotte’s Web and the total number of times agents used force on American citizens.

Noem will testify before the Senate’s judiciary committee on March 3.

Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.

This story was originally published February 4, 2026 at 3:34 PM.