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Tag: PIN TO TOP – BREAKING MAIN STORY

  • Immigration enforcement arrests begins in Charlotte, officials confirm

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    Federal officials confirmed Saturday that a surge of immigration enforcement in North Carolina’s largest city has begun, as agents were seen making arrests in multiple locations.

    “Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens hurting them, their families, or their neighbors,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed.”

    What You Need To Know

    •  Federal immigration agents began a large enforcement action in Charlotte Saturday

    •  Agents made several arrests, including in front of news crews as the operation began

    •  The Border Patrol operation was met by protests in the Queen City

    •  Immigration officials said they made 81 arrests in Charlotte on Saturday


    Local officials including Mayor Vi Lyles criticized such actions, saying in a statement that they “are causing unnecessary fear and uncertainty.”

    “We want people in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County to know we stand with all residents who simply want to go about their lives,” the statement said. It was also signed by Mecklenburg County Commissioner Mark Jerrell and Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board member Stephanie Sneed.

    There were several protests in the Queen City Saturday and more protests are planned in Raleigh and Charlotte Sunday.

    Federal agents arrested 81 people Saturday, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said in X Sunday morning. 

    Crime is down in the city this year through August, compared with the same months in 2024. Homicides, rapes, robberies and motor vehicle thefts fell by more than 20%, according to AH Datalytics.

    But President Donald Trump’s administration has seized upon the fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light-rail train to argue that Democratic-led cities fail to protect residents. A man with a lengthy criminal record has been charged with the woman’s murder.

    Enforcement begins after rumors

    The federal government had not previously announced the push. But County Sheriff Garry McFadden said this week that two federal officials told him Customs agents would be arriving soon.

    Charlotte is a racially diverse city of more than 900,000 residents, including more than 150,000 who are foreign-born, according to local officials.

    Willy Aceituno, a 46-year-old Honduran-born U.S. citizen, was on his way to work Saturday when he saw “a lot of Latinos running,” chased by “a lot of Border Patrol agents.”

    Aceituno said he himself was stopped — twice — by Border Patrol agents. During the second encounter, they forced him from his vehicle after breaking the window and threw him to the ground.

    “I told them, ‘I’m an American citizen,’” he told The Associated Press. “They wanted to know where I was born, or they didn’t believe I was an American citizen.”

    After being forcibly taken into a Border Patrol vehicle, Aceituno said, he was finally released after showing documents proving his citizenship. He had to walk some distance back to his car and later filed a police report over the broken glass.

     

    Spokesperson Paola Garcia of Camino, a bilingual nonprofit serving families in Charlotte, said she and her colleagues have observed an increase in stops by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents since Friday.

    “Basically what we’re seeing is that there have been lots of people being pulled over,” Garcia said.

    Greg Asciutto, executive director of the community development group CharlotteEast, said via email that the “significant border patrol activity” was seen Saturday.

    “Most have been extremely quick, targeted arrests; others have been them ‘fishing,’” Asciutto said.

    An encounter in a front yard

    In east Charlotte, two workers were hanging Christmas lights in Rheba Hamilton’s front yard in the morning when two Customs and Border Patrol agents walked up. One tried to speak to the workers in Spanish, she said. They did not respond, and the agents left without making arrests.

    “This is real disconcerting, but the main thing is we’ve got two human beings in my yard trying to make a living. They’ve broken no laws, and that’s what concerns me,” said Hamilton, who recorded the encounter on her cellphone.

    “It’s an abuse of all of our laws. It is unlike anything I have ever imagined I would see in my lifetime,” the 73-year-old said.

    Amid reports of the crackdown, she had suggested the work be postponed. But the contractor decided to go ahead.

    “Half an hour later, he’s in our yard, he’s working and Border Patrol rolls up,” she said. “They’re here because they were looking for easy pickings. There was nobody here with TV cameras, nobody here protesting, there’s just two guys working in a yard and an old white lady with white hair sitting on her porch drinking her coffee.”

    Some businesses close

    JD Mazuera Arias, who was elected to the City Council in September, was among a group standing watch outside a Latin American bakery in his east Charlotte district.

    Another bakery nearby closed for fear of the crackdown, he said, showing the harm to livelihoods and the economy.

    “This is Customs and Border Patrol. We are not a border city, nor are we a border state. So why are they here?” he said. “This is a gross violation of constitutional rights for not only immigrants but for U.S. citizens.”

    Asciutto said many businesses in his part of town were closed and “We’re brainstorming ways to keep them afloat, as we don’t know how long this is going to last.”

    The Trump administration has defended unprecedented federal enforcement operations in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago as necessary for fighting crime and enforcing immigration laws.

    Some in North Carolina welcomed the blitz. Mecklenburg County Republican Party Chairman Kyle Kirby said Democratic officials “have abandoned their duty to uphold law and order” and are “demonizing the brave men and women of federal law enforcement.”

    “Let us be clear: President Trump was given a mandate in the 2024 election to secure our borders,” Kirby said in a statement. “Individuals who are in this country legally have nothing to fear.”

    But several hundred people protested Saturday in a Charlotte park.

    Democratic Gov. Josh Stein said the previous day that the vast majority of people detained in such operations have no criminal convictions, and some are citizens. He urged people to record any “inappropriate behavior” and notify local law enforcement.

    The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has emphasized that it is not involved in federal immigration enforcement.

    Follow us on Instagram at spectrumnews1nc for news and other happenings across North Carolina.

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    Spectrum News Staff, Associated Press

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  • Border Patrol official says dozens arrested in N.C. enforcement surge

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    A top Border Patrol commander touted dozens of arrests in North Carolina’s largest city on Sunday as Charlotte residents reported encounters with federal immigration agents near churches, apartment complexes and stores.

    The Trump administration has made the Democratic city of about 950,000 people its latest target for an immigration enforcement surge it says will combat crime, despite fierce objections from local leaders and downtrending crime rates.

    Gregory Bovino, who led hundreds of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in a similar effort in Chicago, took to X to document a few of the more than 80 arrests he said agents had made. He also posted a highly-edited video of uniformed CBP officers handcuffing people.

    “From border towns to the Queen City, our agents go where the mission calls,” he posted on X, referring to Charlotte.

    The effort was dubbed “Operation Charlotte’s Web” as a play on the title of a famous children’s book that isn’t about North Carolina.

    Some welcomed the intervention, including Mecklenburg County Republican Party Chairman Kyle Kirby, who said in a post Saturday that the county GOP “stands with the rule of law — and with every Charlottean’s safety first.”

    Fear and many questions

    The flurry of activity prompted fear and questions, including where detainees would be held, how long the operation would last and what agents’ tactics — criticized elsewhere as aggressive and racist — would look like in North Carolina. On Saturday, at least one U.S. citizen said he was thrown to the ground and briefly detained.

    At Camino, a nonprofit group that offers services to Latino communities, some said they were too afraid to leave their homes to attend school, medical appointments or work. A dental clinic the group runs had nine cancellations on Friday, spokesperson Paola Garcia said.

    “Latinos love this country. They came here to escape socialism and communism, and they’re hard workers and people of faith,” Garcia said. “They love their family, and it’s just so sad to see that this community now has this target on their back.”

    Bovino’s operations in Chicago and Los Angeles triggered lawsuits over the use of force, including widespread deployment of chemical agents. Democratic leaders in both cities accused agents of inflaming community tensions. Federal agents fatally shot one suburban Chicago man during a traffic stop.

    Bovino, head of a Border Patrol sector in El Centro, California, and other Trump administration officials have called their tactics appropriate for growing threats on agents.

     

    Bovino posted pictures Sunday of people the Trump administration commonly dubs “criminal illegal aliens,” meaning people living in the U.S. without legal permission who allegedly have criminal records. That included one of a man with an alleged history of drunk driving convictions.

    “We arrested him, taking him off the streets of Charlotte so he can’t continue to ignore our laws and drive intoxicated on the same roads you and your loved ones are on,” Bovino said.

    Residents report activity at churches and apartment complexes

    The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, did not respond to inquiries about the Charlotte arrests. Bovino’s spokesman did not return a request for comment Sunday.

    Elsewhere, DHS has not offered many details about its arrests. In the Chicago area, the agency only provided names and details on a handful of its more than 3,000 arrests in the region from September to last week. U.S. citizens were detained during several operations. Dozens of protesters were arrested.

    By Sunday, reports of CBP activity around Charlotte were “overwhelming” and difficult to quantify, Greg Asciutto, executive director of the community development group CharlotteEast, said in an email.

    “The past two hours we’ve received countless reports of CBP activity at churches, apartment complexes and a hardware store,” he said.

    City council member-elect JD Mazuera Arias said federal agents appeared to be focused on churches and apartment buildings.

    “Houses of worship. I mean, that’s just awful,” he said. “These are sanctuaries for people who are looking for hope and faith in dark times like these and who no longer can feel safe because of the gross violation of people’s right to worship.”

    DHS says so-called sanctuary policy plays a role in Charlotte operation

    Two people were arrested during a small protest Sunday outside a DHS office in Charlotte and taken to a local FBI office, said Xavier T. de Janon, an attorney who was representing them. He said it remained unclear what charges they faced.

    DHS said it was focusing on North Carolina because of so-called sanctuary policies, which limit cooperation between local authorities and immigration agents.

    Several county jails house immigrant arrestees and honor detainers, which allow jails to hold detainees for immigration officers to pick them up. But Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, does not. Also, the city’s police department does not help with immigration enforcement.

    DHS alleged that about 1,400 detainers across North Carolina had not been honored, putting the public at risk.

    “We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

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    Associated Press

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  • 3 dead in ‘highly premeditated’ shooting at North Carolina waterfront bar

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    SOUTHPORT, N.C. — A mass shooting that shattered the evening tranquility of a picturesque, seaside town in North Carolina was a “highly premeditated” attack that left three people dead and five injured, police said Sunday. The suspect who allegedly carried out the attack on a waterfront bar was in custody.

    Nigel Edge, 40, of Oak Island is accused of opening fire Saturday night from a boat into a crowd gathered at the American Fish Company in Southport, a historic port town about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Wilmington, Police Chief Todd Coring said. 

    At a press conference Sunday, Coring said the location was “targeted,” but he did not elaborate.

    Authorities said Edge piloted a small boat close to shore, which was lined with bars and restaurants, stopped briefly and fired. He then sped away.

    A makeshift memorial sprung up outside American Fish Company in Southport, N.C. where three people were killed and eight others were injured. (Spectrum News 1/David Ivey)

    Roughly half an hour after the shooting, a U.S. Coast Guard crew spotted a person matching the suspect’s description pulling a boat from the water at a public ramp on Oak Island. The person was detained and turned over to Southport police for questioning, officials said.

    Edge is charged with three counts of first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree murder and five counts of assault with a deadly weapon. He could face additional charges, Coring said.

    The weapon used was an assault rifle, although Coring didn’t specify what kind.

    “We understand this suspect identifies as a combat veteran. He self-identifies. Injured in the line of duty is what he’s saying, he suffers from PTSD,” Coring said, referring to post-traumatic stress disorder.

    Edge is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Monday, District Attorney Jon David said. He is being held without bond.


    Among the five people hospitalized with injuries, at least one “is now clinging for their life,” David said. Some of the victims were vacationers from out of town.

    Oak Island Police Chief Charlie Morris said the suspect was known to police as someone “who frequently hung out on our pier,” and that he had filed lawsuits against the town and police department over the last few years. He did not elaborate.

    The district attorney said Edge had had “minor contacts” with police in the past “but nothing significant in his past which would give us any indication that he was capable of such horror.”

    It was not immediately known whether Edge has an attorney to speak on his behalf. No attorney was listed on court documents.

    Investigators from multiple agencies — including the State Bureau of Investigation and the Coast Guard — remained on the water and at the scene Sunday collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses.

    Officials did not immediately release the names of the victims.  

    “Our hearts are heavy this morning following the tragic mass shooting in Southport that claimed the lives of three individuals and left others injured,” Brunswick County Sheriff Brian Chism. On behalf of the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office, I extend my deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and my prayers are with those who are recovering from their injuries.”

    He went on to call Southport a strong and resilient community” and asked that people pray for the victims and their families. 

    (Spectrum News 1)

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    Spectrum News Staff, Associated Press

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  • 3 dead, multiple injured in shooting at a North Carolina waterfront bar

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    SOUTHPORT, N.C. — Three people are dead and several others are injured after a shooting at the American Fish Company in Southport, city officials said.

    The Southport Police Department responded to calls of shots fired with multiple injuries at the waterfront bar around 9:30 p.m. Saturday night. Officials said a person on a boat traveling on the Cape Fear River opened fire, fatally wounding three patrons, and injuring at least eight others. The boat then fled the area towards the Intracoastal Waterway in the direction of Oak Island.

    The city of Southport said the U.S. Coast Guard detained the suspect around 10 p.m. and was turned over to the Southport Police Department for questioning, officials said.

    The investigation is ongoing. Officials have not released information on those who were killed or wounded in the shooting. 

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    Spectrum News Staff

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