Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden has confirmed that President Donald Trump's administration will deploy U.S. Customs and Border Protection to Charlotte, North Carolina, the Washington Times reported. McFadden was told by two officials that federal immigration enforcement would show up in North Carolina's largest city on Saturday.
Trump has already sent the National Guard and other federal agents into cities that refuse to enforce immigration law. This happened in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., after the Democrat-majority governments decided to flout federal immigration law.
Now it appears that Charlotte, which is also a Democratic-run metropolis, will become the latest to receive such treatment, though the Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin would not confirm that fact when asked. "Every day, DHS enforces the laws of the nation across the country," she said Thursday.
We do not discuss future or potential operations," McLaughlin added. However, local officials are now bracing for impact as federal agents make their way to the southern city that has a population of 150,000 foreign-born people.
Trump has cited the killing of Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska as evidence that the crime problem is out of control in the city and needs to be addressed at the federal level. The 23-year-old woman was allegedly stabbed to death with a pocket knife on a Lynx Blue Line light rail in August by Decarlos Brown Jr., Fox News reported.
Brown now faces the death penalty after the man with a robust criminal record was allowed to roam the streets of the city to allegedly commit the random attack on the unsuspecting victim. This horrific attack never should have happened except that law enforcement is severely lacking.
Now, Trump has decided to use his power to clean up the illegal immigration problem, and that has outraged many in the city. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has already claimed that its hands are tied as it "has no authority to enforce federal immigration laws," but others are objecting to Trump's plans to send agents who do have that power.
Rather than banding together to eliminate the crime problem, faith leaders, activists, and officials are warning illegal immigrants of what's coming. They have taken to sharing information that could help them evade law enforcement, including a conference call organized by CharlotteEast that drew 500 participants on Wednesday.
The organization's executive director Gerg Asciutto told residents that they should network with each other and organizations that will help them through the crackdown. "The purpose of this call was to create a mutual aid network," City Councilmember-Elect JD Mazuera Arias said.
There is already a sense of foreboding and hysteria about supposed plainclothes agents infiltrating. Pro-illegal immigration groups, such as Indivisible Charlotte and the Carolina Migrant Network, are sharing tips on spotting federal agents and will teach volunteers about their rights during these interactions.
"They’re not always wearing vests that say ‘ICE,'" Indivisible Charlotte spokesman Tony Siracusa warned. He also said that residents are "not freaking out, but definitely concerned" about what's to come for the city.
Meanwhile, groups are also considering whether to plan potential "pop-up protests," but are concerned about agitators being arrested. Of course, opposition to immigration enforcement comes with the usual narrative about who will be targeted and what will happen if illegal immigrants are arrested.
Daniela Andrade, communications director at the Carolina Migrant Network, said that a local Hispanic heritage festival was canceled for fears of targeting and that others are going into hiding. "It’s the concern of family separation, of being removed from a community where many people have lived here for years," Andrade said.
Nobody wants to see people suffer or families separated, but these illegal immigration crackdowns are meant to remove criminals from city streets. While some individuals who enter the U.S. without proper documentation may be hard-working, they are also lawbreakers who have jumped the line ahead of others who followed the rules. That's not only wrong, it's also criminal.
