Federal officials confirmed that a surge of immigration enforcement in North Carolina's largest city had begun as agents were seen making arrests in multiple locations Saturday.
"We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed," Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Local officials, including Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, criticized such actions, saying in a statement 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," said the statement, which was also signed by County Commissioner Mark Jerrell and Stephanie Sneed of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg education board.
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The federal government hadn't previously announced the push. But Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden confirmed earlier this week that two federal officials had told him that Customs agents would be arriving soon.
Paola Garcia, a spokesperson with Camino — a bilingual nonprofit serving families in Charlotte — said she and her colleagues have observed an increase in Border Patrol and ICE agents pulling people over since Friday.
"Basically what we're seeing is that there have been lots of people being pulled over," Garcia said. "I even saw a few people being pulled over on the way to work yesterday, and then just from community members seeing an increase in ICE and border patrol agents in the city of Charlotte."
Willy Aceituno, a Honduran-born U.S. citizen, was on his way to work when he saw Border Patrol agents chasing people.
"I saw a lot of Latinos running. I wondered why they were running. The thing is, there were a lot of Border Patrol agents chasing them," he said.
Aceituno, a 46-year-old Charlotte resident, said he himself was stopped twice by Border Patrol agents. On the second encounter, they forced him out of his vehicle after breaking the car 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."
Finally, he was allowed to go free after showing documents that proved his citizenship.
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.
Local organizations responded by having trainings, trying to inform immigrants of their rights, and considering peaceful protests. President Donald Trump's administration has defended federal enforcement operations in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago as necessary for fighting crime and enforcing immigration laws.
But Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat with a Republican-majority legislature, said Friday that the "vast majority" of those detained in these operations have no criminal convictions, and some are American citizens."
He urged people to record any "inappropriate behavior" they see and notify local law enforcement about it.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department had emphasized ahead of time that it isn't involved in federal immigration enforcement.
