CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jonathan Ocampo has called this Southern city home for six years, but, after immigration enforcement descended here over the weekend, the American citizen of Colombian descent said he doesn’t leave the house without his U.S. passport.
“I’m carrying it here right now, which is sad,” he told NBC News. Ocampo said he worries that his father, a citizen who has been in the country for 40 years, could be targeted because of being Hispanic-looking and speaking what he described as very broken English.
“It’s just scary,” he said.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, more than 130 people have been arrested since Border Patrol began an immigration enforcement push it calls “Operation Charlotte’s Web” on Saturday, putting many residents and business owners of the state’s largest city on edge. A popular Latino bakery was closed Monday over fears of Border Patrol activity. Several small businesses in a shopping center also shut their doors Monday after immigration authorities were seen smashing the car window of a Honduran-born U.S. citizen, Willy Aceituno, over the weekend.
Aceituno told NBC affiliate WCNC he was getting breakfast when he noticed immigration authorities chasing two people. Three vehicles then surrounded his car, and agents began asking about his immigration status. “I was scared,” he said. Aceituno, who recorded the incident, is seen on video staying inside his car and telling agents that if they broke the window they’d have to pay for it. An agent ultimately shattered the window, opened Aceituno’s car door and pulled him to the ground.
DHS accused Aceituno on social media of “trying to distract officers so others could evade the law.”
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that those arrested in North Carolina “have all broken the immigration laws of our country.”
The deployments in Charlotte are the latest in a string of high-profile immigration enforcement actions targeting specific cities across the country, such as Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon, and, most recently Chicago, where hundreds of the people arrested did not have criminal histories, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Ocampo said he doesn’t think Charlotte is unique in being the focus of federal immigration enforcement. “I think they’re targeting wherever there is a strong Hispanic presence, whether it’s Charlotte, whether it’s Chicago, California, I’m seeing on the news, they’re everywhere,” he said.
Charlotte residents have reported dozens of sightings of Border Patrol agents, including one Monday outside the community center for ourBRIDGE for Kids, a nonprofit group that provides after-school programs for refugee and immigrant students.
Several trucks carrying more than 20 Border Patrol agents showed up at the center Monday morning, according to a witness who shared a video of the scene with NBC News. The witness asked not to be named out of fear it would cause retaliation against the business. It is not known whether anyone was arrested. No children were present at the time since programs run in the afternoons, and they were canceled Monday afternoon as a precaution, the person said.
In detailing immigration arrests in Charlotte, McLaughlin said some of the detainees have criminal records, including “known gang membership, aggravated assault, possession of a dangerous weapon, felony larceny, simple assault, hit and run, possession of stolen goods, shoplifting, DUI, DWI, and illegal re-entry after prior deportation, a felony.”
Staff members at the Carolina Migrant Network said they are working on confirming those by tracking down all of those arrested.
So far, some of the people detained in Charlotte include workers at a Home Depot parking lot putting up Christmas decorations, a young man who worked at a grocery store and others in the surrounding areas of churches, apartment complexes and stores, according to Siembra NC, another advocacy group that manages an immigration hotline.
“This is not about public safety,” said Stefania Arteaga, a co-executive director and co-founder of the Carolina Migrant Network, a legal services group for those facing deportation. “We are seeing clear racial profiling on our streets and absolute militarization. … This is about causing fear and destroying, really destroying our community.”
Among the incidents the group confirmed was an arrest a pastor at Central United Methodist Church reported to its hotline. Another incident outside Weeping Willow AME Zion Church involved the detention of a “man who was participating in a church cleanup day,” according to Siembra NC. That man was hospitalized after he had “a panic attack” following his immigration arrest, according to McLaughlin, who said that the man unsuccessfully tried to escape from the hospital and that he has a previous arrest in an assault case.
On Sunday morning, a Spanish-language service at Casa Viva Church was half-empty as hundreds of people in the congregation chose to stay home because they are “scared about going out because of the situation right now,” Pastor Alejandro Montez said.
Jeremy McKinney, a North Carolina attorney who was president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association from 2022 to 2023, said an attorney confirmed that some of those arrested had been sent to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia.
The privately run immigration center, about 2½ hours south of Atlanta in a rural and isolated area, is often used because North and South Carolina have no detention centers. Because of overcrowding in Stewart, McKinney said, attorneys expect some of those arrested could be transferred to Louisiana.
The distance and isolation make getting legal counsel difficult for detainees who can face waiting up to a week to schedule attorney meetings, McKinney said.
Manolo Betancur, who owns Manolo’s Bakery in Charlotte, decided not to open his business Monday after, he said, he witnessed people being stopped by Border Patrol agents outside.
“I’m not going to risk my customers,” Betancur told WCNC. “Safety is more important than any money.”
Nicole Acevedo reported from New York, Ryan Chandler from Charlotte, Suzanne Gamboa from San Antonio and Julia Ainsley from Washington, D.C.