Charlotte hadn’t been previously publicly singled out as an enhanced immigration enforcement target by the Trump administration in the same way as other cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.
It’s a Democratic-led city, but it’s hundreds of miles away from the northern and southern borders. And crime has dropped 8% from last year, with violent crimes down 20%, according to data released by the city in October.
Democratic leaders in Charlotte have largely framed the operation — which came as a surprise to local officials — as a political distraction ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
“This administration ran on rhetoric that is anti-immigrant to score political points,” said City Council member Dimple Ajmera, a Democrat. “We have a very important US Senate race in 2026 coming up. And they want to score political points and use fear to divide our community.”
Charlotte became a lightning rod for debates about policing and public safety in Democratic-led cities in September, after a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee was stabbed to death on public transit by a man with a lengthy history of arrests and mental health problems.
Though the suspect arrested in that case is a US citizen, President Donald Trump seized on the killing as an example of what he framed as out-of-control crime, and he pledged to send the National Guard to blue cities across the country. Three Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation, who represent districts around Charlotte, asked the governor earlier this month to deploy the Guard to fight crime.
