I know this is a stressful moment for many across North Carolina. Everyone should follow the law, remain peaceful, and bear witness to what you’re seeing.

That’s the North Carolina way. pic.twitter.com/OL9QIdodfG

— Governor Josh Stein (@NC_Governor) November 16, 2025

PBS reports:

After a surge in Border Patrol activity in North Carolina’s largest city over the weekend, including dozens of arrests, Gov. Josh Stein said the effort is “stoking fear,” not making Charlotte safer.

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. Charlotte residents reported encounters with federal immigration agents near churches, apartment complexes and stores.

“We’ve seen masked, heavily armed agents in paramilitary garb driving unmarked cars, targeting American citizens based on their skin color, racially profiling and picking up random people in parking lots and off of our sidewalks,” Stein said in a video statement late Sunday. “This is not making us safer. It’s stoking fear and dividing our community.”

Stein acknowledged that it was a stressful time, but he called on residents to stay peaceful. If people see something wrong, he said they should record it and report it to local law enforcement. [Continue reading…]

An editorial in the Charlotte Observer says:

With every unnecessarily smashed window, every sneer at due process, every federal agent’s smirk at those who are horrified by it all, Donald Trump continues to lose. He loses because this immigration enforcement surge is not really about immigration. If the president really wanted to solve our nation’s border issues, he would work toward broader solutions instead of rounding up whomever he can to hit a big number to show Americans.

Make no mistake, Los Angeles and Chicago and Charlotte are about the show. They’re about showing supporters that he’s willing to break rules to get things done and break wills to get what he wants. The progressive protests, the videos of immigrants tackled and dragged, the families torn apart? The willingness to inflict pain is part of his power. The cruelty, as it always has been, is the point.

But the problem for Trump is that it’s not working. His poll numbers continue to dive, and his numbers on immigration — once a strength — are now jarringly underwater. [Continue reading…]