In the face of strong resistance, Border Patrol withdraws from Charlotte and heads for New Orleans
The Charlotte Observer reports:
The U.S. Border Patrol is leaving the Charlotte area after arriving Saturday, making arrests by confronting and questioning Latino people in public places, according to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday.
There would be no further Border Patrol operations on Thursday, a press release from Sheriff Garry McFadden said, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement will continue working in Charlotte.
Even as local officials said that Border Patrol was finished in the Queen City, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said agents were not finished.
“The operation is not over and it is not ending anytime soon,” she said in a statement.
McFadden did not answer a phone call from a reporter on Thursday and declined to be interviewed last week, when news of federal agents’ arrival broke.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police also posted a statement on social media Thursday saying they received “reliable information” that the Border Patrol had departed the Charlotte area.
The actions of the federal police under a Trump administration immigration crackdown included questioning and sometimes detaining U.S. citizens, and were met with outrage and protests.
“Border Patrol’s operation in Charlotte-Mecklenburg was an inhumane and unnecessary campaign of terror that disrupted the lives of our entire community,” U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, a Democrat from Charlotte, said in a statement.
She said that Charlotte did not cave, and that she was proud of people who banded together and pushed back. [Continue reading…]
Around 250 federal border agents are set to descend on New Orleans in the coming weeks for a two-month immigration crackdown dubbed “Swamp Sweep” that aims to arrest roughly 5,000 people across southeast Louisiana and into Mississippi, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press and three people familiar with the operation.
The deployment, which is expected to begin in earnest on Dec. 1, marks the latest escalation in a series of rapid-fire immigration crackdowns unfolding nationwide — from Chicago to Los Angeles to Charlotte, North Carolina — as the Trump administration moves aggressively to fulfill the president’s campaign promise of mass deportations.
In Louisiana, the operation is unfolding on the home turf of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, a close Trump ally who has moved to align state policy with the White House’s enforcement agenda. But, as seen in other blue cities situated in Republican-led states, increased federal enforcement presence could set up a collision with officials in liberal New Orleans who have long resisted federal sweeps. [Continue reading…]