"Trump’s vicious assault on Charlotte and other North Carolina cities"

North Carolina was Donald Trump’s past week’s site for a violent, chaotic, wasteful, and abusive invasion of Custom and Border Patrol agents. Beginning in Charlotte and quickly spreading to other cities, the operations have not focused on the “worst of the worst” as Donald Trump and his Homeland Security thugs falsely claim.

Once again, horrifying scenes have played out of immigrants and U.S. citizens alike being snared by masked agents in unmarked cars. “Eyewitness accounts and video circulated online show federal agents in tactical gear detaining people at locations across the city, including storefronts and public spaces,” Newsweek reported. “In one incident, members of a church congregation in east Charlotte said masked agents entered a yard where congregants were working and detained a man.”

The video is of an arrest of a Honduran-born U.S. citizen, Willy Aceituno, during which his car window was smashed and he was shoved to the ground, went viral. Aceituno said he voted for Trump but now concedes, “It was the worst decision of my life.” He was later released.

In response to the mayhem, state and city officials—as did those in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland—have risen to the occasion. In concert with magnificent displays of peaceful protest and community solidarity, state and local officials have been sending a powerful message that they are prepared to defend their neighbors against the predation of an unhinged, racist autocrat and his underlings.

“Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles on Monday, Nov. 17 expressed concern about how Border Patrol officers were carrying out an immigration enforcement operation in the city. Federal officers have been seen throughout Charlotte since Saturday, Nov. 15, when agents began detaining people,” WBTV reported. Faced with roving, violent squads of CBP agents indiscriminately seizing Latinos, both Lyles and Gov. Josh Stein (D) insisted constitutional rights be upheld and signaled that they stood in solidarity with their people.

Lyle urged that “all agencies operating here to conduct their work with respect for those values.” She continued: “We also recognize the emotional and economic impact these operations can have on families, neighborhoods, and local businesses. Charlotte is a diverse, vibrant city, and when any part of our community feels threatened or destabilized, it affects us all.”

Meanwhile, Stein’s video statement released on Sunday excoriated federal agents for racially profiling Charlotte residents, rounding up hard-working laborers, and even entering churches. He also called on Congress to fix immigration laws and create a pathway for citizenship. Finally, as JB Pritzker did in Chicago, Stein called on local residents to document abuses.

Charlotte residents evidently looked to Chicago for inspiration as well. As CNN reported, “People throughout Charlotte were seen Monday using many of the tactics employed in Chicago—including watching for raids, blowing warning whistles and carrying signs advising people of their rights.” Some businesses closed their doors to prevent CBP from targeting customers and employees; one laundromat owner took to locking the doors “while customers are inside in an attempt to keep them safe.”

Most impressively, tens of thousands of students stayed out of class to register their objections to the federal invasion. Instead, they protested peacefully. “High school students in the district staged a walkout Tuesday morning to protest immigration enforcement in the city,” CNN reported. “Several hundred students gathered around the edge of a football field at East Mecklenburg High School, many wearing black and holding flags,” an aerial photo of the demonstration showed.

On Wednesday, hundreds of residents protested outside a Home Depot demanding the chain store not participate in the random raids. (The company quickly put out a statement denying it was cooperating with CBP.)

The Charlotte Observer captured the reaction of locals, both heartfelt and whimsical: Norm Perreault, of Matthews, said he was protesting because he was angry with President Donald Trump’s administration sending Border Patrol and ICE to Charlotte. “It centers from the fact that they say they’re deporting the worst of the worst,” Perreault said. “But day laborers are the best of the best.”

A woman who lives in a neighborhood behind the Home Depot, dressed as a frog, said her name was “Froggy Frog.” It was the first time she was able to wear the blow up costume, which has become a symbol of anti-ICE and anti-Border Patrol protests in other cities.

The woman in the frog costume compared Border Patrol’s presence to that of the Gestapo, the secret police force in Nazi Germany. “I’m 64 and have never, in my life, been confronted by what my parents were confronted with in World War II,” she said. “We have to stop that from happening here.”

Frances Platock, who also lives near the Home Depot, said Border Patrol was bypassing due process and kidnapping people off the street, including citizens, to stoke fear. “We need to get back to humanity,” Platock said. “We need to get back to decency.”

Just as immigration dragnets and racial profiling in Los Angeles emptied workplaces, Charlotte’s construction sites were soon deserted. Wherever Trump attacks the lifeblood of cities—hardworking immigrants—economic chaos and deprivation follow.

If Trump’s vicious assault on Charlotte and other North Carolina cities was meant to intimidate locals or alienate them from migrant neighbors, his operation backfired spectacularly. Charlotte coalesced around immigrants and vigorously protested the lawless regime. The cameras again captured rogue agents abusing their power.

Each arrest, assault, detention, and deportation of a hard-working, law abiding resident who poses no threat to anyone is a tragedy for the immigrants, their loved ones, their co-workers, their religious communities, the local economy, and the moral and emotional climate of the cities where immigrants have lived and worked (in some cases) for decades.

However, when undaunted local and state officials, neighbors, business owners, and civic organizations stand together, as they did in Charlotte, they deprive Trump of the aura of invincibility he seeks, and instead reassert our national belief in democracy, the rule of law, and decency. Trump and CBP agents look small and mean; ordinary Americans and local and state officials appear strong, brave, and principled. We salute Charlotte and all those who answer the call when our democracy and humanity are under siege.

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 Photo by Brendon Schaumburg