By Brad Brooks
(Reuters) -Over 130 people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally have been detained in Charlotte, North Carolina, authorities said on Monday, as President Donald Trump's nationwide mass deportation campaign ramped up in the South.
Rob Brisley, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said that Border Patrol agents had arrested over 130 people on Saturday and Sunday in Charlotte during the first two days of the federal operation targeting undocumented migrants.
"We will
not stop enforcing the laws of our nation until every criminal illegal alien is arrested and removed from our country," Brisley said.
He did not give details on ongoing operations Monday. It was not clear when the operation in the southern city would end.
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, a Democrat, said that the constitutional rights and protections of every person in Charlotte, regardless of their immigration status, must be upheld, and said that city officials were working to support the impacted people and communities "while working within complicated legal boundaries."
"To everyone in Charlotte who is feeling anxious or fearful: you are not alone," Lyles wrote on social media. "Your city stands with you."
Charlotte has seen peaceful protests in response to the crackdown, including a walkout on Monday by the students of East Mecklenburg High School, and videos of arrests have been posted across social media, including one showing masked agents smashing a pickup window and dragging a man out.
Some Latino-run businesses closed over the weekend and remained shuttered Monday in Charlotte, a city of 943,000 people and one of the fastest growing areas in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau. Many people are drawn by higher-paying jobs in the growing finance, tech and logistics sectors.
Mass deportation and strict enforcement of immigration laws have been a key part of Trump’s domestic policy agenda. Since Trump, a Republican, took office in January, federal immigration agents have carried out raids in largely Democratic-run cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, and in more conservative rural areas.
The aggressive immigration enforcement by federal agents has led to some large protests across the country, and confrontations between federal agents and ordinary citizens, many of whom take video of the operations as they play out in their neighborhoods.
North Carolina Governor Josh Stein, a Democrat, sharply criticized the operation in Charlotte over the weekend, saying in a video address that "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."
The Department of Homeland Security has said that the raids in Charlotte were a response to the refusal of local officials to comply with almost 1,400 requests by immigration officials to hold suspects for up to 48 hours beyond the time they would ordinarily be released, so that immigration agents could take the suspects into custody as they are released.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Additional reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington; editing by Donna Bryson)
