Overview
This week, Border Patrol agents descended on North Carolina cities in an immigration enforcement action claiming to detain individuals who are in the country without documentation. A spokesperson told NC Local on Thursday that more than 370 people were arrested in five days.
Charlotte officials confirmed the departure of the federal agents on Thursday, but a Homeland Security spokesperson posted on X "Wrong. Operation Charlotte’s Web isn’t ending anytime soon."
No matter where future actions occur, questions remain about the hundreds of individuals detained and removed from communities in Charlotte and the Triangle, including who they were and where they were sent.
Editor's note: This post was updated on Nov. 20 at 3:45 pm to reflect the latest news about the completion or continuation of the Charlotte operation.
What is the typical process for immigration arrests and detention?
Typically, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), arrests and detains people suspected of being in the country without documentation.
When someone is taken into custody for an immigration issue, they are assigned a nine-digit identification number beginning with the letter “A.” This is often referred to as an “A number,” and a person who has previously interacted with the immigration system may already have this number.
While the Border Patrol operation raised the profile of immigration enforcement this week, immigration enforcement actions are ongoing in North Carolina, ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams said.
“We do targeted immigration enforcement daily,” he said. Williams said there isn’t an average number of arrests per week or month during operations.
“Not to take the seriousness away from the situation. It's like going fishing. How many fish do you catch annually?” he said. “It varies just based on all the other factors of what you do all year, what fish you're going after, what bait you're using.”
He said several hundred arrests did not sound high for three days of operations in the densely-populated areas of the Charlotte and Triangle regions.
Where are detained people usually held?
People detained by immigration enforcement officials may be held at several locations, and ICE has detention facilities across the country, including one in North Carolina located in Graham.
Until this week, the Alamance County Detention Center was the only detention facility in North Carolina officially overseen by a division of ICE. The federal government began housing detainees at the facility in 2019, according to 2024 ICE inspection records.
ICE also contracts with private prisons to house people detained in immigration cases. People arrested by immigration agents in North Carolina are often sent to Stewart Detention Center, one of the nation’s largest private detention facilities located just outside of Lumpkin, Georgia.
Local law enforcement agencies contract with ICE to hold detained people in local jails. Williams declined to confirm how many law enforcement agencies have active agreements in the state at present.
These holding agreements are different than 287(g) agreements which outline how local law enforcement agencies cooperate with ICE.
Border Patrol did not respond to requests from NC Local about their operations. According to their website, the organization “generally… tries not to hold individuals in custody for longer than 72 hours.”
What is different about the recent operation?
The current immigration enforcement action, called “Charlotte’s Web” by government leaders, is unusual because it is being conducted solely by Border Patrol agents. In prior similar operations in Los Angeles and Chicago, enforcement actions were joint efforts by ICE and Border Patrol.
The recent immigration raids also differ from the norm because the immigration system has become more opaque. “It is difficult to determine exactly where detained people are usually held,” UNC law professor Rick Su said, noting that even attorneys struggle to locate their clients in detention.
Generally, people are not detained through large-scale raids like the recent operations in Charlotte and the Triangle.
“Now, arrests appear to be more haphazard and opportunistic, with officials seemingly going to areas, neighborhoods, and workplaces where they believe there are many unauthorized immigrants, questioning people, and sometimes taking them in without prior investigations or identification of specific individuals,” Su said.
In typical immigration proceedings, individuals would be issued a “Notice to Appear” by ICE or Border Patrol. The agency also files the notice to the immigration court.
“This approach was used because immigration violations are largely civil matters, not criminal proceedings,” Su said.
Certain serious crimes, including espionage and terrorism, require the federal government to hold a person in detention. If someone is not required to be held, the court determines whether to continue to detain someone based on their flight risk and what risk they pose to public safety, as well as other factors.
Williams said when a person is detained by ICE, they are processed at a field office or at a 72-hour holding facility which in North Carolina is a local jail. If they are not detained, they are given alternatives like an ankle monitor or weekly check-ins. If they are detained, then they are taken to a long-term facility.
How many people were detained in this operation? Where are they?
According to DHS, Border Patrol arrested 370 people in the current operation. News outlets have not been able to confirm the alleged number because the Department has not responded to requests for the names of people arrested.
The Department released the names and photos of 20 people arrested in the current operation, calling them the “worst of the worst,” but it has not provided any identifying information for the remaining 350 people they claim to have arrested.
Six of the people named in the DHS press release are being held at another private prison, the Folkston ICE Processing Center and the D. Ray James Correctional Facility in Georgia, according to the ICE locator.
None of the other 14 named people who were arrested appear in the locator system. Williams said people who have been detained usually show up in the online locator in 24 hours. Information for individuals detained by Border Patrol for 48 hours should show up in the system, according to the agency’s website.
Nine people detained by immigration agents in the recent operation were moved from an ICE office in Cary to the New Hanover County jail on Tuesday, The News & Observer reported. Those people were moved again to an unknown location Wednesday morning. It is not known if those people were included in the 20 individuals identified in the earlier press releases.
How do you find where someone who has been detained is located?
Typically, the “A number” or a person’s full name and country of origin can be used to search the ICE locator system to determine where they are being held.
Family members or friends who locate their relative through the online locator can request in-person or video visits by calling the facility. The phone number is available by clicking on the facility name in the locator system.
Case information may be found by entering the "A number" on the Automated Case Information page or by calling the Immigration Court Hotline at 1-800-898-7180.
The Department has not released the names or countries of origin of 350 of the alleged arrestees from the recent operation. Without names or “A numbers,” there is no official channel for determining who was detained or where they were taken.
NC Local has filed public records requests for information on the identities of the people detained and the locations where they were taken.
Learn more
The National Immigration Justice Center offers this guide: Know Your Rights: What to Do if You or a Loved One is Detained
Read more about the status of more than 600 people detained by immigration enforcement actions in Chicago
This article first appeared on NCLocal and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.