A popular swimming hole in the Pisgah National Forest became the site of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation late last month, raising questions about when and how law enforcement partners with federal immigration enforcement officers in North Carolina.
This is the first time ICE has partnered with the U.S. Forest Service in the state in recent years, ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams told NC Local. The initial request for the operation came from Forest Service Law Enforcement, not ICE, he said.
“I believe in this case they reached out to us along with the Caldwell County Sheriff's Office and they asked us to assist them and we set up this operation,” Williams told NC Local. The Forest Service declined to confirm who initiated the action.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said it arrested 13 people who were illegally in the United States during the operation in partnership with the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office and the Forest Service. Conservation groups and local advocates questioned why Forest Service officials worked with federal immigration authorities.
Following the incident, Siembra, a Latino advocacy organization, hosted a vigil near the spot of the raid. Organizer Andreina Malki asked why this immigration operation happened in the Pisgah National Forest.
“A question that you know that I have, as someone that loves and appreciates the national forests, is, ‘Why is that a place of immigration enforcement?' That is a place where families go to rest, where families go to enjoy a perfect summer day,” Malki said. “That is not a place where one would expect this to happen.”
But the cooperation between federal law enforcement agencies is not unusual.
“This cooperation is part of how we keep recreation areas safe and sustain the health of the forests,” a Forest Service spokesperson said in an email.
The Forest Service pointed to a 2025 law enforcement operation when officers seized 425lbs of illegally harvested ramps in the Nantahala National Forest as an example of law enforcement's regular operations in the national forest.
The Forest Service, which covers 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands, confirmed that its Law Enforcement & Investigation division “routinely partners with Federal, State, Tribal and local police—daily in most places.”
This typically includes joint work on resource‑protection patrols, traffic safety on forest roads, search‑and‑rescue support, wildfire‑cause investigations, arson, drug violations, or theft of forest products.
“Forest Service law enforcement is dedicated to keeping the national forests safe and secure for the American people. While our law enforcement officers have no authority to enforce immigration law, they collaborate with other federal and local law enforcement agencies,” a Forest Service spokesperson said in an email.
Forest Service law enforcement officers are independently managed and fall outside the direct supervision of local Forest Service units. Officers report to the local Patrol Captain, who in turn reports to the regional Special Agent in Charge and regional Patrol Commander.
Each of the Forest System’s 10 regions is divided into zones where special agents and uniformed officers are “stationed by workload and supported by patrol command and administrative staff.”
The regional law enforcement officers do not report to the forest supervisors who oversee all the other forest service activities. The Patrol captain in the region will advise forest supervisors on law enforcement matters occurring in a national forest.
The Forest Service also has criminal investigators assigned to each region who conduct criminal investigations into violations of federal law involving National Forest System lands.
The Forest Service declined an interview request and declined to confirm how many Forest Service law enforcement and investigation officers are employed in North Carolina, citing “officer safety.”
While Forest Service law enforcement has long functioned in the state, the Wilson Creek immigration operation marked a unique partnership. Williams said it’s the first time in his almost eight year tenure with ICE that he remembers the agency working with the Forest Service in North Carolina.
Williams said ICE has recently worked with the Forest Service in South Carolina and Georgia, though NC Local found no public references to these operations. In 2025, it was reported that ICE questioned people about their immigration status at a swimming hole in Arkansas.
Williams did not specify the reason for the Wilson Creek operation but underscored the authority of ICE to detain people without documentation.
“Obviously they encountered aliens, and we're the only agency for the most part that has the authority and the information to determine alienage, so that's why they called us,” he told NC Local.
ICE declined to share the names of the 13 people they say were arrested on July 26. NC Local spoke with one family member who said her nephew was detained.
Increasing cooperation with ICE
While ICE has always had relationships with other local, state and federal law enforcement, the volume of cooperation has “skyrocketed” under the Trump Administration, an NBC analysis earlier this year showed.
“There are 1,168 agencies with officers signed up to help ICE, up from 135 during the Biden administration and 150 at the end of Trump’s first term,” the report stated.
“I would categorize it as a whole of government approach,” Williams said.
Increased funding for ICE also enabled the expansion. In January, ICE’s budget increased from $10 million to $85 million, NPR reported.
Local and state law enforcement agencies may enter into agreements, called 287(g) agreements, with the federal government to collaborate on immigration enforcement.
Some local governments in Colorado, California and Illinois have pushed back against cooperation with ICE, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
In North Carolina, state leaders embraced expansion of federal cooperation, citing the re-election of President Trump as a clear communication from North Carolina voters of “their strong desire to create a safer country through increased border security and stronger immigration policies" in a new law requiring state law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE.
Governor Josh Stein vetoed the measure, called the North Carolina Border Protection Act. In June, Republican lawmakers overrode the veto. The new measure requires state law enforcement agencies, such as the State Bureau of Investigation and Highway Patrol, to enter 287(g) agreements with ICE.
At the end of last year, 25 law enforcement agencies in NC had 287(g) agreements. The Caldwell County Sheriff’s Department, which collaborated on the Wilson Creek operation, entered an agreement with federal authorities in 2020. The ACLU reports there are currently 28 active agreements in NC.
The Sierra Club, a national environmental group, condemned the Wilson Creek incident and framed it as part of a pattern of increased immigration action.
“Bringing immigration enforcement into public recreation areas undermines the sense of safety and belonging that these spaces provide and could discourage people from visiting national forests and other outdoor spaces altogether,” the organization said in a press release following the Wilson Creek operation.
The Sierra Club warned that the expansion of 287(g) agreements across the country and increased ICE funding could “bring similar operations to more communities and public recreation areas.”
This article first appeared on NCLocal and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.