Maribel Hastings
Posted December 4, 2025
Like other cities across the country, Charlotte, North Carolina, owes a debt of gratitude to the immigrant workers who, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, built 13 skyscrapers in five years to attract economic activity. And as in other cities across the country under the current administration, the response has been a literal hunt to detain and deport those immigrants.
Charlotte joined the list of Democratic-led cities receiving Trump’s violent deportation crackdown, with the number of detainees exceeding 130 in the first 48 hours, including some U.S. citizens due to racial profiling by ICE and Border Patrol agents. Citizens such as Willy Aceituno, whom agents tried to arrest by smashing the windows of his vehicle, causing him lacerations.
Two of the factors that drew the federal government’s attention to Charlotte were, first, the August murder of a young refugee from Ukraine on a train by an individual with apparent mental health issues. The incident was used as an example of the “out of control” crime in Democratic cities, even though there are Republican cities with higher crime rates that are off Trump’s radar.
Now it is every man for himself, and not even citizens are safe.
Second, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, a Democrat, has refused to cooperate with ICE on immigration enforcement. McFadden gained notoriety for revoking the 287(g) agreement with ICE in 2018. This voluntary program is implemented in jails by notifying ICE of detainees suspected of being undocumented. It also allows local and state police to enforce immigration laws.
In other words, Charlotte has enjoyed a balance of power between Republicans and Democrats that has allowed figures such as McFadden to rise in a state like North Carolina, which is considered a swing state and in November 2024 supported Trump for president while electing a Democratic governor, Josh Stein.
But aside from partisan political considerations, Charlotte is like so many other American cities where immigrants are the backbone and engine of demographic and economic growth. However, at the same time, old prejudices about new residents of color persist. The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there are 28 hate groups and 17 anti-government groups in North Carolina.
For example, Charlotte was one of the cities with the fastest-growing foreign population in the country. Between 1990 and 2010, the Latino population in Mecklenburg County grew by 1,500%. And since 2010, the Hispanic population has increased by 50%.
According to the American Immigration Council and based on 2023 figures, 12% of Charlotte’s population is immigrants, approximately 330,300 people who pay $4.1 billion in taxes and have a purchasing power of $11.7 billion.
Meanwhile, they improve their living conditions, benefiting the communities where they live. They open businesses, are consumers, acquire property, build more buildings, care for children and older people, clean gardens, and operate restaurants. In other words, they make life easier for everyone, even though many of them are still waiting for Congress to make life easier for them by legalizing them.
Although there have always been operations and raids, perhaps in the past, the violence was not as harsh in the interior of the country, and agents adhered to specific protocols. But now it is every man for himself, and not even citizens are safe.
This weekend, Last month, agents entered church grounds to arrest an immigrant and attempted to take others away—parishioners who were cleaning the courtyard scattered and fled.
One of them was 15-year-old Miguel Vázquez, who asked himself the same question as many others. “I thought, ‘Wait, why am I running away? I’m a citizen.”
Rafael Prieto Zartha is a veteran journalist and community leader. This Colombian and naturalized U.S. citizen has witnessed firsthand the demographic changes in Charlotte, including the growth of the Hispanic population and, with it, its achievements and challenges.
He knows the ins and outs of migration in the city and the state. He says that, in his more than 4 decades living in the United States and 24 years in Charlotte, he has never experienced an environment as hostile and violent as the current one.
“I don’t think they’re coming to get me at my house, but I’m going out with my passport because you’re not exempt from being arrested for the way you talk (with an accent),” he said.
A sad reminder of Trump’s reign of terror.
Maribel Hastings is a Senior Advisor to América’s Voice.
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- Fighting the Extremism That Impacts us All - October 31, 2025
