Raleigh mayor Janet Cowell was short on details Monday night when she confirmed that federal agents would be conducting immigration enforcement operations in the area this week.
“We have not been informed of, nor are we coordinating or helping plan, any of this, so we don’t know what activities they’ll be undertaking tomorrow,” she told the INDY on a call shortly after seven p.m.
By Tuesday morning, reported sightings of immigration agents in the Triangle—and the arrests of residents—began rolling in on social media and in Signal chats.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents were photographed taking someone from the Home Depot on Walnut Street in Cary early Tuesday morning. Around 11 a.m., agents arrived at The Pointe apartments on Navaho Drive in Raleigh “looking for immigrants to arrest,” the advocacy organization Siembra NC posted on Facebook.
“Siembra NC has confirmed the detention of landscape workers in Raleigh, construction workers at the Lightbridge Academy in Cary, people detained while walking on the sidewalk in front of the Morazan Restaurant in Raleigh, walking outside the Tree Top Apartments in Raleigh, and at several other apartment complexes,” the group wrote in an email to media outlets just before three p.m.
Key questions remain unanswered, including how many CBP agents have been deployed to the Triangle, how long they’ll remain here, and how many people have been detained. Hundreds of Border Patrol agents arrived in Charlotte over the weekend, arresting at least 200 people so far as part of “Operation Charlotte’s Web.”
National media outlets have reported that the CBP will likely wrap up Operation Charlotte’s Web on Friday, redeploying those agents to New Orleans. Other reports have indicated that immigration agents will soon leave Wake County as well.
But many Raleigh residents are wary, with some choosing to stay home from work and school until they feel they are safe again.
“People are terrified,” says Iliana Santillán, the founder and executive director of Brava NC, a grassroots organization that advocates for the Latino community. “It’s different because people are just so scared that they start thinking things where they’re not. Like, it might not be an immigration contact, but they’re just fearful of that.”
From their hub on North Tarboro Street in southeast Raleigh, community defense teams with Brava NC, the student advocacy group Education Justice Alliance, and other local nonprofits were sending out brigades focused on community safety and supporting Latino businesses every two hours, beginning at 9:30 a.m.
“There’s so many people with good intentions right now, and we need to just capitalize on that,” says Brava NC’s Santillán. She noted that local businesses in Charlotte have closed amid the fears of immigration raids.
“We don’t want that to happen in Raleigh,” she says. “Even if some businesses are closed right now, folks are still encouraged to stop by, discover a new favorite Mexican restaurant. We’re asking folks to really step out of their comfort zone, go venture into their immigrant communities, and support them.”
At a late afternoon press conference outside the blue historic home that serves as the groups’ headquarters, representatives told reporters about other ways people can help.
Jenice Ramirez-Garvin, a co-director of the Education Justice Alliance, called on allies to pack the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) school board meeting Tuesday evening “and let our school district know that the voices of our parents, and our students, and our community members are important.”
“We want to send a clear message [that] our children deserve better,” Ramirez-Garvin said. “During these times, we need our school board members and our superintendents to name that it is OK if you do not feel safe coming to school, that there are alternatives. We want our school districts to let our families know that they are valued and that they are cared for in our schools, that our teachers understand the fear that parents in our community hold.”
Ramirez-Garvin said packing the meeting would put pressure on the school board to let families know exactly what they’re doing to keep students safe in school buildings and at bus stops.
WCPSS released a statement yesterday asserting its support for “staff and families amid recent federal immigration orders.” It did little to assuage fears.
“Building leaders have been reminded of the procedures that law enforcement agencies must follow when interacting with students on campus,” the statement said. “If law enforcement seeks access to a school, we will consult with legal counsel to ensure compliance with applicable laws.”
The district doesn’t ask for or record any information about the immigration status of students or families, the statement continued.
Ramirez-Garvin said this isn’t enough.
“Our parents need to know that inside of the school, there is clear information and guidance given to the educators,” she said. “There has been zero information given to us about what the teachers know to do and not do. We’ve spoken to educators across the state that don’t fully understand what the policies are, what the practices are, and that means that there isn’t proper training.”
In an email Wednesday morning, WCPSS spokesperson Lisa Luten told the INDY that there had been no immigration activity or arrests on any school campus reported on Tuesday. But more than 19,000 students across the district were absent from school, over 10 percent of the student population.
By five p.m., several hundred people had gathered in Moore Square in downtown Raleigh before marching through the streets to protest federal immigration agents’ presence in the Triangle.
Kids perched on parents’ shoulders, and teenagers wore big Mexican and Honduran flags like capes. A white-haired man with a cane walked slowly, carrying a sheet of lined paper reading “FUCK ICE.”
“I’m just doing it for the people that can’t,” says Edith Zavala, a Raleigh resident who says the city felt fearful and “heavy” Tuesday. “I know there are so many people in our community that are afraid to go to work, even go grocery shopping.”
Josh, a student at N.C. State University, says this was his first protest. (He and others who spoke to the INDY at the protest and community events declined to provide last names.)
“My dad came here from Nicaragua, and him and so many other people, they struggle every day just to make a life for themselves,” Josh says. “At the end of the day, these are people that are just trying to live their lives, and they should be able to do that in peace and not have to live in fear.”
“It’s straight up just racial profiling,” says Niki, a downtown Raleigh resident who came alone to the protest but has quickly made friends. “My sign says, ‘ICE commits more crimes than immigrants,’ because they’re breaking the Constitution, and they’re breaking all of the local and federal laws every single day, and they’re getting away with it.”
Tuesday evening’s rally and march was organized by the Triangle branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and Nuestro Barrio Liberation Cafe, a cultural organization based in East Durham.
Tania Trejo-Mendez, one of the PSL organizers, said when the group learned late Monday night that federal immigration agents were coming, they decided to “come out in a show of force and demand that Governor Josh Stein make a stronger stance against these raids and ask for folks to get organized to protect their neighbors.”
Trejo-Mendez wasn’t the only protester who found Stein’s response lacking. On Friday, Stein released a statement that said in part, “We should all focus on arresting violent criminals and drug traffickers,” while also calling on North Carolinians to follow the law and “stand with our neighbors.”
“He’s telling us he’s useless!” one protester screamed into a megaphone, drawing cheers. “But the working people of North Carolina are marching to a different drum. We won’t let ICE and Border Patrol come here without massive protests.”
The marchers made their way through downtown Raleigh as the sky darkened, stopping traffic along Hargett Street as they chanted, “What do we do? Stand up, fight back!” in ragged voices.
As the rally proceeded, at least 200 more people packed the pews at nearby Pullen Memorial Baptist Church on Hillsborough Street for a meeting to come together for community care and training to prepare for an organized response to the federal presence.
“We are in a horrific moment in our nation,” said Rev. Nancy Petty, who leads the church, as she welcomed the crowd. “Our large cities and our small cities are being attacked and our neighbors are being attacked and so we want to come together and learn how to keep each other safe and to protect one another as our current administration is putting people at great risk, particularly our immigrant family that is so gifted and critical to our lives.”
Durham-based community organizers Manju Rajendran and Anna Duncan from Ready the Ground Training Team led the group in an interactive session designed to teach participants how to take nonviolent direct action when they encounter immigration agents. They asked everyone to pair up for listening and role-playing scenarios, and the first task was to tell your partner why they’re “lucky to be your buddy.”
Daniel, a middle-aged dad from North Raleigh, told the INDY he feels “very motivated, because I want to be an example to my children and because of my religion, I just want to serve the community any way I can.”
Afterward, the pairs practiced how to attempt to verify ICE and CBP agents and document any encounters safely, with the goal of taking what they learned into the community via volunteer work through groups like Siembra NC and Wake County-based Radar Safe and Wake Resiste.
“We’re really taking a multiday training and condensing it into about an hour and a half,” Rajendran told the crowd.
By 8:30 p.m., the crowd at Pullen thinned.
By 11 p.m., reports emerged that the Department of Homeland Security was scaling back its operations in the Triangle. The INDY has not been able to confirm this information with DHS, which isn’t required to inform local agencies of its plans; a spokesperson told the INDY the department doesn’t discuss “future or potential operations.”
“We have heard that operations here are suspended,” wrote City of Raleigh public information officer Julia Milstead in an email to the INDY on Wednesday morning. “But our information is not official.”
For now, Wake County residents are still on edge.
Send an email to Wake County editor Jane Porter: [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].
Chloe Courtney Bohl is a Report for America corps member. Follow her on Bluesky or reach her at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].
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