(The Center Square) – Operation Charlotte’s Web “isn’t ending anytime soon,” says the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin’s words Thursday was in response to reports citing Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden saying he had confirmed the end of the operation with the agency. Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles on Thursday echoed the sheriff.
McLaughlin responded to a media outlet’s headline of “Charlotte’s Web Over” by writing on social media late Thursday afternoon, “Wrong. Operation Charlotte’s Web isn’t ending anytime soon.”
And on the Homeland Security social media, posted about the same time, a meme depicting a man hiding in shrubbery carried the words, “Dear Criminal Illegal Aliens: we are gone. It is safe to come out!”
Homeland Security’s enhanced enforcement of immigration laws began on Saturday of last weekend. The Triangle area of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill were visited Tuesday.
Within Homeland Security is the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, and the U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement.
Homeland Security’s field office of Enforcement and Removal Operations in Atlanta oversees Georgia and the Carolinas. Even before Charlotte’s Web, it had a presence since the presidential administration began work in January to enforce the law with respect to immigration and borders.
Arrests between the state’s two largest metropolitan areas were in the hundreds. Multiple reports crediting Homeland Security for information said 370 were made, though it was unclear if that was only Charlotte or across the state.
Second-term Republican President Donald Trump has made enforcement of immigration law and border security one of the top priorities of his second administration. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former governor of South Dakota after nearly a decade in the U.S. House of Representatives, has directed staff to multiple immigration enforcement operations in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland and the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Similar to Americans using passports, visas or other documentation to visit foreign countries, so too does the law require those coming into the United States to do so. The vast majority follow these laws.
