Federal Border Patrol agents have left Charlotte, N.C., local officials said on Thursday, ending a brief operation that had expanded the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration to a moderately blue city in a swing state.
Mayor Vi Lyles, a Democrat, said in a statement that she was “relieved for our community and the residents, businesses, and all those who were targeted and impacted by this intrusion.”
The Border Patrol, which carried out similar operations in Los Angeles and Chicago earlier this year, attracted significant criticism in North Carolina’s largest city, a rapidly growing metropolitan area, far from the nation’s borders, that has quietly become a hub for international migration over the years, especially from Latin America.
Local officials, residents and advocates for immigrants had said the federal agents’ presence — in paramilitary uniforms, masks and unmarked S.U.V.s — had only provoked fear in immigrant neighborhoods where businesses closed and workers hid. Many of them accused the agents of profiling Latinos.
The operation had also laid bare the tensions that had been simmering for years in Charlotte over immigration and crime. Republican officials praised the effort, which they said had made the city safer.
The Department of Homeland Security said more than 370 people had been arrested in the operation. Forty-four of the people had criminal records, the agency said.
Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C.
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