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Trump's War on Mail-in Voting is Hitting a Brick Wall—But the Danger is Far From Over
Allowing Trump's mail-in voting restrictions to take effect "would be a break-glass moment for our democracy," said one critic.
Sep 06, 2026
President Donald Trump's crusade against mail-in voting is running into a brick wall, although many critics are warning that the dangers to democracy are far from over.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Trump is "running out of options" to change mail-in voting rules that "don't involve significant upheaval," as states have already started sending out ballots to voters.
In March, Trump signed an executive order that instructed the United States Postal Service to not deliver ballots in any states that have not given the federal government access to its voter lists.
However, that order is currently tied up in court, and both Wisconsin and North Carolina last week began mailing out ballots to voters, the Post reported.
Don Millis, a Republican who chairs the Wisconsin Elections Commission, told the Post that "there's no practical way for Wisconsin clerks to comply" with Trump's orders, adding that the president's schemes targeting mail-in voting are likely to "hurt the Republican turnout more than the Democratic turnout."
The Trump administration has been pushing the US Supreme Court to intervene to allow the president's executive order to take effect.
However, as noted in a Politico report published on Friday, nine other states are set to send ballots to voters over the next two weeks, which would make a last-minute ruling by the court an unprecedented disruption in the democratic process.
"It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect," Ben Hovland, senior fellow for democracy at the Center for American Progress, told Politico. "It's hard to even imagine... It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy."
However, Hovland said that Trump's election meddling effort could still do real damage to the country because it can "dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote" and "establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results."
Hovland's concerns about the president's intentions were echoed in a Sunday report in The New York Times, which found voters across the country expressing confusion about the voting process and anxiety over whether their votes will be counted this year.
Pima County, Arizona Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly told the Times that her office has received a flood of calls from worried voters, and she said that the president's relentless push to restrict voting by mail has left her unable to provide reassuring answers.
"I wish that I could tell my constituents to not worry," said Cázares-Kelly, "and I can’t."
Rich Cooper, elections manager in Clark County, Washington, similarly told the Times he has been unable to ease voters' worries about what rules will govern this year's elections.
“The biggest thing they want to know is if things are going to change,” Cooper said of voters expressing concerns. “We have to tell them we just don’t know yet.”
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Trump Admin Sued Over 'Unlawful Warrantless Arrests' During North Carolina ICE Blitz
“I am a US citizen, but my papers did not protect me,” said one plaintiff. “I want to be involved in this case because I don’t want this to happen to anyone else."
Feb 24, 2026
A coalition of advocacy groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday "seeking to prevent a pattern of unlawful warrantless arrests in North Carolina that is harming communities" during the Trump administration's deadly crackdown on undocumented immigrants and their defenders.
Democracy Forward, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) sued the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on behalf of five individuals, including four American citizens and one legal US resident from El Salvador.
“I am a US citizen, but my papers did not protect me,” 46-year-old plaintiff Willy Aceituno said in a statement. “I want to be involved in this case because I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. I want to help protect my Latino family, friends, and neighbors.”
Another plaintiff, 23-year-old North Carolina native Yoshi Cuenca Villamar, said: “I have a lot of fear that this will happen to me again. I was essentially kidnapped based only on the color of my skin. That really weighs on me."
“I think it is important to take action through this case so that the government starts doing their jobs correctly instead of stopping people solely because they look a certain way," Cuenca added.
Democracy Forward said in a statement announcing the lawsuit: "In mid-November, the Trump-Vance administration accelerated its immigration crackdown across North Carolina during Operation Charlotte’s Web. Heavily armed, masked DHS agents, including ICE and CBP officers, roamed Charlotte, Durham, Raleigh, and other communities, detaining and arresting people indiscriminately without warrants or legal justification."
"Each plaintiff was arrested by DHS agents without probable cause to believe that they are legally removable from the country and that they pose a flight risk—determinations required under federal law for warrantless arrests," Democracy Forward continued.
The plaintiffs “represent a class of individuals who have been or will be subjected to warrantless immigration arrests by DHS in North Carolina, including arrests made without probable cause based on flight risk or removability," the group added. "They ask the federal court for the Western District of North Carolina to declare DHS’ mass warrantless arrest policy unlawful and to issue a permanent injunction blocking these unlawful practices.”
ACLU-NC staff attorney Corina Scott said in a statement Tuesday: “Federal immigration agents have consistently ignored the law and trampled civil rights in North Carolina. This lawsuit seeks to stop this abuse of power and demand accountability going forward so that our communities do not continue to suffer violent and unlawful arrests.”
We just filed the first class action lawsuit challenging unlawful warrantless immigration arrests in North Carolina amid the federal government's crackdown. Join us in calling for an end to ICE & CBP terror! https://rebrand.ly/iceout
[image or embed]
— ACLU of North Carolina (@aclunc.bsky.social) February 24, 2026 at 2:40 PM
Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said that “when armed, masked agents are breaking car windows, handcuffing people without probable cause, and dumping them on the side of the road, that is not law enforcement, it is lawlessness."
"Congress was explicit: Warrantless immigration arrests require individualized probable cause to be proven," she noted. "That standard is not optional based on the whims of whoever is in the White House. [DHS] is carrying out mass arrests that disregard the limits that Congress imposed and the Constitution requires. Federal agencies do not have the authority to sweep up people in America—whether they are US citizens, lawful residents, or anyone else—without legal justification."
"This case is about restoring basic guardrails on government power and ensuring that federal officers follow the law they are sworn to uphold," Perryman added.
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North Carolina Students Walk Over a Mile to Vote After GOP Shut Down Campus Polling Places
"Aggies do what is necessary for our rights, for our survival, and for our people,” said one student organizer at North Carolina A&T State University, the largest historically Black college in the nation.
Feb 14, 2026
As early voting began for the state primaries, North Carolina college students found themselves walking more than a mile to cast their ballots after the Republican-controlled State Board of Elections closed polling places on their campuses.
The board, which shifted to a 3-2 GOP majority, voted last month to close a polling site at Western Carolina University and to reject the creation of polling sites at two other colleges—the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNC Greensboro), and the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T), the largest historically Black college in the nation. Each of these schools had polling places available on campus during the 2024 election.
The decision, which came just weeks before early voting was scheduled to begin, left many of the 40,000 students who attend these schools more than a mile away from the nearest polling place.
It was the latest of many efforts by North Carolina Republicans to restrict voting ahead of the 2026 midterms: They also cut polling place hours in dozens of counties and eliminated early voting on Sundays in some, which dealt a blow to "Souls to the Polls" efforts led by Black churches.
A lawsuit filed late last month by a group of students at the three schools said, “as a result, students who do not have access to private transportation must now walk that distance—which includes walking along a highway that lacks any pedestrian infrastructure—to exercise their right to vote.
The students argued that this violates their access to the ballot and to same-day registration, which is only available during the early voting period.
Last week, a federal judge rejected their demand to open the three polling centers. Jay Pavey, a Republican member of the Jackson County elections board, who voted to close the WCU polling site, dismissed fears that it would limit voting.
“If you really want to vote, you'll find a way to go one mile,” Pavey said.
Despite the hurdles, hundreds of students in the critical battleground state remained determined to cast a ballot as early voting opened.
On Friday, a video posted by the Smoky Mountain News showed dozens of students marching in a line from WCU "to their new polling place," at the Jackson County Recreation Center, "1.7 miles down a busy highway with no sidewalks."
The university and on-campus groups also organized shuttles to and from the polling place.
A similar scene was documented at NC A&T, where about 60 students marched to their nearest polling place at a courthouse more than 1.3 miles away.
The students described their march as a protest against the state's decision, which they viewed as an attempt to limit their power at the ballot box.
The campus is no stranger to standing up against injustice. February 1 marked the 66th anniversary of when four Black NC A&T students launched one of the most pivotal protests of the civil rights movement, sitting down at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Greensboro—an act that sparked a wave of nonviolent civil disobedience across the South.
"Aggies do what is necessary for our rights, for our survival, and for our people,” Jae'lah Monet, one of the student organizers of the march, told Spectrum News 1.
Monet said she and other students will do what is necessary to get students to the polls safely and to demonstrate to the state board the importance of having a polling place on campus. She said several similar events will take place throughout the early voting period.
"We will be there all day, and we will all get a chance to vote," Monet said.
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Charlotte’s Web, Redeployed: A Children’s Tale in the Hands of Power
White’s literary legacy is rooted in empathy, care, and the affirmation of life; the bureaucratic appropriation of his title stands in stark, almost satirical contrast to the world he sought to illuminate.
Nov 19, 2025
Growing up, there were a few books that left an indelible mark on me. Charlotte’s Web was one of them. Tolerance. Embracing those who are different. Overcoming fears. Seeing miracles in the ordinary. Having faith in the goodness of our neighbors. Love.
So when I saw that a federal immigration sweep in Charlotte, North Carolina had been named Charlotte’s Web, I felt a sharp, immediate repulsion. They were being clever—but how many of them had actually read the book? How different this country might be if more people absorbed its lessons: that protecting the vulnerable is an act of courage, not political theater.
Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899-October 1, 1985) was an American writer whose work has endured across generations. He authored beloved children’s books, including Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte’s Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970). In a 2012 survey of School Library Journal readers, Charlotte’s Web ranked first among the top 100 children’s novels. Beyond children’s literature, White contributed to The New Yorker and co-authored The Elements of Style, the iconic English-language style guide. Kurt Vonnegut described him as “one of the most admirable prose stylists our country has so far produced.”
It is in this context—of a writer celebrated for clarity, humanity, and moral vision—that the repurposing of Charlotte’s Web for a mass immigration raid becomes especially jarring. White’s literary legacy is rooted in empathy, care, and the affirmation of life; the bureaucratic appropriation of his title stands in stark, almost satirical contrast to the world he sought to illuminate.
Charlotte herself, the real Charlotte, not the bureaucratic parody, spins her web to protect, not punish. She acts out of friendship, not force.
On a quiet Saturday in Charlotte, 81 people were arrested in roughly five hours as federal agents conducted a phase of the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration crackdown. Officers swept neighborhoods near churches and apartment complexes. Streets were unusually empty, businesses shuttered, and families stayed home, unsure whether their neighbors, or the law, could be trusted.
Gregory Bovino, the North Carolina-born Border Patrol commander leading “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” posted on X a quotation from the story’s ending, when Charlotte’s children float away on the wind:
Wherever the wind takes us. High, low. Near, far. East, west. North, south. We take to the breeze, we go as we please.
The irony is almost literary. In White’s story, the line is a meditation on freedom, impermanence, and the continuity of life, Charlotte’s children carried safely into a larger world after she has saved the pig. In Bovino’s hands, it frames a mass roundup, turning human beings into objects carried off by a bureaucratic breeze.
White himself described the inspiration behind Charlotte’s Web:
The theme of Charlotte’s Web is that a pig shall be saved, and I have an idea that somewhere deep inside me there was a wish to that effect.
Martha White, who manages her grandfather’s literary estate, made clear that his ethos could not be more distant from these raids. E.B. White “certainly didn’t believe in masked men, in unmarked cars, raiding people’s homes and workplaces without IDs or summons,” she told CNN, adding, “He didn’t condone fearmongering.” He believed in due process, in the rule of law, and in the basic dignity of life.
The spectacle of the Charlotte operation extended to social media, where detainees’ faces and alleged criminal histories were posted as proof of public safety. Here, White’s words carry a sting:
Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print.
Activists handed out whistles to warn neighbors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence. Community members skipped work, school, and medical appointments. One dental clinic alone reported nine cancellations.
“Latinos love this country. They came here to escape socialism and communism, and they’re hard workers and people of faith,” said Paola Garcia, spokesperson for Camino, a nonprofit serving Charlotte’s Latino community. “They love their family, and it’s just so sad to see that this community now has this target on their back.”
Nikki Marín Baena, co-director of immigrant advocacy group Siembra NC, called the operation “a shameful day for the North Carolina Republican Party,” noting the celebration of what she described as “terrorist operations” and the recycling of Bovino’s rhetoric about “going after criminals.”
Before Saturday, the largest number of immigrant arrests in a single day in North Carolina was 30. Eighty-one in five hours—nearly triple the previous record, underscores the unprecedented scale of federal enforcement in a city already trembling with fear.
White wrote:
All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.
And Charlotte herself, the real Charlotte, not the bureaucratic parody, spins her web to protect, not punish. She acts out of friendship, not force:
You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you… By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.
The contrast is stark. Charlotte’s web lifts; the raids constrict. The story teaches mercy; the sweep instills fear. Charlotte’s purpose is care; the operation’s purpose is spectacle. As White noted elsewhere:
One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.
Here, millions of hours of planning, messaging, and social-media framing were devoted to constructing enemies, while the human cost, fear, disruption, and trauma, remained largely invisible.
White’s fascination with animals and mortality lent his work an “eerie quality,” and he often described books themselves as “sneezes,” unexpected, uncontainable eruptions of human empathy. In Charlotte, North Carolina, this real-life web demonstrates the inverse: a calculated, coldly measured maneuver, a bureaucratic sneeze that spreads fear instead of care:
The world is full of talkers, but it is rare to find anyone who listens. And I assure you that you can pick up more information when you are listening than when you are talking.
The authorities talked. They posted. They broadcast. But they did not listen. Families stayed home. Children missed school. Communities watched one another with suspicion. Safety, in the administration’s terms, was achieved only at the expense of freedom. And yet, White reminds us:
Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
This is Charlotte’s enduring lesson: the value of life, the importance of compassion, the courage to act out of love. Freedom, dignity, and human connection cannot be suspended at the altar of political performance. The people caught in this web may be removed, but their absence leaves a void that no number of arrests can fill.
Charlotte’s web, whether in a children’s book or in our daily lives, asks us to choose differently. To see, to listen, to protect. To be, as White’s story quietly insists, the kind of neighbor, and the kind of nation, that spins webs of care instead of cages.
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'This Is Our Reality': Charlotte Residents Horrified After Border Patrol Arrests Women for Honking Car Horn
"Our city has gone from a thriving city to a standstill," said one local official.
Nov 18, 2025
Residents in Charlotte, North Carolina are expressing outrage after two local women were arrested for honking their car horn to alert others that US Border Patrol was in the area.
Local news station WCNC reported on Monday that the two women, who are US citizens, were taken into custody in the city's Plaza Midwood neighborhood after Border Patrol agents pulled them over and accused them of interfering in operations by honking their horn.
Video of the incident shows masked federal agents yelling at the women and demanding that they roll down their car windows. When the women do not comply, one officer smashes through the window and then he and other officers pull them out of the vehicle.
The two women, who have not been identified, then spent several hours in an FBI facility before being released with citations.
Local resident Shea Watts, who took video of the encounter, told WCNC that he was feeling "somewhere between disbelief and just being really upset that this is our reality now" as he watched the incident unfold.
Watts also discussed his own interactions with the federal officers whom he was filming.
"I was already close to despair and feeling helpless and hopeless," he said. "But I think just the reminder that if we see something, to document it. I tried to be respectful and ask questions and knowing my own rights, and I was told to back up a couple times, which, that's fine, but at the end of the day, this all feels a little heavy handed."
Charlotte has become the latest target of the Trump administration's mass deportation operation, which has already drawn opposition from both local residents and elected officials in the North Carolina city.
NBC News reported on Monday that many Charlotte residents are living in fear of immigration operations in the city, with some local businesses closing down and some local churches reporting dramatic drops in attendance during the current operation.
Jonathan Ocampo, US citizen of Colombian descent who lives in the area, told NBC News that he's started carrying his passport with him everywhere for fear of being mistaken for an undocumented immigrant.
"I’m carrying it here right now, which is sad," he said. "It's just scary."
Charlotte city council member-elect JD Mazuera Arias told The Guardian on Monday that the immigration enforcement operations have had a chilling effect on the entire community.
"Our city has gone from a thriving city to a standstill," he said.
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Charlotte Residents Defend Community as ICE Arrives for Latest Trump Immigration Crackdown
"In a scenario where this administration is trying to sow division," said one local organizer, "we see an organic movement of community members trying to provide support and assistance.”
Nov 17, 2025
In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Trump administration's latest anti-immigration crackdown garnered headlines over the weekend both for "how inhumane and aggressive" the operations by US Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were, as one journalist said, and the action that local residents immediately took to protect their neighbors from arrests and raids.
"I just started recording them," said Rheba Hamilton after federal agents pulled up to her house in a vehicle and intimidated two Latino men who were decorating the trees in her yard. "They left."
As the agents pulled away, she yelled, "Get the hell out of my yard, you assholes!"
Hamilton, who told The New York Times she had tried to warn the workers against hanging the Christmas lights due to the deportation operations, said it was "terrifying" to see Border Patrol agents on her property.
"I was concerned about this happening," Hamilton said. "We've got great people here... Nobody's going to regret moving here if you come here with the right kind of heart, and that includes our immigrants."
Hamilton filmed the Border Patrol agents after North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, called on Charlotte residents to "bear witness" to ICE arrests and raids at businesses and homes as the Trump administration launched "Operation Charlotte's Web"—the latest stop on its nationwide attack on immigrant and Latino communities, which has also unfolded in Chicago and other cities.
“If you see any inappropriate behavior, use your phones to record and notify local law enforcement, who will continue to keep our communities safe long after these federal agents leave,” said Stein last week.
Operation Charlotte's Web began as the administration released the names of more than 600 people detained in the Chicago area whose arrests may have violated a court order, and revealed that just 16 of them had an alleged criminal history.
More than 3,000 people in all have been arrested in the Chicago area since ICE and other federal agencies began "Operation Midway Blitz" in September.
Border Patrol Commander-at-large Gregory Bovino reported that at least 81 people were arrested in Charlotte by the end of the weekend, with the mass arrests completed in about five hours, and claimed that those who were taken into custody had “significant criminal and immigration history"—similar claims that have been made about the operations in Chicago.
The local advocacy group Siembra NC said “the most immigrants were arrested in a single day in state history" on Saturday.
The community development group CharlotteEast told the Guardian on Sunday that it had received an "overwhelming" number of reports from residents about Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in the area, including at places that were previously protected under the Biden administration from immigration enforcement.
“The past two hours we’ve received countless reports of CBP activity at churches, apartment complexes, and a hardware store,” executive director Greg Asciutto told the outlet.
The Charlotte Observer reported that congregants at a church in east Charlotte "scattered into the woods" after masked federal agents arrived and detained a member while the church community was doing yard work.
"The agents asked no questions and showed no identification before taking one man away, whose wife and child were inside at the time," the newspaper reported. "Inside the church, women and children sobbed as they wondered whether their loved ones had been taken."
Sam Stein of the Bulwark noted that community members "got the heads up and ran to the woods to confront ICE agents with, among other things, deafening whistles. ICE responded by threatening to throw gas canisters at them."
Advocates handed out whistles—like those used by many in Chicago in recent weeks—to local residents on Sunday, and hundreds of people packed a training session on Friday night where Carolina Migrant Network advised them on banding together to stop ICE from raiding their communities.
Charlotte NC: Activists are handing out whistles to community members to alert their neighbors to the presence of ICE and Federal Agents pic.twitter.com/0lranCzuip
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) November 16, 2025
A grocery store, Compare Foods, also announced it would be offering free delivery to keep people from having to venture out while federal agents are in the city.
"For all those customers who don't feel comfortable coming to the store in person, they can shop online, and then we will have it delivered through our delivery service to their home," said Omar Jorge, owner of the local chain.
Manolo's Bakery, meanwhile, closed over the weekend for the first time in its 28-year history, with owner Manolo Betancur telling the Observer, "We need to protect our families [from] family separation."
Stefania Arteaga of the Carolina Migrant Network told the Guardian that the grassroots weekend efforts show "allies are learning how to help their neighbors" in the city.
"In a scenario where this administration is trying to sow division," she said, "we see an organic movement of community members trying to provide support and assistance.”
Daniel Nichanian of Bolts magazine said Charlotte—which is not near a US border—likely was chosen as President Donald Trump's latest target because of a "war" between ICE and Mecklenburg County Sheriff Gary McFadden, going back to 2018 when McFadden was among five Black Democrats who won sheriff elections in the state on the promise of ending cooperation with ICE.
The agency targeted Charlotte two years later, posting billboards that showed mugshots of immigrants arrested in the area.
As with other cities Trump has targeted for mass deportation operations this year, crime has been falling in Charlotte, with an 8% decrease in overall crime last month compared to a year prior, and a 20% reduction in violent crimes.
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'We Do Not Want ICE Here': NC Officials Oppose Trump Targeting Immigrants in Charlotte
"Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity," said Congresswoman Alma Adams, warning of "what we have seen Border Patrol and ICE agents do in places like Chicago and Los Angeles."
Nov 14, 2025
Elected officials in North Carolina are letting it be known they do not want to see federal immigration raids in their communities like those suffered by other states in recent months.
As CBS News reported Friday morning that after two months of terrorizing Chicago, US Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino left for Charlotte, officials came together in his apparent destination to speak out against the looming assault on immigrants there.
"We're all gathered here from many branches of government, from obviously our state Legislature, our school board, our County Commission, our City Council members, because we do not want ICE here," said state House Rep. Aisha Dew (D-107), referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"We do not need to have Border Patrol. As I've already said, I'm not quite sure what border we're patrolling here," she continued. Stressing that the surrounding US states pose no threat to North Carolina, Dew added that "this is a safe city. Our crime rates have gone down since the previous year. This is just another something out of the playbook."
The press conference—which also included leaders of local organizations—came after various reports this week cited unnamed US officials who said President Donald Trump has set his sights on Charlotte.
Amid mounting reports of the forthcoming operation, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry L. McFadden said in a Thursday statement that he was contacted a day earlier "by two separate federal officials confirming that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel will be arriving in the Charlotte area as early as this Saturday or the beginning of next week."
"At this time, specific details regarding the federal operation have not been disclosed and the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) has not been requested to assist with or participate in any enforcement actions," the statement highlighted.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department similarly said in a Friday statement that CMPD "has no authority to enforce federal immigration laws" and "does not participate in ICE operations, nor are we involved in the planning of these federal activities."
ICE and CBP are both part of the US Department of Homeland Security. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin has declined to provide any details about possible action in Charlotte, telling multiple outlets: "Every day, DHS enforces the laws of the nation across the country. We do not discuss future or potential operations."
As the Associated Press noted Thursday:
Trump has defended sending the military and immigration agents into Democratic-run cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and even the nation's capital, saying the unprecedented operations are needed to fight crime and carry out his mass deportation agenda.
Charlotte is another such Democratic stronghold. A statement of solidarity from several local and state officials estimated the city is home to more than 150,000 foreign-born people. The city's population is about 40% white, 33% Black, 16% Hispanic, and 7% Asian.
While a spokesperson for North Carolina Congressman Tim Moore, a Republican whose district includes parts of Mecklenburg County, expressed support for DHS in a statement to the Charlotte Observer, Democratic Congresswoman Alma Adams, who represents the targeted city, sounded the alarm about the department's reported plans.
"I am extremely concerned about the deployment of US Border Patrol and ICE agents to Charlotte," Adams said in a Thursday statement. "Charlotte's immigrant community is a proud part of the Queen City, and I will not stand by and watch my constituents be intimidated or harassed."
"Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity, and what we have seen Border Patrol and ICE agents do in places like Chicago and Los Angeles—using excessive force in their operations and tear gassing peaceful protestors—threatens the well-being of the communities they enter," she continued. "Those tactics and values have no place in the city of Charlotte or Mecklenburg County."
After the sheriff's Thursday announcement, Charlotte's Democratic mayor, Vi Lyles, also shared a statement on social media: "We still don't know any details on where they may be operating and to what extent. I understand this news will create uncertainty and anxiety for many people in our community. Everyone in our community deserves to feel secure, and I am committed to doing all that I can to inform our community, help make sure everyone feels safe, and understands their rights."
"It is also important that people understand CMPD is not involved in federal immigration activities, so people who need local law enforcement services should feel secure calling 911," she added. "There continues to be rumors about enforcement activities and I would ask that everyone refrain from sharing unverified information. Doing so creates more fear and uncertainty when we need to be standing together. We will continue to work with local and state partners to do what we can to ensure the safety of our community."
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North Carolina GOP Official Uses 'Connections With the Trump Admin' to Threaten ProPublica Journalist
“I’m sure you’re aware of our connections with the Trump administration,” said the North Carolina GOP's communications director. “I would strongly suggest dropping this story.”
Oct 30, 2025
Republican Party officials are now using their "connections" to the Trump administration to threaten journalists into dropping critical coverage.
That's what Doug Bock Clark, a reporter for ProPublica, recently discovered as he worked on a feature-length story on the rise of Paul Newby, the Republican chief justice of North Carolina's Supreme Court, who has become one of the most quietly influential jurists in the nation.
The piece published Thursday examines how Newby, a born-again Christian who was elected to the bench in 2004, believes he was called by God to exact what he calls "biblical justice."
Over the past two decades, Clark wrote that Newby has "turned his perch atop North Carolina’s Supreme Court into an instrument of political power" and "driven changes that have reverberated well beyond the borders of his state."
Newby's most significant contribution has been the landmark decision that legalized partisan gerrymandering in North Carolina, a state that had long had some of the strongest laws in the country against partisan redistricting.
The change led the state's Republican-controlled Legislature to draw up wildly slanted maps that netted the GOP an additional six seats in the US House of Representatives in 2024, handing the party a national trifecta at the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term, which has allowed him to wield extraordinary power almost totally free of oversight from Congress.
It's just one of the ways, Clark said, that "Newby has provided a blueprint for conservatives to seize most of the nation’s state supreme courts, which have increasingly become the final word on abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights and voting rights."
The report drew from more than 70 interviews with those who know Newby professionally and personally. But he was unable to get in contact with Newby himself.
"I reached out to Newby multiple times during the course of my reporting and was even escorted out of a judicial conference while trying to interview him," Clark wrote on social media. "The court’s communications director and media team also didn’t respond to detailed questions."
When Clark attempted to contact Newby's daughter for comment, he instead received an ominous message from that aforementioned communications director, Matt Mercer.
Mercer ranted that ProPublica was waging a “jihad” against “NC Republicans,” which would “not be met with dignifying any comments whatsoever.”
He continued: “I’m sure you’re aware of our connections with the Trump administration, and I’m sure they would be interested in this matter. I would strongly suggest dropping this story.”
As Clark pointed out, "He bolded and underlined 'strongly,' in case we missed his point."
After the story, which made note of Mercer's threat, was published, Mercer then doubled down on social media, urging Trump to "feed ProPublica to the USAID wood chipper," referencing the president's near-total stripping of funds from the foreign aid agency.
Trump has issued an executive order slashing federal funds for media organizations supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, like NPR and PBS, in response to critical coverage of his administration. But it's not entirely clear how he would actually go about doing such a thing to ProPublica, which does not receive government dollars but instead subsists on private grants and donations.
At any rate, Mercer's messages were widely perceived as a not-so-veiled attempt to coerce ProPublica into ceasing its inquiries.
Travis Fain, a freelance reporter who previously worked for Raleigh's NBC News affiliate, WRAL, expressed disbelief at Mercer's belligerence on social media: "Well, there you go," he said. "The North Carolina Republican Party officially threatens journalists now."
Wiley Nickel, the former Democratic US House representative for North Carolina's 13th District, lamented that it was "not normal" for a party official to "threaten ProPublica with retaliation from Trump" for writing a profile about another GOP official.
Despite the threats, Clark says "ProPublica persisted" with the story that Mercer "warned [it] not to tell."
"I'm always amazed when grown-ups with jobs say things like this to journalists," said Jessica Huseman, a former ProPublica reporter. "Like, do you think that's gonna do anything but make us more eager to publish the story?"
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'Our Democracy Is Not for Sale': Bishop Barber Sues Over NC GOP's Gerrymandering
“We’ve seen this pattern before—the use of redistricting and voting laws to divide, diminish, and deny," said Bishop William Barber II.
Oct 23, 2025
Calling the North Carolina Republican Party's new congressional district map "surgical racism with surgical precision," Bishop William J. Barber II of Repairers of the Breach was in Raleigh Thursday announcing a lawsuit challenging the redistricting effort—pledging that the state's voters will "challenge gerrymandering in the courts, in the streets, and at the ballot box."
"This is a direct attack on the state's Black Belt district and marginalized communities," said Barber at a press conference announcing the legal challenge, a day after the state House of Representatives approved the new map in a party-line vote.
The new map, which was passed by the state Senate earlier this week and cannot be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Josh Stein under state law, will likely give the GOP an additional seat in the US House after the 2026 midterm elections.
President Donald Trump has called for mid-decade redistricting efforts by the GOP in states including Missouri and Texas as well as North Carolina, with state Republicans heeding his demands.
North Carolina's new map will likely give Republicans 11 of the state's 14 districts, by moving some Black voters out of the 1st District and into the 3rd District. Had the new map been in place in 2024, Trump would likely have won 55% of the vote in the new 1st District in 2024, up from the 51% he won.
Barber denounced the redistricting efforts across the country as "political robbery" by a party that wants "to rob people of their rights through this racially based gerrymandering... so that they can give power or keep power in the US Congress to engage in political violence," including by cutting healthcare and blocking the passage of living wages.
“We’ve seen this pattern before—the use of redistricting and voting laws to divide, diminish, and deny," said Barber. "But the truth is simple: When you steal people’s representation, you steal their healthcare, their wages, and their future. That’s why we will fight back... to make clear that in North Carolina, and across America, the people’s will cannot be gerrymandered out of existence."
Barber said Republicans in the state Legislature are "gambling" in order to win another seat, instead of trying to win over voters.
"They're saying, 'Let's move this county over here, let's move this county over here,' he said at the press conference. "Black voters in Congressional District 1 make up approximately 40% of the population, and there's a growing Latino population that makes up 7%... Black communities, Latino communities, and rural, working-class, poor white voters, if the districts are fair, have the power to build a fusion electorate that can overcome the greedy oligarchs' will to control elections in our state."
Along with filing a legal action against state lawmakers to challenge the legality of the map, Barber said Repairers of the Breach will hold a "Mass Moral Fusion Meeting" and public hearing on November 2.
“If they won’t hold public hearings, we will,” said Barber. “This is our Edmund Pettus Bridge moment... Black, white, and brown together—because our democracy is not for sale.”
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'RIP to Free and Fair Elections,' Say North Carolina Dems After GOP Approves New Voting Map
"They know they can't win fair and square, so they rig the maps," said the North Carolina Democratic Party. "This fight isn’t over."
Oct 22, 2025
Republicans in North Carolina have passed a new congressional map that eliminates the one genuinely competitive district in the state and makes it likely the GOP will gain an extra seat in next year's midterm elections.
As reported by local news station WRAL, the new map passed on a party-line vote in the North Carolina House of Representatives on Wednesday, and will now become law, as Democratic North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein is not allowed under state law to veto redistricting legislation.
The law's passage came even as protesters flooded the House gallery ahead of the vote and chanted, "Don’t rig the maps!" and "We need healthcare, not racist maps!"
📍Raleigh, NC
Protesters escorted out of the N.C. State House gallery chanting “we need healthcare, not racist maps”
The State House is slated for to pass a new gerrymandered congressional map as soon as this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/gx8AM5KAzi
— Alex Tabet (@AlexanderTabet) October 22, 2025
The North Carolina Democratic Party lashed out at state Republicans for ramming through the new map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
"RIP to free and fair elections in North Carolina," the party said in a social media post. "Republicans just passed rigged maps to keep power—turning our 50/50 state into an 11-3 Republican advantage at [President Donald] Trump's request. They know they can't win fair and square, so they rig the maps. This fight isn’t over. We’ll organize, we’ll mobilize, and we’ll take it back at the ballot box."
US Rep. Don Davis (D-NC), whose seat is being targeted by the GOP redistricting plan, noted in a statement that voters in his district last year voted for both him and Trump, and he argued that "not a single" one of them had ever demanded "a new congressional map redrawing eastern North Carolina."
Republicans in the Tar Heel State redrew their congressional map as part of an unprecedented mid-decade redistricting campaign being pushed by Trump to help Republicans maintain their razor-thin majority in the US House of Representatives next year. In addition to North Carolina, both Texas and Missouri have also heeded Trump's call to redraw their maps to boost their party's chances.
However, not every North Carolina Republican is on board with the scheme, as US Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) on Wednesday told Spectrum News' Reuben Jones that he supported having independent redistricting panels, and warned his party that their scheme could have unintended consequences.
"You need to be careful," said Tillis, who is not seeking reelection. "North Carolina is a purple state... if you go a little bit further, you could get surprised in an election cycle, and [it will] not go your way. So just be careful what you wish for!"
As things stand now, Republicans currently have 10 of North Carolina's 14 congressional seats, and under the new map, that is projected to increase to 11 seats.
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