Federal immigration agents pull out of Charlotte after less than a week

The Department of Homeland Security concluded its latest immigration operation Thursday, according to the sheriff in Charlotte, North Carolina, though the federal agency disputed that.

Federal officials told Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden that “Operation Charlotte’s Web” had wrapped up, McFadden said in a news release, less than a week after it started.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin insisted “the operation is not over and it is not ending anytime soon.” The agency has typically not announced its withdrawal after standing down from previous surges in cities such as Chicago.

And McFadden acknowledged that immigration enforcement officers would still be active in the area. “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will continue to operate in as they always have,” he said in the release.

The operation, which began Saturday over objections from state and local leaders, resulted in about 370 arrests, according to the DHS.

The effort in Charlotte was notably shorter and resulted in a significantly smaller amount of arrests than similar operations such as “Operation Midway Blitz,” which has seen 614 arrests in and around Chicago since it began in September.

The DHS also did not officially announce a conclusion to the Chicago operation, but the agency left its command center at Naval Station Great Lakes on Sunday.

Still, Charlotte experienced major disruptions amid the whiplash. Schools and places of worship, particularly Spanish-language churches, saw many people stay home at the start of the highly publicized operation.

Public schools in the area saw attendance plummet early in the week, with more than 30,000 students — nearly 20% of all those enrolled in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg public school district — absent Monday, according to unofficial attendance data shared by the district. The district did not comment on how that compares to the average daily absence rate, but public data suggests that last year, it was around 9%.

Mayor Vi Lyles welcomed the operation’s end, saying in a statement that she is “relieved for our community and the residents, businesses, and all those who were targeted and impacted by this intrusion.”