Update June 15, 2026:
More than six months ago in Charlotte, federal immigration agents spilled out of dark, unmarked SUVs with out-of-state tags and interrogated people at daycares, grocery stores and restaurants. They chased people down streets, wrestled them to the ground and handcuffed them.
The officers, often dressed in camouflage and wearing masks, loaded people in the backs of cars as onlookers blew whistles and screamed about human decency.
Along with our partner organizations, NC Local covered the “Charlotte’s Web” immigration enforcement operation as it unfolded. Even as we reported news of what was happening on the ground, we also began to try to piece together the identities of those who were taken — a task even friends and family of the detained struggled to do.
Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, claimed the actions resulted in the detention of “the worst of the worst” criminals. We asked the federal government for basic information including who agents detained, where those people were taken and what criminal charges they faced.
In November, when we didn’t receive the requested information, our reporter Jacob Biba made formal public records requests, called FOIAs. In December, he asked for body camera footage from the officers. The government acknowledged our requests and denied some of them, but it has not provided any substantive response or any records.
This spring, we were fortunate to receive pro bono assistance from Covington & Burling through the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press ProJourn program who sent a letter to the government in March, repeating our requests. The only response was an automated email with none of the information we requested.
Pursuing legal action isn’t something we take lightly, but it is often the only available recourse when the U.S. government fails in its legal obligation to keep public records open and accessible to taxpayers. That’s why this week, we filed a lawsuit in federal court asking for the government to be required to disclose the public records.
We are pressing for this information because frankly, the records aren’t ours. They are yours — they belong to the public. Transparency in legal proceedings is a bedrock principle of our democracy, and the American public’s right to court records and other government-produced documents is, thankfully, enshrined in federal law. We believe government officials should not stand in the way of the people’s right to know when members of their community are detained.
We will continue to pursue this story. Follow updates on our homepage.
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March 17, 2026 Letter to Readers:
Dear reader,
I’m Laura, the editorial director at NC Local.
Most of the time, we report and produce the news without pulling back the curtain on our process, but we recently took some action that I think is important enough to tell you what we did and why we did it. And the timing is right because this is Sunshine Week, an annual national recognition of the importance of government being open and accountable to the public.
Let me back up and make sure you know the background: Last month, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis requested information about the immigration enforcement actions by ICE and Border Patrol late last year. Then, in a hearing this month, he confronted now-former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the agency’s failure to respond.
The conversation continued when Vice President JD Vance appeared in Rocky Mount last week. When asked about the request, he said new leadership at the department would get a response to Tillis’ questions.
We reported on those immigration actions last fall in partnership with several other news outlets in Charlotte and the Triangle. Federal officials released 20 names and photographs of detained people they deemed “the worst of the worst.”
At the time, we had the same questions Sen. Tillis later asked.
We asked ICE spokespeople for more details about the remainder of the more than 400 people they said were detained. When they refused to give us any details, reporter Jacob Biba filed multiple public records requests asking for the status of all arrests and detentions beginning in mid-November. Since then, the federal government has not responded to those requests other than to confirm receipt of, or deny, our requests.
We have been waiting for more than 100 days for any information about the arrests or the location of those who were detained, and our attorneys are now working to help us try to get the government to comply with our requests.
Several dozen community leaders and organizations issued a letter backing the ACLU’s similar request for transparency about the immigration action, according to our partner WFAE.
Here’s the bottom line: We believe the public has a right to know the details when our government arrests and detains people in our communities. We believe the press has a responsibility to pursue that information. And we believe the law requires it.
If you agree, consider making a contribution to help fund this important work.
Transparency and open government are core principles of our democracy, and they don’t just apply to the feds. We teamed up with The Assembly, WFAE and WUNC to test our state public records law, specifically the provision requiring agencies respond “as promptly as possible.” Turns out “promptly” means different things to different officials. More on that below.
