Federal agents deployed to Charlotte for immigration enforcement, despite rejections from local leaders
‘No Border Patrol In Charlotte’ rally on November 15, 2025. (Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — A surge of federal agents arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday to take part in immigration arrests despite protests from the mayor and other local officials.
Eyewitnesses filmed and photographed several incidents where masked agents arrested residents. Paula Walker Coleman filmed one of the incidents at a parking lot and told ABC News she witnessed agents arrest another woman who was filming.
“She was close to their car recording and her hand hit their car while recording so they jumped out the vehicle. That’s why she was saying her hand was shaking and that’s what made her touch their car,” Coleman told ABC News.
The Border Patrol operations, led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection commander-at-large Greg Bovino and dubbed “Operation Charlotte Web,” have not yet had any major clashes with local police or people in Charlotte,” sources told ABC News.
“We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed. There have been too many victims of criminal illegal aliens and President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem will step up to protect Americans when sanctuary politicians won’t,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement.
Willy Aceituno, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Honduras, told The Associated Press he was forcibly taken into a Border Patrol vehicle and only released after showing his citizenship documents. Aceituno, who works in the Charlotte area, said he had been stopped twice by Border Patrol on Saturday, and agents smashed one of his car windows.
As word of the surge increased during the week, North Carolina officials dismissed arguments by the Trump administration that an increased federal presence was needed.
“We should all focus on arresting violent criminals and drug traffickers. Unfortunately, that’s not always what we’ve seen with ICE and Border Patrol Agents in Chicago and elsewhere in the country,” North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, said in a statement Friday.
Stein encouraged North Carolinians to record any “inappropriate behavior” and follow the law.
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, also a Democrat, released a joint statement Saturday with Mark Jerrell, the chair of the city’s Board of County Commissioners, and Stephanie Sneed, the chair of the local board of education, where they expressed support for their constituents.
“It is critical for all residents to feel secure in our community and know they can live their lives without being fearful while walking down the street, going to school, work or the grocery store,” they said.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) said in a statement on Friday that it is not involved in any planning by the federal agents.
“CMPD officers are not authorized to assist with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) administrative warrants, which are civil in nature and not criminal,” the department said.
The North Carolina city of Asheville is also on alert for ICE-related activity in its city, Mayor Esther Manheimer said in a statement Saturday.
“We have learned that Asheville may be a targeted city,” she said. “We believe every person, regardless of immigration status, should feel safe in the community they call home.”
Colorado mom Astrid Storey, a thyroid cancer patient with an autoimmune disorder, was recently notified that her monthly premiums under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will jump by nearly $500 in 2026. A naturalized U.S. citizen from Panama, she said she’s now contemplating what was once unthinkable: giving up her American dream and moving to a country with universal health care.
Nathan Boye of Orlando, Florida, has diabetes and said he’s been informed the monthly premiums for his ACA policy would soar from $28 to more than $700. The married father-of-three said he is now considering foregoing health insurance altogether.
And Doug Butchart, whose wife, Shadene, is living with the neurological disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) said he doesn’t know how he’s going to pay for her medications. A retired mechanic from Elgin, Illinois, Butchart said he’s gotten a notice that the monthly premiums on his wife’s ACA policy will climb to $2,000. Combined with an annual deductible of more than $8,000 and $10,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, he said his wife’s health care costs will total more than his monthly Social Security check, which they both live on.
An estimated 22 million of the 24 million ACA marketplace enrollees are currently receiving enhanced premium tax credits to lower their monthly premiums, which were part of the original ACA legislation and expanded in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic under the American Rescue Plan. But with the tax credits set to expire at the end of this year, many policyholders are learning the ACA, commonly referred to as Obamacare, will no longer be affordable unless Congress intervenes.
An extension of the tax credits was not included in President Donald Trump’s megabill, which was signed into law in July.
The issue has become a political football, prolonging the government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history.
The majority of Democrats have refused to vote to reopen the government until Republicans agree to extend the ACA subsidies. But GOP leaders say they won’t negotiate until a clean funding bill passes and the government reopens.
As both sides blame each other for the shutdown, millions of Americans who bought into the ACA marketplace find themselves caught in the crossfire of the stalemate.
Premiums set to rise even without the tax credits Storey, a graphic designer and owner of a small business in Denver, said she doesn’t receive the ACA tax credits. But in a notice from her insurance provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield, which she shared with ABC News, her monthly premiums are set to rise from $1,400 to nearly $1,900.
“I have an autoimmune disease, and I also have thyroid cancer. So, I had very specific needs as to which doctors and which medicines I needed to have covered in this plan,” Storey said, adding that she has a $2,000 deductible and many out-of-pocket expenses.
Storey, 45, said she purchased her policy through Connect for Health Colorado, her state’s ACA portal, and has been working with a broker provided by the insurance carrier to help navigate the added costs.
Storey said her husband, Denis, who has been doing contracting work for her business, has taken a part-time job at a Starbucks to help make ends meet. But Storey said there is a limit to how much more she can pay for health care.
If her premium rises to $2,500 a month, she said that she and her family will sell all their belongings and leave the country. Storey said she also has citizenship in Panama and Spain, the latter of which has universal health care.
“I have a lot of feelings about being run out of my country because of health care costs,” Storey said. “The American dream is a disappointment when it comes to health care.”
In a statement to ABC News, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield said that its ACA plan rates “reflect the care and costs we expect members to use next year. Like other insurers, we’re seeing higher utilization and more complex care among ACA members — particularly in emergency room visits, behavioral health and specialty pharmacy. For instance, ACA members use the ER at nearly twice the rate of those with employer-sponsored coverage.”
Laid off due to tariffs, now facing more than a 2,500% jump in premiums Boye, from Florida, said he currently pays $28 a month for his ACA plan through Blue Cross Blue Shield, and that 90% of the medications he needs to control his diabetes are covered.
He was notified last month that the monthly premium is set to rise to $733 without financial help, a 2,518% increase.
Boye told ABC News on Thursday that after doing more research and reapplying through the ACA portal, he found a plan that has monthly premiums of $113 a month, contingent on a $620 tax credit.
Boye said he qualified for the ACA tax credits after he was laid off earlier this year as an operations manager for a company that imported medical supplies from China.
“We had to close down because of the tariff. It made it impossible to import,” Boye said.
While he has picked up part-time work, he said he enrolled at Valencia College in Orlando to finish his degree in business administration.
His wife, he said, has insurance through her job as a teacher’s assistant at the University of Central Florida, where she is also studying history. He said their three children, ages 11 to 16, are insured through Medicaid.
Boye said he won’t be able to pay the increase in his premiums, and is hoping Congress works out a deal to restore the ACA tax credits.
He said he has until mid-December to reenroll in his plan. But if the tax credits are not restored, Boye said he is contemplating making a radical change.
“I gave up on the idea of having health care,” Boye said.
Boye said he’s already started researching discount drug companies and cash-pay programs on how he can purchase on his own the two primary medications he uses to control diabetes. He showed ABC News an invoice he got in September indicating his insurance covered the $1,669 price of his primary medication, Jardiance.
Boye said his current predicament has left him feeling like a “tiny fish that does not matter.”
“Realistically, I have no control over any of this,” he said. “I’m just a person who has to navigate the waters and find a solution.”
In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for Florida Blue said that, next year, there will be “higher insurance costs for many, and government financial help (premium tax credits) will decrease if the enhanced premium tax credits expire, as they are planned to.”
The organization said it understood members’ concerns and is committed to supporting members, but added that premium increases “are an industry-wide issue, a necessary but concerning response to federal regulatory changes including the scheduled expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits at the end of 2025, as well as the rising cost and utilization of medical care and prescription drugs.”
‘It’s real people that all of this is affecting’ The Butcharts, from Illinois, traveled to Washington, D.C., this week with members of the Muscular Dystrophy Association to discuss their precarious situation with congressional leaders, including their two Illinois senators, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Democrats.
The 67-year-old Doug Butchart said he wanted to show the lawmakers “that it’s for real, that it’s real people that all of this is affecting.”
Butchart said he has received notification, which he shared with ABC News, that the monthly premiums on his wife’s ACA policy through Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois will rise from $603.82 to up to $2,000 without the tax credits in 2026. According to the notice he received, even with a tax credit estimated at $738, the monthly premium would be nearly $1,400.
“It’s insane,” Butchart told ABC News.
He said his 58-year-old wife was diagnosed with ALS eight years ago, adding that about 10% of ALS patients survive that long.
Butchart said his wife’s main medication, Radicava, costs about $15,000 a month, and another medication costs $4,000 for a three-month supply.
While insurance has covered most of their medical costs, Butchart said his wife’s out-of-pocket expenses last year were about $3,000.
He said that without the tax credits, and on top of the increased monthly premiums, his wife will have an $8,000 deductible in 2026, and her out-of-pocket expenses could top $10,000.
“That’s a lot of money, way more money than we get in a year,” said Butchart.
He said he and his wife live off his Social Security income and that she does not qualify for Medicaid or any disability income.
“I don’t want to put ourselves in a position where we’re in debt. I’m not 20 years old or 30 years old where I can go out and get a second job,” Butchart said.
In a statement to ABC News, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois said it “remains steadfast in its commitment to a stable health insurance market with competitive plan choices in the individual market, as we have since the inception of the ACA.”
“The rates for 2026 coverage include both new and current individual ACA-compliant plans and reflects industry-wide changes to the market, including the anticipated expiration of enhanced premium tax credits at the end of 2025. Plans are priced to reflect anticipated health care needs,” the company said.
But Butchart said the he still doesn’t see how the company can “justify” such increases in premiums.
“I wish the people who are making decisions and setting the prices were in the same position as we are,” Butchart said.
ABC News’ Kristopher Anderson contributed to this report.
Police intervene the protesters, at least 56 demonstrators were arrested after blocking traffic to the Brooklyn Bridge to end the Israeli attacks and establish a ceasefire in Gaza, following the Yom Kippur 2025 gathering at Brooklyn Borough Hall hosted by Rabbis for Ceasefire in New York City, United States, on October 2, 2025. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(BROOKLYN, N.Y.) — Almost 60 protestors were arrested on Yom Kippur after blocking traffic on New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge, authorities confirmed to ABC News.
The hundreds of people present at Thursday’s protest were members of the Rabbis for Ceasefire group that is comprised of Rabbis and Rabbinical students who support the free Palestine movement, according to the group.
The protest comes amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas War in Gaza that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, as reported by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, sparking demonstrations and protests all over the world calling for a ceasefire.
After being called to the scene of the Brooklyn Bridge demonstration, NYPD officers arrested almost 60 protestors as they clapped and sang in Hebrew, according to social media videos shared by protesters.
NYPD could not confirm if all of the protestors have been released from custody yet, or if they will be criminally charged.
The protest began a few hours earlier at Brooklyn Borough Hall, according to the group’s social media, with a Yizkor service, which is a special Jewish ceremony for those who have died. Yom Kippur is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, also known as the “Day of Atonement.”
NYPD told ABC News the protestors blocked all lanes of traffic on the bridge for one hour.
Rabbis for Ceasefire seeks to “collaborate with the broad Jewish Left ecosystem and multiracial, interfaith coalitions to practice a Judaism we can be proud of for future generations. R4C creates space for our communities to be with our horror, outrage, grief, shame, and fear while speaking spiritual and political truth,” according to their website.
The group sought to use the holiday to shine a spotlight on their activism, the website said.
“This Yom Kippur, though our grief, outrage, and despair, let us turn our most holy of holy days into a mass mourning, collective atonement, and dignified action,” the group wrote on their page about the protest.
The ongoing Gaza war erupted after Hamas led a surprise terror attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people there and taking 251 others hostage, according to figures from the Israeli government.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia and his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura enter a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office on August 25, 2025 in Baltimore, Maryland. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The judge overseeing the Maryland deportation case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Monday denied the government’s request to delay proceedings because of the government shutdown.
The ruling came Monday during a status conference held in the case of Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man deported in error to El Salvador last March and then returned back to the United States in June to face criminal charges in Tennessee.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said she she felt “duty bound” to continue the case given its importance and the fundamental questions it raises about deportation policies.
The government was prohibited from deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, but now seeks to deport him to another country, including possibly Uganda or Eswatini. Judge Xinis has currently banned the government from removing Abrego Garcia from the continental United States.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys argued that the only reason for detention after there are orders of removal is to effectuate that removal. If there are no current plans for his imminent removal, they argued, then Abrego Garcia should be released from detention. Government attorneys pointed to previous court decisions that indicate they have six months’ leeway.
Judge Xinis appeared exasperated Monday with government attorneys who could not answer if there was additional evidence about removal plans to Eswatini beyond letters sent to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers.
“That’s not a tenable position. You’ve either done it or you haven’t,” she said. “It’s not a hard question, guys”
Government attorneys were unable to find anyone who could address the judge’s questions about what efforts had been made to remove Abrego Garcia to Eswatini, citing the government shutdown as one possible reason.
The judge gave the government until Wednesday afternoon to file any evidence about steps taken to remove Abrego Garcia to Eswatini. She also asked the government to provide witnesses who can speak firsthand to those efforts.
“I am asking you really basic questions,” Xinis said. “What’s been done … have you had any conversations?”
A hearing is scheduled for Friday.
“This case is not just about one man. It is about the integrity of the U.S. Constitution,” Lydia Walther-Rodriguez, chief of organizing and leadership at the immigration rights group CASA, said at a press conference outside the courthouse prior to the hearing. “We need to continue to raise collective conscience as we continue to witness the inhumane retaliation by our government to a man and his family who are simply demanding due process.”
“Absent an appropriation, Department of Justice attorneys and employees of the federal Defendants are prohibited from working, even on a voluntary basis, except in very limited circumstances, including emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote in a court filing.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys had asked that the court deny the government’s request, and also, in light of the government’s position, to allow Abrego Garcia to be released from detention.
“The mere fact that the Government is seeking to extend all deadlines in this case indefinitely shows that there is no significant likelihood that Petitioner will be removed in the reasonably foreseeable future. Accordingly, there is no justification for continuing Petitioner’s detention,” his lawyers wrote in a reply.
Abrego Garcia is currently being detained at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania.
Abrego Garcia was brought back to the United States from El Salvador in June to face criminal charges of human smuggling in Tennessee. The judge in that case released him into his brother’s custody in Maryland. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials then indicated that he could potentially be deported to Uganda and ordered him to report to the ICE field office in Baltimore.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers in the Tennessee case have filed a motion to dismiss based on their claim of the prosecution being vindictive. A judge this past week determined that the “totality of events” creates a sufficient basis that there was a “realistic likelihood” that the government may have acted vindictively and entitles Abrego Garcia to discovery and a hearing on the matter before the court makes a decision on the motion.
A status conference is set for Friday in Nashville.
In a separate immigration court ruling last week, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s request to reopen his original immigration case. His lawyers had argued that his deportation and return to the U.S. had reset the clock on making an asylum claim, but the judge did not agree, closing that potential path to preventing deportation.
ABC News’ Rebecca Gelpi contributed to this report.
