North Carolina residents claim feds arrested US citizens in immigration sweep

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (CN) — U.S. citizens claim Border Patrol agents in North Carolina are arresting people indiscriminately without first confirming immigration status in a lawsuit seeking federal court intervention.

In a class action filed against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, five residents accuse federal officers of racial profiling during the Operation Charlotte Web immigration crackdown in November, an approach they say has led to the wrongful arrests of U.S. citizens. 

Homeland Security is continuing to stop people in public and make arrests without reasonable suspicion or probable cause that the people they are detaining are not lawfully present in the country, the plaintiffs say, and agents have been profiling Latino residents. The agency is barred from making warrantless arrests without first confirming that the person is removable from the U.S. and is a flight risk, the plaintiffs claim in their suit. 

“Agents grab people without making any inquiries into citizenship or immigration status or escape risk, often ignoring protestations that the individual has proof of status on their person,” write the plaintiffs, who are asking the court for injunctive relief. “Officers handcuff and transport arrested people miles away from arrest sites, dumping them on the side of the road once agents have confirmed that the individuals are lawfully present.” 

The five plaintiffs say they were each arrested without a warrant and without the officer believing they were removable from the country. No evaluation was done to determine if they were likely to flee without a warrant being first obtained by law enforcement, they note.

“Allegations that DHS law enforcement engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE,” a U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Courthouse News. “What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity. There are no ‘indiscriminate’ stops being made. DHS conducts enforcement operations in line with the U.S. Constitution and all applicable federal laws without fear, favor, or prejudice. The Supreme Court recently vindicated us on this question elsewhere, and we look forward to further vindication in this case as well.”

The residents also claim Homeland Security operations have continued past the end of Operation Charlotte Web and into 2026, citing documents outlining plans by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to establish detention centers in the state.

Court intervention is necessary because DHS attempted to do away with a policy that only allows warrantless arrests when an agent has individually assessed probable cause. The department instead is attempting to use the lower threshold of reasonable suspicion instead of securing probable cause, the plaintiffs say, causing ongoing “illegal arrest tactics.”    

Willy Wender Aceituno, a U.S. citizen who was born in Honduras, has lived in Charlotte for over 25 years. He claims he was arrested by DHS agents on Nov. 15, 2025, while waiting for his food in a shopping center parking lot. Agents approached him, and he showed his REAL ID, which they scanned to confirm he is a U.S. citizen. After grabbing his food, he said he was stopped by a different group of Border Patrol agents, who cornered his truck with their vehicles, smashed his window and forced him to the ground.   

Aceituno said he told the agents four times he had identification proving his citizenship in his wallet, but was handcuffed and put into a van. After agents had been driving for 10 minutes, they realized he was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record, pulled over and left him on the side of the road without his car keys. The agents threatened to arrest him again when he asked for a ride back to his vehicle, he says in the suit. He filmed his interactions with agents, which went viral on social media.  

 The other plaintiffs include U.S. citizens Yoshi Cuenca Villamar, Edwin Godinez and Yair Alexander Napoles. Ruben Arguera Lopez, who is originally from El Salvador, has been in the U.S. since 2003 and has a work permit and U visa, a type of visa reserved for victims of a crime who are assisting law enforcement. 

Godinez and Napoles claim that they were stopped while driving in January by an unmarked car. They told the agents, who did not identify themselves, that they were U.S. citizens, and asked for permission to record the interaction. After their IDs were taken to be checked, they said, one agent reached through the driver’s side window and attempted to grab Godinez’s phone, then punched him in the abdomen. The agents spent several minutes trying to pull them out of the car, they claim, before the agent with their IDs returned and they were allowed to leave.  

The plaintiffs, who are represented by the ACLU, asked the court to vacate the administration’s practice of immigration arrests without first individually determining that each person is likely to flee before a warrant is secured, and declare the policy “arbitrary, capricious, [and] an abuse of discretion.”  

During the November operation, Governor Josh Stein sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asking about the length of time that federal agents would be operating in the state, and raising concerns about the lack of transparency.

Republican leadership in the state’s General Assembly has encouraged the presence of Border Patrol in the state, but outgoing U.S. Senator Thom Tillis has contacted Noem’s department, applauding the arrest of immigrants with criminal records who lack permission to be in the country, but asking for more information about reports that U.S. citizens were detained.

In his letter, Tillis mentioned several of the plaintiffs’ interactions with agents. If the accounts are accurate, he said, “then they represent a breakdown in safeguards that demands corrective action. Either way, the absence of clear, encounter-level data has made objective evaluation difficult and unnecessarily eroded public confidence.” 

Last week, the government argued before a federal judge in Minnesota that it can detain refugees without a warrant, which the judge called “a solution looking for a problem.”

Representatives for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not reply to a request for comment.

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