With honking horns and locked doors, here’s how one Charlotte community faced the immigration enforcement crackdown
By Andy Rose, CNN
Charlotte, North Carolina (CNN) — The upbeat, Spanish music still floats through the aisles of Sav/Way Foods, the Latino supermarket in the heart of the bustling and boisterous Plaza Midwood neighborhood.
But at 8:30 on a chilly morning this week, the songs on the loudspeakers are about all the Spanish you hear.
“It’s been really, really slow,” says employee Bella Duran as a half-dozen shoppers silently mill about the store. “A lot of our customers have been scared to come out.”
Some patrons now afraid to leave their homes are taking Sav/Way up on its offer of free home delivery. Inside the store, rows of tortillas and shoulder-high stacks of canned hominy sit largely untouched, while the jewelry and travel kiosks are dark.
A phone rings inside the store’s main office, and seconds later, Duran’s manager comes out. It was a tipster with intel that just a week ago would have sounded implausible:
Suspected Customs and Border Patrol vehicles have been seen at a gas station a couple of blocks away.
The manager walks over to the store’s entry and stands watch, ready to lock the front door at the first sign of federal agents. Her friendly eyes turn slightly dark.
“They don’t have no right to be in here,” she says.
All along Central Avenue, the heart of this immigrant business community in East Charlotte, stark black-and-white signs now posted outside most businesses warn: “ICE is not welcome here.”
The immigration action called Operation Charlotte’s Web has shocked and frightened the community, with hundreds of arrests and dozens of minority-owned businesses closed out of fear for their customers and their workers. Manolo’s Bakery, one of the most popular businesses in the neighborhood, shuttered Saturday after people were tackled outside the store by men in green uniforms.
Charlotte is the latest stop in a virtual four-corners tour of the country by Border Patrol Chief Control Agent Gregory Bovino and his agents, who this year have made weekslong visits to Los Angeles and Chicago, with New Orleans expected next. In contrast to their Windy City presence, Bovino and at least some of his team left Charlotte on Thursday, a Homeland Security official said, as elevated immigration enforcement continues.
The strong shows of force against migrants in Democratic-led cities have become a cornerstone of the Trump administration’s intense immigration enforcement agenda.
In the Charlotte area, more than 250 people were arrested over four days of immigration raids, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday. “Criminal records of those arrested include known gang membership, aggravated assault, possession of a dangerous weapon, felony larceny, simple assault, hit and run, possession of stolen goods, shoplifting, DUI, DWI, and illegal re-entry after prior deportation, a felony,” the agency said.
“Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens hurting them, their families, or their neighbors,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed.”
Still, a protest outside Manolo’s against the federal effort builds throughout the day, growing to dozens of people and stretching the strip mall’s small parking lot to its limits.
As popular bakery closes, community rises in support
The demonstration began with just one man.
Jerry Ortiz stands alongside Central Avenue, waving a massive Puerto Rican flag featuring a tree frog called the coquí – with a songlike call that sounds like its name – as passing drivers honk their support. The frog, a native of Puerto Rico like Ortiz himself, is an important symbol of the island’s culture.
Now, the car horns are music to his ears.
“It’s beautiful,” Ortiz says.
But not every note of Central Avenue’s cacophony supports his message.
“Get them illegal sons of bitches out of here!” yells the passenger in one truck as it passes Manolo’s.
It’s not an entirely surprising message in a county where a third of the votes cast in the last presidential election were for Donald Trump. Ortiz shrugs.
“Something is wrong that they don’t appreciate us here,” he says. “We come here to work hard, to make this country better.”
While Ortiz keeps watch along the street, bakery owner Manolo Betancur stops by several times a day to make sure federal agents haven’t returned and to talk to the growing crowd that cheers loudly as he raises a large American flag alongside the coquí.
“My biggest concern right now is our children need to have their fathers and mothers next to them,” Betancur says.
“A lot of these people are so scared, they’re not going to have Thanksgiving (dinner),” adds Ortiz, standing a few feet from the locked entrance to Manolo’s.
Even as the fear forced Betancur to close his business, supporters are still paying for cakes from Manolo’s through the bakery’s website. He contacts them to make sure they understand he can’t fulfill the order right now.
“They say, ‘No, it’s a donation,’” says Betancur.
More protesters show up outside Manolo’s as midday approaches. Brandi Yanes is supporting people who now feel the pain she felt in 2018, when her husband was detained by ICE after a sheriff’s office identified him as undocumented following an altercation at a bar, she says.
“Once he came home, my daughter was 6 months old. He had four months with us, and then he had to self-deport to Honduras,” Yanes says.
Though they talk on the phone almost daily, Yanes’ daughter – now almost 8 years old – hasn’t seen her father in person in two years.
“Now, with (immigration agents) being back here, and she’s seeing what’s going on, she’s waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning, crying,” says Yanes. “She’s asking, ‘Are my friends going to be OK?’”
Betancur looks on at the crowd, growing to dozens by midafternoon, with appreciation.
“If it weren’t for the immigrant community, I wouldn’t have a business,” says Betancur. “They are my customers. They are my employees.”
Despite the economic losses he is facing, Betancur has the one thing that is priceless for any immigrant: citizenship. He now carries his US passport with him everywhere he goes.
Immigrants made the community what it is, neighbors say
Dianna Ward gave up a high-paying corporate career to start her own tour business, and she knows how to weave in history lessons at Charlotte’s hot spots. But when showing off the Plaza Midwood neighborhood where she lives, she chooses an unlikely starting point: Evergreen Cemetery.
“Look over here,” she says, pointing to a row of headstones from the 1940s. “It’s all Greek.” Other graves show the names of Italian and Jewish residents who helped build the community.
“This has always been an immigrant community,” says Ward. “Immigrants claimed it and have done a beautiful job of making this a place you want to live.”
Ward points to million-dollar historic homes, Vietnamese restaurants, an Irish pub and bohemian art as signs of her neighborhood’s diversity.
“But this is my favorite place,” she says while passing the Central Avenue location of Tacos El Nevado. It is noon, and the restaurant is completely dark, chairs stacked up on the tables.
“It is usually so packed in this restaurant, but look at it now.”
Some stores stay open, even with fewer workers and customers
With the earlier threat of federal agents turning out to be false alarm, things pick up a bit by midday at the Sav/Way, where the bustling lunch counter is serving up massive tortas piled impossibly high with meat and jalapeños.
Unlike an average day before Operation Charlotte’s Web, there is no 30-minute wait to be served.
“Even if we lose money, we need to keep it open if we can,” says Sav/Way owner Rudy Montero, whose weathered face and gray moustache are the only visible signs of his 72 years. After decades of seven-day weeks running the store, Montero still comes every day to take deliveries and energetically supervise.
“You need to be positive all the time,” says Montero. “I feel terrible about this, but we need to keep going.”
Montero’s positivity is matched by one of his most enthusiastic lunch counter customers, Jesse Pacheco-Anguiano. Wearing a beaded crucifix over the number “7” on his shirt in honor of Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, he gives new visitors the lowdown on his favorites.
“The Cubana is a big, big torta,” he emphasizes. “Do you have a big appetite?”
Pacheco-Anguiano is a home renovation contractor who depends on day laborers, including a worker he saw being picked up by Border Patrol agents in their now-familiar green uniforms and facemasks at a Lowe’s on Saturday, the first day of the Charlotte operation.
“I was born and raised here in Charlotte my whole life, and this is the first time in my life I’ve seen this happen,” he says.
Pacheco-Anguiano says the agents left him alone after checking his driver’s license, but agents drove away with his worker in two unmarked crossovers, leaving a half-loaded stack of lumber still sticking out of the back of the customized work van with the name of his business covering both sides.
“Look at this. They’re embarrassing me,” he says in Spanish in a cell phone video of the encounter he took and shared with CNN. DHS has not responded to CNN’s questions about this incident.
The crackdown becomes a costly burden on small businesses
With his business effectively shut down, Pacheco-Anguiano joins the protesters when he can. Starting his own business was a long-time dream, and he wants to use what he has to help those who can’t speak up.
“I’m just trying to protest for my people who don’t have a voice, and I’m here for them,” Pacheco-Anguiano says.
The full economic impact of the immigration enforcement operation is not clear, but CharlotteEAST, a nonprofit community organization, says small businesses are struggling.
“For a little tienda, (it’s costing) $400 a day. A hair salon, $500. A restaurant, $5,000 a day,” says the executive director, Greg Asciutto.
His group looks out for about 400 mom-and-pop businesses in East Charlotte, about half of them owned by immigrants, Asciutto says.
“I mean, our whole commercial thoroughfare is shut down, right?” he says. “And these are American citizens. These are American-owned businesses.”
The economic strain is showing not just on business owners but also on workers. Even as the immigration raids go on, Pacheco-Anguiano continues to get calls from workers asking for a gig, telling him they have no choice as their money begins to dry up, he says.
“They’re willing to take the risk, but I’m like, ‘Dude, I can’t have that on my conscience if anything happens on the way from here to your house,’” says Pacheco-Anguiano.
Community members show support with their dollars
With Manolo’s Bakery closed, Pacheco-Anguiano moves down Central Avenue to Panadería Odalys, where traditional Latino pastries sit alongside doughnuts and slices of vanilla-iced cake with sprinkles, loading up a pan of treats for family and friends.
About half of the display cases are uncharacteristically empty, a sign of the difficulty owner Cervantes Almanza is having in finding enough staff who feel safe going to work. But he points to the 5-foot-high racks of baked goods just rolled out into the center of the store.
“Have some. They’re fresh!” says Almanza in Spanish, an announcement made redundant by the aroma that quickly fills the room.
A new customer is unprepared for the store’s cash-only policy, but Almanza gives a silent wave and head shake to show this one is on the house, his gratitude for the community’s support. (A veteran Odalys customer quietly slips money over the counter to pay the bill while Almanza isn’t looking.)
Since Lolo Pendergrast found out Odalys was open but struggling with a reduced staff, she buys as many pastries as she can stuff into an oversized delivery box.
“I got a whole bunch now, and I’m just going around town and handing them out to protesters,” she says.
Pendergrast is retired from teaching English as a Second Language at Merry Oaks International Academy, a public elementary school.
“The people that live right next to it, they’re our friends, our neighbors, you know, and they’re not illegal,” said Pendergrast. “I do not understand how we’ve gotten so off the rails.”
Keeping an eye out for the ‘Migra’
Almanza stays vigilant, looking out his bakery’s front door. His workers pick up on a sudden change in mood that takes the air out of the room. The owner doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.
As Almanza quietly slides the door open for a closer look, a panicked voice shouts from behind the building.
“Migra! Migra!” a woman yells, feverishly ringing a cowbell.
She runs fast through a residential street into the back of the Odalys parking lot, tailing a pair of unmarked vehicles that quickly blast a siren at oncoming traffic before making sharp right turns onto Central Avenue. Another vehicle follows, with a protester lying on the horn.
“I just wanted to make sure everybody’s good,” the woman says, now leaning over with a hand on one knee to catch her breath before returning to work.
The Odalys employees feel some relief as they go back to their jobs, but a reminder of the toll this is taking on the neighborhood remains just outside their windows. Next door, the popular Salvadoran restaurant Morazán remains closed, the parking lot empty.
“I’m born and raised in East Charlotte,” says neighbor Jorge Neri-Moreno, standing next to the shuttered restaurant, “and seeing all this breaks my heart.”
Some children skip class, and volunteers try to keep schools safe
Outside Shamrock Gardens Elementary School, parents Patricia Hoke and Laura Blum sit in lawn chairs at the entrance on Anne Street, a large handwritten poster next to them saying, “NO ICE.” They’re part of a network of volunteers waiting outside local schools during drop-off and pickup hours with whistles around their necks, watching for federal agents.
“The idea is if we see them, we alert,” Blum says. “And I think it’s just a presence for people to know their community’s behind them.”
There have been no immigration raids outside Charlotte schools so far, but the mothers’ work mixes a strong sense of purpose with a lingering sense of paranoia.
“Everyone feels on edge, even though it’s quiet,” says Hoke.
More than 30,000 students – about 20% of district enrollment – were absent from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools on Monday as the immigration enforcement mission in Charlotte continued, the district said.
To make sure as many East Charlotte schools as possible are covered, many parent volunteers are now communicating using encrypted messaging apps, just in case they’re being monitored themselves.
“I learned to use Signal yesterday,” says Blum with a slight smile.
Some businesses stay open – but locked up
Before getting back to the protests – his new job for the time being – Pacheco-Anguiano has one more stop to make, pulling his work van into the parking lot at La Reina de las Carnitas, where the smell of fried pork and freshly made tortillas usually draws an overflow crowd.
Owner Ricardo Albarrán immediately gives Pacheco-Anguiano a smile and a fatherly arm around the shoulder. The visitor didn’t just come here for food. Just a few years earlier, Pacheco-Anguiano worked here before striking out on his own with the renovation business. Now, he wants to check up on his old boss.
Albarrán says he closed at 2 p.m. on the day Operation Charlotte’s Web started and stayed closed through the weekend.
On the first day he tried to reopen the shop, only two employees showed up for work. The rest were too afraid. Now, Albarrán keeps the front deadbolt latched until a worker at the door is comfortable that whoever is approaching is a customer.
“Every business is doing the same thing to protect the people,” he says in Spanish.
Albarrán sees would-be customers doing their own surveillance, trying to figure out whether an officer in the parking lot, or even just an SUV with tinted windows, might be from Border Patrol, making the short trip from a car to his door too risky.
“¿Sí o no? ¿Sí o no?” they seem to be asking themselves as they assess the level of danger, he says.
Albarrán has enormous pride in his business, he says as he begins speaking in English for emphasis.
“I came from Mexico, and this is my dream,” he says. “All countries have good people. I don’t know why (this is happening).”
Pacheco-Anguiano gets another pat on the shoulder and heads out, happy to see his old workplace has been able to stay in operation. But as he exits the carnicería, the sound of the door lock clicking behind him is a stark reminder of the reality his community is still facing.
“You know how they say they come for criminals?” he asks. “I think that’s not right. Because we’re here just trying to get a job done.”
CNN’s Dianne Gallagher and Lacey Russell contributed to this report.
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