Some North Carolina Republicans are worried President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown in the battleground state could backfire.
The Trump administration has touted its North Carolina surge as a successful operation targeting the“worst of the worst” criminals, but some Republicans in the state — which will feature one of the most expensive and hotly contested Senate races next year — fear that message is not breaking through with voters.
The White House has largely focused its immigration sweeps on blue states that Trump officials have decried as sanctuaries for unauthorized immigrants. But the move to expand immigration arrests into North Carolina, mostly in the Charlotte area, offered the first test for whether the White House’s strategy can hold up in a purple state.
Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory warned that recent local coverage, like an incident at a Charlotte shopping center, when masked agents arrested a man who said he was a U.S. citizen, and a raid at a local country club, may hurt the GOP on an issue it has long dominated.
“Republicans had the upper hand on immigration, as long as they were going after the criminals and the gangs, but I think they’re losing the upper hand on that issue because of the apparent disjointed implementation of arrest,” McCrory said in an interview. “From a PR and political standpoint, for the first time, immigration is maybe having a negative impact on my party.”
He added, “if I were the administration, I would be really emphasizing who they’ve arrested and the negative impact they’ve had on the community, but we’re not hearing that.”
The concerns surrounding Trump’s Tar Heel State clampdown underscore a tension at the center of the president’s immigration agenda. The White House’s message, since January, has tied illegal immigration to violent crime in U.S. cities. But immigration officials are simultaneously under sustained pressure from the White House to increase arrests and deportation numbers, an effort that requires targeting immigrants well beyond violent criminal offenders — potentially treacherous territory for swing-state Republicans.
Edwin Peacock III, a moderate Republican who lost an at-large Charlotte City Council race to Democrats earlier this month, warned of the raids leaving “a real sour aftertaste” with voters.
“Is the price of doing this worth it?” Peacock added. “I don’t see this cloud moving away [from] what will be in the voters’ minds.”
In line with the administration’s messaging, North Carolina Republicans have sought to keep public attention on criminal arrests. But their narrative has been overshadowed by viral social media footage highlighting arrests of immigrants without criminal records and local media reports documenting the fear coursing through churches, schools and local businesses, these Republicans said.
National polls in recent months show voters largely support removing immigrants living in the country illegally, but believe the Trump administration’s tactics have gone too far. Other polls show that voters support deporting immigrants with criminal records living in the country illegally, but that support falls when those surveyed are asked about the broader pool of immigrants. And Republicans are losing Latino support, after Trump made significant inroads with those voters — including in North Carolina — last year. From July through October, the proportion of Latino voters who say the president’s deportation agenda has gone too far has increased from 66 percent to 79 percent, according to a CNN poll.
Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) this week noted 200 people were arrested over 48 hours in Charlotte. Seventy percent of them didn’t have a criminal record, according to the Department of Homeland Security, Salazar added in a CNN interview.
“Kick out the ones that are bad hombres, the ones who have criminal records, the murderers and the rapists,” she said. “But do not touch the lady who has been here for 10, 20 years, contributing to the economy.”
Patrick Sebastian, a GOP pollster based in North Carolina, said voters “draw a clear line” between deporting immigrants who are living in the country illegally and working but not breaking other laws, and unauthorized immigrants who have committed crimes.
“In purple states, there’s broad support for removing the latter — and the left looks foolish protesting that,” Sebastian said. “But the other narrative has gotten more play over the past week, and that could be a problem for Republicans.”
Trump administration officials have defended the administration’s North Carolina efforts, with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem telling Fox this week that the agency is going after the “worst of the worst,” people who have “committed robberies, assaults, DUIs, getting them off the streets and keeping people safe.”
A senior White House official, granted anonymity to speak about internal thinking, argued that the president is making good on his campaign to execute mass deportations. The official said the previous administration allowed for millions of unauthorized immigrants to enter the country.
“The only way to fix that problem and solve it is to aggressively deport these illegal criminals,” the official said. “And so the administration is definitely going to keep doing that.”
The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that “Operation Charlotte’s Web isn’t ending anytime soon,” as some North Carolina residents remain on edge. Some local businesses are closed, and residents have gone into hiding. Viral videos filmed by locals have made national news, and Democratic Gov. Josh Stein warned that “masked, heavily armed agents in paramilitary garb” were targeting American citizens and “racially profiling.”
A DHS spokesperson said on Thursday the enforcement surge in the Charlotte area has resulted in 370 arrests targeting “some of the most dangerous criminal illegal aliens,” though the agency refused to say how many of those arrested had criminal records. Earlier this week, DHS said that over two days, 44 of the 130 people arrested had committed crimes that include aggravated assault, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault on a police officer, battery, driving under the influence and hit-and-runs. The spokesperson said the arrests also included two known gang members.
“You’re seeing social media creating a hyper sense of what may be going on, and it doesn’t always provide a full context. You’ve seen, in response, the administration talking through, ‘here’s what’s actually going on. Here are the criminals that we are taking off the streets,’” said North Carolina GOP chair Jason Simmons. “You’re talking about individuals that have committed abhorrent acts — murder, sexual assault, again, trafficking of all kinds.”
Meanwhile ICE and Border Patrol’s presence in North Carolina has become a feature in the contentious Senate race.
Michael Whatley, the former Republican National Committee chair running for the open Senate seat, has used the raids to attack his opponent, former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. In an interview on Fox News this week, Whatley said if Cooper hadn’t vetoed bills requiring local law enforcement to honor ICE detainers, “then these people would not have been on the street.”
Since he entered the race in July, Whatley has primarily attacked Cooper’s record as governor, calling him “soft on crime.” That became a particularly potent attack in August, after a video of the murder of Iryna Zarutska on Charlotte’s light rail went viral.
“Removing criminal illegal aliens isn’t politics — it’s about keeping our communities safe,” Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to Whatley’s campaign, said in a statement. “If deporting illegal aliens who’ve molested children, assaulted women, or been convicted of weapons charges is something Democrats want to oppose, that says everything about how far left Roy Cooper and the NC Democratic Party have drifted. Michael Whatley stands with law enforcement and with North Carolina families — period.”
Earlier this week, Cooper criticized the Trump administration’s operation for “randomly sweeping up people based on what they look like.”
And in a statement, Cooper campaign spokesperson Kate Smart defended the governor’s record: “Roy Cooper is the only candidate who spent his career prosecuting violent criminals and keeping thousands of them behind bars, and numerous North Carolina sheriffs spoke out against this legislation at the time because of a lack of resources; a problem that Washington D.C. insider and Big Oil lobbyist Michael Whatley has made worse because of his support for cuts to local law enforcement.”
The raids come weeks after Democrats swept off-year elections across the country, including in municipal and county-level positions in North Carolina. Peacock, who lost his own at-large Charlotte City Council bid, said he warned his fellow Republicans that this month’s elections were the “midterms before the midterms.”
“I know Whatley and his team aren’t looking at [Charlotte] as a place they can win, but what they’re probably not considering yet is that this region, this city, could define your loss because [Democratic turnout] could be at such exponential levels compared to traditional [norms],” Peacock said.
One GOP strategist working on races in North Carolina, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said there’s a risk that the picture of a citizen being separated from their family, rather than the arrests of unauthorized immigrants with criminal records, will stick, adding, “You don’t know what the enduring image is going to be in voters’ minds.”
Diana Nerozzi contributed to this report.
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