Charlotte, N.C. — Five individuals, on behalf of a class of similarly situated people, filed a class action lawsuit today against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), seeking to prevent a pattern of unlawful, warrantless arrests in North Carolina that is harming communities.
In mid-November, the Trump-Vance administration accelerated its immigration crackdown across North Carolina during “Operation Charlotte’s Web.” Heavily armed, masked DHS agents, including ICE and CBP officers, roamed Charlotte, Durham, Raleigh, and other communities, detaining and arresting people indiscriminately without warrants or legal justification.
Democracy Forward, the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina (ACLU‑NC), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) filed the lawsuit on behalf of Willy Aceituno, 46, a U.S. citizen originally from Honduras, Yoshi Cuenca Villamar, 23, a U.S. citizen born in North Carolina, Edwin Godinez, 29, a U.S. citizen born in California, 22, Yair Alexander Napoles, a U.S. citizen born in North Carolina, and Ruben Arguera Lopez, 39, a lawful resident from El Salvador, who obtained a U-Visa after being assaulted in 2020.
Each plaintiff was arrested by DHS agents without probable cause to believe that they are legally removable from the country and that they pose a flight risk — determinations required under federal law for warrantless arrests.
In recent months, heavily armed, masked DHS agents, including ICE and CBP officers, have roamed Charlotte, Durham, Raleigh, and other North Carolina communities, detaining people indiscriminately without warrants or legal justification.
Courts have blocked these tactics in other jurisdictions, and they are consistent with DHS’s reckless actions in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, Washington, D.C., and across Colorado, which involve arresting individuals in public places without reason to believe they are unlawfully present or non-citizens — including immigrants lawfully present with proper documentation and U.S. citizens. These arrests are often violent and destructive to personal property.
“When armed, masked agents are breaking car windows, handcuffing people without probable cause, and dumping them on the side of the road, that is not law enforcement, it is lawlessness,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “Congress was explicit: warrantless immigration arrests require individualized probable cause to be proven. That standard is not optional based on the whims of whoever is in the White House. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is carrying out mass arrests that disregard the limits that Congress imposed and the Constitution requires. Federal agencies do not have the authority to sweep up people in America – whether they are U.S. citizens, lawful residents, or anyone else – without legal justification. This case is about restoring basic guardrails on government power and ensuring that federal officers follow the law they are sworn to uphold.”
“Federal immigration agents have consistently ignored the law and trampled civil rights in North Carolina,” said Corina Scott, staff attorney at the ACLU of North Carolina. “This lawsuit seeks to stop this abuse of power and demand accountability going forward so that our communities do not continue to suffer violent and unlawful arrests.”
“The unlawful tactics being used by federal immigration agents across North Carolina must stop,” said Jake Sussman, Chief Counsel of Justice System Reform at Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “We cannot continue to allow our own government to break the law, make up rules as it goes, and abuse and assault communities across the state. This lawsuit is one step toward reining in that behavior.”
“The ICE and CBP arrests in North Carolina reflect a pattern of ‘detain-first, justify-later’ tactics,” said Lucia Goin, staff attorney at the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “These actions violate federal law and the rights of North Carolina residents, like those already blocked by courts in other cities.”
Plaintiffs represent a class of individuals who have been or will be subjected to warrantless immigration arrests by DHS in North Carolina, including arrests made without probable cause based on flight risk or removability. They ask the federal court for the Western District of North Carolina to declare DHS’s mass warrantless arrest policy unlawful and to issue a permanent injunction blocking these unlawful practices.
Read the filing here.
A Spanish version of this press release is available here.
###
