The arrests have included several people who were in the final stages of the process to gain legal status, the immigrant rights group says.
Dozens of ICE agents from out of state have begun a month-long operation in the Raleigh area, an immigration rights organization said on Friday. Agents have detained or arrested several people in the last few days, including a permanent resident who arrived at a Durham immigration office for her final appointment before receiving US citizenship.
Siembra NC, a group that has been tracking federal immigration arrests in the state since last month’s Border Patrol operation in Charlotte, said in a news release on Friday that the ICE activity reflected a “clear escalation” of normal operations, both in scale and aggression.
Siembra said it had documented and received reports of masked agents brandishing automatic weapons and ramming their vehicles into cars as they made arrests in several communities in and near the Triangle area.
“In the last two days, ICE agents were observed conducting arrests or surveillance activities in Greensboro, Apex, Catawba County, Durham, and Charlotte,” Siembra said in the news release.
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“That means multiple ICE teams were conducting simultaneous operations across the state, the first time that has occurred in 2025.”
Citing a confidential source within the Department of Homeland Security, Siembra had warned earlier this week that ICE agents planned a new operation in Raleigh.
The reports of that activity started slow, but have increased in recent days, Siembra said.
Disrupting the legal citizenship process
Calls to Siembra’s hotline also detailed several instances in which agents confronted or arrested US citizens or people who were well into the court process to get legal status.
“In Apex on December 4 at around 9:30 AM, a US citizen was sitting in her car in the parking lot of her child’s daycare when she was approached by four masked agents who asked her to show her ID and tried to open her car door; she locked it and refused to answer them, prompting them to leave,” Siembra said.
And in Durham, Siembra said, multiple people were arrested ahead of scheduled appointments at the Citizenship & Immigration Services field office where they were in the final stages of the long process to achieve legal status.
“One mother who is a permanent resident was detained on the day of her interview to become a US Citizen,” Siembra said, and “two mothers were detained one interview away from obtaining their Green Card.”
The daughter of one of the women detained told Siembra that her mother had a work permit, had no criminal record, and had been following the directives of federal officials throughout her residency application.
“I’m in shock, I can’t believe this is happening. She was doing everything that had been asked of her,” the daughter told Siembra.
Nowhere near the ‘worst of the worst’
The reports of increased activity comes as news reports continue to highlight how few of those arrested in ICE and Border Patrol raids have criminal records, despite the false claims of federal officials that they are only targeting “the worst of the worst.”
The New York Times reported this week that the majority of people arrested in raids in Los Angeles, Chicago, Massachusetts, and Washington DC had no criminal record. Federal officials have released few details about the specifics of the North Carolina arrests, but CBS News found that only a third of the 270 people arrested in the first wave had criminal records.
Federal officials have dismissed criticism as “fear-mongering,” falsely claiming that “ICE does NOT arrest or deport U.S. citizens.” Several reports have shown how American citizens have been arrested despite showing proof of their legal status.
ProPublica, which wrote one of those reports, countered a recent dismissive ICE post on X.
“Hi @DHSgov,” ProPublica posted, “we’re the folks who reported the facts you’re now dismissing.
So just a reminder: We found 170+ cases of immigration agents detaining U.S. citizens this year. In dozens of cases, charges have never been filed or the cases were dismissed. Among the detained: nearly 20 children, including two with cancer.”
While the November Border Patrol raids did not round up large numbers of violent criminals, they did ensnare young women like Fatima Issela Velasquez-Antonio, who came to North Carolina from Honduras at 14 after a gang murdered her father and her mother died of cancer. She had only traffic violations on her record.
Velasquez-Antonio is being held in a detention facility in Georgia.
And WFAE in Charlotte reported that one of the people arrested in that city’s raids was a 27-year old with renal failure who was denied medical attention by the agents. The man, his family’s lawyer told WFAE, needs extensive dialysis, and would be at risk of a heart attack without it. Agents told him they would not give him access to dialysis unless he signed a voluntary deportation order, the lawyer said. The man remains in ICE custody as of Monday, according to his lawyer.
The raids caused similar fear in families across the state, rattling communities, prompting widespread school absences, and shuttering major construction projects.
“Even as workplaces, schools, and communities are still reeling from the devastating impacts of Border Patrol’s operation in November, this new monthlong operation by ICE is threatening a new wave of school absences, economic turmoil, and families ripped apart just a few weeks before the holidays,” Nikki Marín Baena, the Co-Director of Siembra NC, said in the news release.
One of the people who called into the Siembra hotline said her husband was detained after ICE agents rammed their car in Greensboro.
“I am afraid to leave the house,” the woman said. “They hunt us like deer when we were only taking the kids to school.”
