Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested more than 3,300 people in North Carolina during President Donald Trump’s first nine months in office, according to data from the University of California Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project, which obtains arrest data through Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits. That figure is about double the number of people arrested in North Carolina in all of 2024.
Arrest data, collected through Oct. 15, 2025, also shows where in North Carolina people have been apprehended. While hundreds of arrests occurred in Mecklenburg County, thousands of arrests were recorded elsewhere across the state, from New Hanover County on the coast, to Cherokee County in far western North Carolina. Most arrests occurred in local jails, prisons and other “lockups,” data showed.
The project’s most recent data set does not include Border Patrol’s immigration enforcement operation launched in November. As of Dec. 3, 2025, that operation, named “Charlotte’s Web” after the children’s book, has netted 425 arrests, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Border Patrol and ICE.
Approximately 220,000 people were arrested across the U.S., the data showed.
From May 21 to Oct. 15, ICE’s arrest rate in North Carolina was 17.4 per 100,000 residents, ranking the state 36th out of all 50 states and Puerto Rico for total arrests during the four-month period, according to an analysis of arrest data conducted by Prison Policy Initiative, a research nonprofit advocating against mass incarceration.
More than 9% of the state’s population, or 1 million people, are foreign born, according to a 2023 study.
ICE arrests across NC
This map shows county-by-county arrests by ICE officials. In Buncombe County, ICE arrested 12 people from January 20 — Trump’s Inauguration Day — to mid-October, nearly all from the county’s detention center. No arrests were recorded in the county in 2024. ICE arrested just two people there in 2023, according to ICE arrest data. In Cabarrus County, 146 arrests were recorded in the time period. In Cherokee County, ICE arrested 4 people from January 20 to mid-October 2025. Two people were arrested at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport, according to data. More than 600 arrests were reported in the Triangle, where Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill are located. Few arrests were recorded in the northeastern portion of the state, a region marked by soybean and peanut farms.
Who did ICE arrest?
ICE has refused to identify the vast majority of people its agents have arrested in North Carolina.
According to Deportation Data Project data, most people that ICE arrested in the state were originally from Latin American countries, like Mexico and Honduras. People from China, Afghanistan, Jamaica and other countries were also arrested.
During the data period, ICE agents apprehended at least 38 children, according to the data, which lists the birth year for each person arrested. One child was younger than 3.
A DHS website launched in December lists what the agency dubs the “worst of the worst” arrested by ICE, even though most people arrested by ICE — 56%, according to a recent CATO Institute analysis — haven’t been charged with violent crimes.
Nearly 400 people on DHS’s “Worst of the Worst” list were arrested in North Carolina, according to the site. One man was a Ukrainian national extradited to the U.S. in 2024 to face wire fraud-related charges. It does not appear he entered the U.S. illegally. Another man was convicted of mail fraud. Several others were charged with drug possession.
DHS has not responded to NC Local’s request for details about the alleged criminal backgrounds of the people detained as a result of Border Patrol’s Charlotte operation.
Data: Most ICE Arrests in NC Occurred in Jails, Prisons and Other “Lockups”
Of the more than 3,300 people arrested by ICE in North Carolina between Jan. 20 and Oct. 15, more than two thirds were apprehended in county jails, prisons and other “lockups,” according to data analyzed by Prison Policy Initiative.
Hundreds of arrests in North Carolina resulted from 287(g) program agreements, which allow local law enforcement to perform certain federal immigration enforcement actions.
More than 25 local sheriff’s offices and police departments across the state have entered 287(g) agreements with ICE. Other jail arrests resulted from jails honoring immigration detainers, or requests from ICE to hold a subject until immigration enforcement can arrive and make an arrest.
At least 70 arrests were recorded at state prisons, according to data.
Most arrests that occurred at state prisons merely list “North Carolina Department of Corrections” as the apprehension site, even though the state’s prison system, which is overseen by the Department of Adult Correction, includes facilities in more than 40 counties.
More than 30 arrests were also logged at county probation offices.
Data indicates 37 people were arrested at the federal prison in Butner, or its medical facility, northeast of Durham. Other arrests of federally incarcerated people listed “RDU GENERAL AREA, NON-SPECIFIC” as the apprehension site.
About the data visualizations
Arrest numbers for counties are based on data with likely missing records due to data collection and as such, may not represent exact figures. In most instances, NC Local only mapped arrests that noted specific locations, like a jail, city or county.
NC Local did not map arrests that listed Charlotte ERO as the apprehension site landmark, as it refers to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, which works across the state.
The Charlotte ERO arrest number is included as an annotation on the map.
NC Local also included annotations for “RDU GENERAL AREA, NON-SPECIFIC” and “HEN GENERAL AREA, NON SPECIFIC.” NC Local believes those locations refer to Raleigh/Durham and Henderson County in western North Carolina. Those figures are not included in county figures.
Data visualizations created by Lex Clay Alfonso for NC Local.
This article first appeared on NCLocal and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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