ICE Is Back in North Carolina: Durham Arrests Spark Alarm

(RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA) Immigrant rights organizers in North Carolina say ICE agents are once again carrying out large-scale enforcement in the state, with arrests reported in Durham and several other communities in recent days, including outside a federal immigration office where people were on the verge of gaining legal status. The renewed activity has stirred fear across the Triangle and beyond, as advocates describe what they call an aggressive, month-long operation focused on the Raleigh area.

According to Siembra NC, an immigrant rights organization that tracks federal enforcement, dozens of ICE agents from outside North Carolina have been deployed to the region for what the group says is a coordinated campaign. Siembra NC reports that agents have already detained or arrested several people in the last few days in Durham, Apex, Greensboro, Catawba County, and Charlotte. The group says many of the people targeted had been following government procedures to regularize their status and were in close contact with the same federal system now holding them.

The most alarming reports, advocates say, have come from Durham, where Siembra NC reports that multiple people were arrested ahead of scheduled appointments at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field office. Those appointments, according to the group, were in the final stages of the legal process for people seeking lawful status in the United States. Siembra NC says one permanent resident was detained on the day of her interview to become a U.S. citizen, and that two other women were arrested when they were just one interview away from obtaining their Green Cards.

Siembra NC emphasized that these individuals had work permits, no criminal records, and had been following every instruction from federal immigration authorities. The organization says families believed they were doing exactly what the government had asked of them, only to see relatives taken into custody at the very point when they expected to gain greater security. The daughter of one detained woman told Siembra:

“I’m in shock, I can’t believe this is happening. She was doing everything that had been asked of her.”

The group says that reaction has been echoed in calls to its hotline as word of the arrests has spread.

In its public warnings, Siembra NC has described the ICE activity as a “clear escalation” of normal operations, both in scale and in aggression. The group says the number of ICE agents involved, and the tactics they are accused of using, go beyond what community members have reported in recent months or years. According to Siembra NC, residents have described agents arriving in large groups, moving quickly through parking lots and residential streets, and focusing not only on people with prior orders of removal but also on those who believed they were protected by pending applications or ongoing cases.

The organization says it has documented and received reports of ICE agents wearing masks, brandishing automatic weapons, and ramming vehicles during arrests in communities in and around the Triangle. Those reports, Siembra NC says, have come from several different towns and cities, suggesting a coordinated strategy rather than isolated incidents. While ICE agents are armed federal officers, the description of masked agents with long guns and vehicles being rammed has raised fresh concern among local advocates about the level of force being used in civil immigration arrests.

In one incident on December 4 in Apex, Siembra NC says a U.S. citizen encountered ICE agents while sitting in her car in a daycare parking lot. According to the group, the woman was inside her vehicle when four masked agents approached, asked for her identification, and tried to open her car door. She locked the door and refused to respond to their questions, Siembra NC reports, and after a tense standoff the agents eventually left. The incident, advocates say, has unsettled not only undocumented residents but also U.S. citizens who fear being swept up or questioned simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Alongside these individual accounts, Siembra NC says its hotline has been receiving a rising number of calls describing ICE agents conducting surveillance and arrests in residential neighborhoods, at workplaces, and near schools. Parents have reported seeing unmarked vehicles circling school areas, according to the group, and workers have described agents waiting near job sites. Siembra NC warns that this new wave of enforcement risks triggering more school absences as families keep children home, along with economic disruption if breadwinners are detained and family separations if parents are taken while children are at school or daycare.

The apparent focus on people who are in active contact with federal immigration authorities has especially alarmed attorneys and organizers, who say it sends a chilling message to anyone considering stepping forward to regularize their status. In the Durham cases, Siembra NC says those arrested included people with scheduled USCIS interviews that are usually seen as milestones toward greater stability, whether through U.S. citizenship for a permanent resident or a Green Card for someone with a pending petition. Instead, advocates say, these families saw those appointments turn into traps when ICE agents moved in near the field office.

Federal officials have not confirmed details of the operation described by Siembra NC, including how many ICE agents are involved, where they have been deployed, or what their specific targets are. The Department of Homeland Security and its main enforcement arm, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, routinely state that immigration laws are enforced nationwide on a daily basis and that the agency does not discuss future or potential operations. In this case, advocates say that silence leaves local governments and school systems in the dark about what to expect, even as they field questions from worried residents.

In the absence of detailed federal information, groups like Siembra NC have stepped in to share real-time reports with communities, warning residents in Durham, Apex, Greensboro, Catawba County, Charlotte, and other parts of the state about sightings of ICE agents and arrests. The organization has urged people to report encounters, document any incidents involving masked officers or weapons, and contact legal support if they or family members are detained. It has also circulated reminders that people have the right to remain silent, to refuse consent to a search without a warrant signed by a judge, and to speak to a lawyer before answering questions, though those general rights do not prevent ICE from making civil arrests under federal law.

For now, immigrant families in North Carolina are bracing for what Siembra NC says will be a month-long campaign, with ICE agents operating in and around Raleigh and the broader Triangle. In living rooms, at school bus stops, and outside workplaces, the stories from Durham and the daycare parking lot in Apex are being retold, often with the same stunned words heard from the daughter of the woman taken into custody: “I’m in shock, I can’t believe this is happening.” Organizers say that sense of disbelief may give way to anger and organizing in the weeks ahead, but for many, the immediate feeling is a return to an atmosphere of fear that had never fully disappeared.

As the reported operation unfolds, local leaders and community groups in Durham and across the region are likely to face mounting pressure to respond, even if they have limited power over federal enforcement. For families watching ICE agents drive through their neighborhoods or wait outside workplaces, the fine print of jurisdiction matters less than the immediate question of who might be taken next. Siembra NC says its hotline will stay open as long as the operation continues, gathering reports from across the state and trying to piece together the full picture of what this “clear escalation” means for North Carolina’s immigrant communities.