‘This is our reality’: Charlotte residents horrified after Border Patrol arrests women for honking car horn

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Nov. 18, 2025. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

Residents in Charlotte, North Carolina are expressing outrage after two local women were arrested for honking their car horn to alert others that US Border Patrol was in the area.

Local news station WCNC reported on Monday that the two women, who are US citizens, were taken into custody in the city’s Plaza Midwood neighborhood after Border Patrol agents pulled them over and accused them of interfering in operations by honking their horn.

Video of the incident shows masked federal agents yelling at the women and demanding that they roll down their car windows. When the women do not comply, one officer smashes through the window and then he and other officers pull them out of the vehicle.

The two women, who have not been identified, then spent several hours in an FBI facility before being released with citations.

Local resident Shea Watts, who took video of the encounter, told WCNC that he was feeling “somewhere between disbelief and just being really upset that this is our reality now” as he watched the incident unfold.

Watts also discussed his own interactions with the federal officers whom he was filming.

“I was already close to despair and feeling helpless and hopeless,” he said. “But I think just the reminder that if we see something, to document it. I tried to be respectful and ask questions and knowing my own rights, and I was told to back up a couple times, which, that’s fine, but at the end of the day, this all feels a little heavy handed.”

Charlotte has become the latest target of the Trump administration’s mass deportation operation, which has already drawn opposition from both local residents and elected officials in the North Carolina city.

NBC News reported on Monday that many Charlotte residents are living in fear of immigration operations in the city, with some local businesses closing down and some local churches reporting dramatic drops in attendance during the current operation.

Jonathan Ocampo, US citizen of Colombian descent who lives in the area, told NBC News that he’s started carrying his passport with him everywhere for fear of being mistaken for an undocumented immigrant.

“I’m carrying it here right now, which is sad,” he said. “It’s just scary.”

Charlotte city council member-elect JD Mazuera Arias told The Guardian on Monday that the immigration enforcement operations have had a chilling effect on the entire community.

“Our city has gone from a thriving city to a standstill,” he said.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Brad Reed.

Print Share Comment Cite Upload Translate Updates

Leave a Reply Cancel reply