‘It’s Very Bleak’

Amid conflicting reports Thursday about whether a six-day U.S. Border Patrol operation had concluded, Charlotte’s Latino business owners and community leaders began to gauge how much harm “Operation Charlotte’s Web” had done.

In a sense, the measurements resembled initial damage assessments after a severe storm—except that it was still unclear whether the storm had passed. Late Thursday morning, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, and other local officials said they’d been told that the operation was finished and that Border Patrol agents were leaving town.

But Thursday afternoon, DHS claimed it would continue. “Operation Charlotte’s Web isn’t ending anytime soon,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X in response to a Charlotte television station report. The department also posted a meme of a smiling man behind bushes and the message, “Dear Criminal Illegal Aliens: we are gone. It is safe to come out!”

Given the uncertainty, businesses and public spaces in the city’s Latino neighborhoods remained largely vacant Thursday. Local and state leaders, including Gov. Josh Stein, have accused Border Patrol officers of profiling Latino immigrants based solely on their appearance. Only a handful of restaurants and shops were open along Central Avenue and Albemarle Road, the main thoroughfares through immigrant-heavy east Charlotte.

Even open businesses posted warnings: At one, a small market on Albemarle, an employee stood sentry at the front door as customers exited with takeout orders. On the door was a warning to law enforcement not to enter without a judicial warrant. The employees declined to speak to a reporter.

It’s one of more than 400 immigrant-owned east Charlotte businesses dealing with the impact of this week’s immigration-enforcement actions. The community nonprofit CharlotteEAST says about 70% of the area’s 424 independent businesses are owned by first- or second-generation immigrants; most of them are restaurants or food shops. The organization sent surveys to about 250 businesses Monday, and 77 had responded by Thursday.

Among the results: 44% had been closed for at least three days; revenue lost per day ranged from $200 to $5,000, with an average of about $2,500; and 56% didn’t know when they would reopen.

“It’s bleak,” said Greg Asciutto, CharlotteEAST’s executive director. “It’s very bleak.”

Looking for Emergency Funds

Regardless of whether the Border Patrol operation would continue, CharlotteEAST said it planned to work with city officials and community groups in the coming weeks to direct as many customers as possible to east Charlotte.

Among the group’s ideas, Asciutto said, is a month-long marketing push that could include organized dinners at Latino-owned restaurants, discounts on advertising, and helping small restaurants that don’t use DoorDash or other delivery services set up accounts.

Longer-term, Asciutto said, the organization plans to establish an emergency relief fund to disburse grants or loans in case of another Border Patrol operation. He didn’t know Thursday where the money for such a fund would come from and doubted it would be in place fast enough to save some businesses that have been shut down since Saturday.

“We need to have an emergency relief fund for small businesses. Because a lot of them, in east Charlotte specifically, you think, ‘Are they even going to survive this?’” said Karla Cruz, vice president of programs and operations for Spark Centro and a Mexico City native who grew up in east Charlotte. Spark Centro, established last year, is an offshoot of the Charlotte-area Latin American Chamber of Commerce; it plans to open a business incubator hub on Albemarle Road late next year.

CharlotteEAST, Spark Centro, and other community organizations might also organize meetings and holiday events to pass on information and help people reconnect in a safe place, Cruz said. “I think right now, we’ve been terrorized, and so we want to make sure we build that trust with everybody.”

‘Muscle Memory from COVID’

For most of its 35 years, CharlotteEAST has been a community organization that promoted the area’s businesses and cultural diversity. East Charlotte used to be one of the city’s most popular shopping destinations—Eastland Mall, opened in 1975, was the city’s premier shopping center for years, celebrated for its indoor ice-skating rink.

But competition from other retail centers and a general rise in crime and poverty on the east side led to the mall’s closing in 2010; after years of failed proposals, the 80-acre property is under development as a mixed-use project that includes a public park.

Recently, given the area’s rising profile and the city’s growth, CharlotteEAST has expanded its role to include economic development. Asciutto, 33, became its first executive director in 2024. He led an effort in spring and summer to canvass the 10 square miles around the old mall property—home to about 67,000 residents—and collect information about local businesses.

One of those businesses, Manolo’s Bakery—owned by Manolo Betancur, a 49-year-old Colombian immigrant and prominent community leader—has transformed into a symbolic hub for the community’s pushback against the Border Patrol. Crowds have gathered outside the closed bakery on Central Avenue all week after dark to protest and celebrate.

“On Saturday, stuff started hitting the fan,” Asciutto said. “We were outside of Manolo’s at 2 o’clock, and a business owner came from across the street and was like, ‘Manolo, I’m shutting down.’ Manolo made the decision to shut down. From Saturday on, it has been like a domino effect.

“I’ve used this quote a million times, but it’s the only way for people to understand the gravity,” he continued. “It is very similar to what happened the first week of the COVID pandemic. … One of our nonprofit executives said, ‘Muscle memory from COVID kicked back in.’”

If nothing else, Asciutto said, many immigrant business owners know how to operate on tight margins and under hard circumstances—even though he knows some may not reopen after this week.

“We’re trying to find the best bright spot we can until we know how long this operation is going to last,” he said. “That’s really all we’re hanging onto.”

CLARIFICATION: The stats from CharlotteEAST have been rephrased for clarity.

Greg Lacour is a journalist in Charlotte.