Before Thanksgiving 2025, the Department of Homeland Security set its sights on North Carolina. Since launching Operation Charlotte’s Web, a multiagency campaign of terror and abduction directed against the state’s non-white immigrant population, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) have made more than 400 arrests while local businesses have shuttered and student absences have skyrocketed.1
But workers and students in the bull city did not take this invasion lying down. In this interview, Shan, a Durham-based public school teacher, shares about the initially “chaotic” response to raids—and the organized response before, during, and after them. Widespread pressure and fast-acting responses coordinated by the local teacher’s union, community groups, parents, and students won important protections and paved the way for continued resistance to state terror in their schools.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
by Juan Verala Luz
Juan Verala Luz (JVL): When you first learned ICE was planning to invade North Carolina, how did you and other educators prepare?
Shan (S): Local nonprofits and other community groups have long prepped for that sort of thing.2 As far as I know, in recent years, there’s never been Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) coming along with ICE. Given what was already happening in Charlotte, it was pretty scary how close it was and the sheer number of people snatched in such a short amount of time.
I definitely don’t think school staff were really prepared at all. It wasn’t a thing where I felt like I knew what exactly to do. A lot of people were asking questions about it as things were happening. We blame the school district administration for that disorganization.
With schools, the nice thing is that we already kind of have a natural network, because parents, students, workers are all kind of connected. So it was almost easy in a sense to mobilize around it. We didn’t have to really convince each other. We all came together very organically.
JVL: How did you “organically” come together? Were you explicitly coordinating responses together, or recognizing from a distance each other’s role in confronting this operation?
S: During Operation Charlotte’s Web, our worker organization was really focused on pushing immigrant protection policies at our upcoming second meet-and-confer session.3 We were trying to argue for a robust ICE policy that provides all the resources possible, such as Red Cards, “Know Your Rights” information, and comprehensive training for staff as part of our platform, so our capacity was highly limited.4
Because we were so out of capacity, community groups really stepped up. At the high school levels, the students self-organized and did a walkout in at least two of the schools, if not more.5 A lot of parent organizations and outside nonprofits cohered together and reached out to us. We were able to provide a lot of contacts at different schools because we already had Durham Association of Educators leaders and that connected network.
I became one of the captains of a school so that I could coordinate with parents. I remember being in meetings with hundreds of people to plan our response. We told people to come to a spot to make sure we watch for any suspicious vehicles coming through the schools. We also held signs to show we really support students and all that, like, you’re welcomed here. Because it was right around the time of Thanksgiving break, parents wanted to make sure that for families that were afraid to go out to get food for whatever reason, they had food delivered to their houses, so they organized a food drive.
It was kind of like having a morale boost in those scary times from parents.
JVL: You mentioned your union was focused on the meet-and-confer immigrant protection policy. Walk me through how the team brought it to the school district.
S: Immigrant protections were definitely something that was on the top of our minds after Trump got re-elected. Durham actually protected a student from deportation with a policy during Trump’s first administration that got adopted. We’re trying to push the district to strengthen that policy.6
A lot of staff members and workers in my school who don’t read up on stuff like that would be really confused about how to help students. They’re, like, “Well, what if ICE agents show up? What should I do?” We also wanted to make sure that other staff members are protected too, because we have staff members who are international teachers and workers. If the district would train and have a more systematic approach so that we’re all in it together, we could respond a lot faster and more effectively. Most of the stuff administrators put out these days are just vague platitudes, like “Oh, we care and believe in protecting families. We believe that all children deserve education.” I’m like, “Okay, that’s nice, but what can we do concretely?”
In the first session, when we started the conversation, the district was very reluctant to re-adopt the policy and was very defensive generally. They said “I don’t really want to get targeted by ICE.” We’re like, “Well, ICE is gonna come anyway, doesn’t really matter if you say it publicly here or not.”
Once ICE was in town, it was one of those things where the point was proven. Because things were so really red hot, the administration really couldn’t wiggle out of that. We have open meetings between our team, their team, and we as members of the public are all sitting there, all 200 some of us. A lot of the district meet-and-confer team members are very angry that we’re even there to begin with; they have to really show their faces. If they said anything that was against the immigrant protection policy, I think it would have been game over, publicity-wise.
JVL: Have you won anything since ICE came to Durham?
S: Because of all the organic community organizing, the union pushing, and now with ICE coming, the timing ended up being good for us in terms of winning more specific things, more commitments from the district. They agreed to provide Red Cards in all the schools. They agreed to work on the immigrant protection policy and the training.
The victory isn’t just the things that were provided in the moment, but also the fact that we now have this network and structure set up. We know this was a kind of last-minute scramble, and we’re trying to refine it, but in case this happens in the future, we already have the structure to respond to it and that will be sustained. We never know when they’re going to come and ICE is always here, but I feel a lot more prepared both mentally and materially.
JVL: What lessons are you taking with you to prepare for ICE’s return?
S: Community organization really works: having people mobilize and be visible to take that strong stand that we’re not tolerating ICE matters. I can’t say for sure but I know that when they came to the Triangle area and we had all these protests and more visibility, they didn’t stay for long. Making sure that we have lots of people there protecting each other, I think that was really important.
Because we were already having that conversation about immigrant defense, I think that helped all of us jump in and take action. Leveraging all those networks and on-the-ground mass organizations is very helpful. Think about what kind of people and organizations you have rather than going through the legal route. I think it will be good for any kind of organization to think about setting up that type of structure so that ICE can’t hit anywhere and everywhere.
If you enjoyed this article, we also recommend our guide for Organizing to Keep ICE Out of Your Workplace.
Notes
- For a substantive look at Operation Charlotte’s Web’s development and impacts, see https://www.wbtv.com/2025/12/03/425-arrested-operation-charlottes-web-federal-officials-say/. ↩︎
- One noteworthy example is Siembra NC. Even before Trump’s 2024 electoral victory, the organization had been hosting packed “Know Your Rights” training and readying rapid response networks. Learn more about their work in this interview with co-founder Nikki Marín Baena: https://truthout.org/audio/fight-fear-build-power-community-defense-works/. ↩︎
- North Carolina’s right-to-work legislation forbids public-sector collective bargaining. Meet-and-confer, wherein district administrators and workers’ associations negotiate over non-binding priorities they recommend that the board of education adopts, is “as close as you can get to” it, explained Shan. ↩︎
- Typically printed on bright red cardstock, Red Cards are wallet-sized reminders about constitutional rights and an enumerated list of steps for exercising them during encounters with federal law enforcement. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) makes printable PDFs available in over 50 languages; see https://www.ilrc.org/redcards. ↩︎
- An account of the walkouts can be read at https://dukechronicle.com/article/duke-university-durham-demonstration-protest-ice-border-patrol-immigration-high-school-durham-public-schools-north-carolina-charlotte-walkout-20251122. ↩︎
- Details of the revised 2017 policy can be found at https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/news/durham-strengthens-policy-protecting-immigrant-students/35797/. ↩︎