[Reprinted from North Carolina Newsline]
]Photo above: Student protesters march past D.H. Hill Library at NC State in Raleigh, carrying signs like “ICE melts fast in the South,” on the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 21, 2025]
[Photo below: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline journalist]
As final exams approach at NC State, stress over studies has been overtaken for some by fear of the federal immigration crackdown in Raleigh.
That anxiety erupted into protest on Friday as hundreds of students took to Hillsborough Street to demand ICE and Border Patrol end their North Carolina crackdown.
Students look on as protesters hold a rally against ICE at the base of the Memorial Belltower on Nov. 21, 2025. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)
Kendelle Petty, a freshman from Nags Head, said many of her friends are afraid to leave their dorms as rumors of ICE sightings fly around campus. She marched in Friday’s protest carrying a sign that said, “No one is illegal on stolen land.”
“I think that our current administration is acting in a very similar way to Nazi Germany, and they’re dragging people out of their homes,” Petty said. “I’m just very frustrated — it’s like we’re not treating immigrants as people.”
The student protesters gathered at the base of the Memorial Belltower before marching down Hillsborough Street, past D.H. Hill Library, and through the campus grounds, chanting “Down with deportation, up with liberation” and “ICE out of NC now!”
The protest comes a day after mixed messages from law enforcement officials about the status of an immigration crackdown in N.C. by the Trump administration.
Mecklenburg Co. Sheriff Garry McFadden said Thursday he was told by federal agents that “Operation Charlotte’s Web” was over for now. But U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the operation is continuing, punctuated by a mocking meme on social media.
As of Thursday, DHS reported 370 arrests in North Carolina through the enforcement operation. Immigration authorities detained U.S. citizens in some cases, and the expansive nature of the operation has drawn criticism from some North Carolina officials of both parties, who say it should focus on those who pose a danger to the public.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the protest.
Hundreds of student demonstrators marched down Hillsborough Street on Nov. 21, 2025 in protest of the immigration crackdown in N.C.
NC State spokesman Mick Kulikowski said the university is “closely monitoring the situation,” adding that campus police have reported no credible sightings of immigration agents on campus.
In a memo Tuesday, NC State executive vice chancellor and provost Warwick Arden told faculty not to provide any information about students to immigration enforcement without consulting the university general counsel. He also advised caution for the international community on campus.
“International students, faculty and staff should carry evidence of their immigration status with them at all times,” Arden wrote. “If they leave the Raleigh area, we encourage them to carry their passport.”
Livi Schwartz, an organizer with the campus chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, said that, while there have been no verified sightings on ICE tracking apps, “the threat still feels very real to everyone.”
“Someone told us that he was stopped by someone on campus and asked for his passport and identification,” Schwartz said. “We have had people see suspicious vehicles.”
In response to those fears, students are mobilizing to prepare each other for encounters with ICE. Plastered across the campus are QR codes for immigrant rights resources and ICE tracking tools. Schwartz’s organization and lawyers from the University Student Legal Services held “Know Your Rights” information sessions Wednesday and Thursday at NC State’s Talley Student Union.
“It can be very difficult to act how we would want to in these situations,” Schwartz said. “We want it to be muscle memory for people so that they aren’t caught off guard, which is what the agents want.”
“This all-day climate of, ‘Are my students going to be okay? Is someone I know going to be kidnapped?’ That was new to me on this campus,” said English professor Belle Boggs. “It was incredibly disruptive to the students and to the faculty.”
A flyer warns “ICE is coming to Charlotte” on the campus of NC State in Raleigh on Nov. 19, 2025. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)
Like Schwartz, Boggs said she has not had a direct encounter with ICE or Border Patrol agents. But colleagues have sent her photos of men dressed in black and green tactical garb on Hillsborough Street, and students have told her about encounters with them around D.H. Hill Library, she said.
“It felt awful to think about my students having to be afraid that they need to show proof of their immigration status to an armed, dangerous stranger wearing a mask,” said Boggs, who also serves as president of the state chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
In a statement Wednesday, the North Carolina AAUP condemned the immigration crackdown in North Carolina as “racist and xenophobic.”
“It will not succeed in cowing faculty and academic workers, in sowing division, or in keeping us from supporting our neighbors in need,” the professors said in the statement. “We will continue to fight for the colleges, universities, and communities we deserve.”
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