Charlotte Baker Temporarily Closes Bakery, Citing Fear for Family During Immigration Sweep

Cristina Rojas, who became a U.S. citizen in March, has temporarily closed The Batchmaker, the Charlotte bakery she owns, saying she fears for her family's safety amid a large-scale immigration enforcement operation in the area.

"I became a citizen but I don't stop being Honduran. I don't stop being Hispanic. The fact that a paper tells me you're now a citizen of this country doesn't take away from the fact that I look the way I look," Rojas said.

Rojas told reporters her family's safety outweighs financial concerns. She has limited the bakery to day-by-day operations and is offering only pick-up service for longstanding preorders while she assesses the situation.

"I think there's going to be a huge loss, but I don't think that there's a price I am willing to pay to risk it," she said.

The closure follows a recent enforcement action known as "Operation Charlotte's Web," during which authorities reported more than 200 arrests since Friday. Immigration agents also carried out operations in the Raleigh area; officials said the effort targets what they described as the "worst of the worst." Many in the immigrant community, however, say the raids have sown fear among people with lawful status and those with long-standing ties to the region.

Across Charlotte, students staged walkouts to protest the enforcement actions. Officials with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools reported more than 30,000 students—about 22% of the district—were absent on Monday, a number education leaders and community organizers linked to heightened fear among families.

North Carolina Governor Josh Stein criticized Border Patrol tactics, saying they do not promote public safety. "If this were targeted to going after known people who are criminals or known people who are drug traffickers who are engaged in violent crime, that would be a good thing, but they're just sweeping sidewalks, they're sweeping parking lots," he said. "They're going into stores and churches. This is causing widespread fear, widespread uncertainty. This is not about public safety, and I wish that it were."

Rojas said she sees herself in those who have been detained and in the neighbors who are too frightened to go to work or school. "So while, yes, I am a citizen, it doesn't take away from who I am, where I was born, and what makes me. I am Hispanic. I am an immigrant," she added.

Related developments: reporting has noted other enforcement actions and seizures connected to immigration and criminal investigations in the state, underscoring the broader tensions between federal enforcement priorities and local communities.