How Border Patrol raids changed the N.C. political landscape

'Shock and awe' operations are bad politics — but they made deporting violent offenders a consensus issue and set the stage for serious labor enforcement.

All anybody in North Carolina has talked about this week is the Border Patrol operations in Charlotte and Raleigh.

I’ve already written quite a bit about it. My first newspaper column laid out why I don’t like masked agents and unmarked vans on our streets.

The second makes the case that immigration enforcement, including deportation, is necessary and actually moral. You can read it here, free with gift link: Border Patrol leaves Charlotte, but hard reality remains: We need deportations

This is an emotional issue, and it should be. In general, my position is in line with Pope Leo XIV, who said that every country has a right to control its borders, but must still treat migrants humanely and with the dignity they possess, through courts and a real system of justice rather than cruelty or spectacle.

For this newsletter, though, I want to set the emotion off to the side and look only at the political and the policy implications for North Carolina specifically. Obviously, most of the change n…