Protests call on Home Depot to stop allowing Border Patrol, ICE arrests at stores

Hundreds of protesters lined up outside a south Charlotte Home Depot on Wednesday morning to protest the arrest of day laborers by federal agents.

Protesters on both sides of North Wendover Road held signs and cheered as drivers — including two men in a large Home Depot moving truck — drove by and honked in support.

Since arriving in Charlotte on Saturday morning, masked U.S. Border Patrol agents have made a reported 250 arrests in the Charlotte area, targeting grocery stores, a church, and residential areas. They’ve also targeted hardware store parking lots where day laborers gather in the morning for job opportunities.

“Home Depot has the responsibility and the opportunity to stand with the community. As a major gathering point, they are not neutral,” said Zamara Saldivar, an organizer with the Carolina Migrant Network. “Their stores are part of daily reality for immigrant workers and families.”

In a statement Wednesday, a Home Depot spokesperson said the chain is not coordinating with federal police.

“We aren’t notified that immigration enforcement activities are going to happen, and often, we don’t know operations have taken place until they’re over,” spokesperson George Lane said in an email to The Charlotte Observer. “We aren’t coordinating with ICE or Border Patrol, and we’re not involved in the operations. We’re required to follow all federal and local rules and regulations in every market where we operate.”

In Charlotte, protesters and city residents have been confronting federal agents to yell at them, blow whistles, and use phones to record video of them. Some people have been arrested while tracking the agents as they travel through the city.

Saldivar said her group’s ICE hotline, which is for people to report sightings of the federal agents, has been inundated with thousands of calls. Many, she said, are sightings, while other calls are hate messages.

The protest at the North Wendover Road Home Depot was organized by Indivisible Charlotte, the Carolina Migrant Network, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and PSL Charlotte. People attended from each organization, as well as former Charlotte mayor Jennifer Roberts and State Rep. Julia Greenfield, a Democrat.

Saldivar said protesters went inside of Home Depot, but were asked to leave by employees. She said she wished they would ask Border Patrol or ICE to leave as well.

Inside the store, the group of protesters was met by a man who said he was the district manager. One of the protesters handed a letter to the manager and asked that he give it to corporate leaders at Home Depot. The manager said he would give the letter to the company’s public relations department.

“Time to go guys,” he said.

Duty to protect immigrants

For drivers traveling south on North Wendover Road, the first two protesters they would have seen were Rey Reid and Savannah Wheeless.

The two women said they have been becoming more active in protests and volunteering to help people since Saturday. An organizer on the website Nextdoor helped connect them with families who need groceries delivered or help making sure their kids get to or from the school bus, they said.

“We’re out here because it’s what’s right,” Reid said.

“We’re letting them know they’re not alone,” Wheeless said.

The two said ICE and Border Patrol need “to do better” by leaving Charlotte and leaving people alone. Undocumented day laborers help run our economy, Wheeless said. And they felt a duty to protect Charlotte’s “melting pot,” Reid said.

Down the road, Norm Perreault, of Matthews, said he was protesting because he was angry with President Donald Trump’s administration sending Border Patrol and ICE to Charlotte.

“It centers from the fact that they say they’re deporting the worst of the worst,” Perreault said. “But day laborers are the best of the best.”

A woman who lives in a neighborhood behind the Home Depot, dressed as a frog, said her name was “Froggy Frog.”

It was the first time she was able to wear the blow up costume, which has become a symbol of anti-ICE and anti-Border Patrol protests in other cities.

The woman in the frog costume compared Border Patrol’s presence to that of the Gestapo, the secret police force in Nazi Germany.

“I’m 64 and have never, in my life, been confronted by what my parents were confronted with in World War II,” she said. “We have to stop that from happening here.”

Frances Platock, who also lives near the Home Depot, said Border Patrol was bypassing due process and kidnapping people off the street, including citizens, to stoke fear.

“We need to get back to humanity,” Platock said. “We need to get back to decency.”

This story was originally published November 19, 2025 at 1:43 PM.

Jeff A. Chamer

The Charlotte Observer

704-358-5013

Jeff A. Chamer is a breaking news reporter for the Charlotte Observer. He’s lived a few places, but mainly in Michigan where he grew up. Before joining the Observer, Jeff covered K-12 and higher education at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette in Massachusetts.