Vance promises answers to Tillis’ questions on Operation Charlotte’s Web
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Vance says new Homeland Security leadership will ensure Tillis gets a response.
- Vance called the operation aimed at removing violent criminals to improve safety.
- Vance linked delay to DHS turnover after Noem's demotion and Mullin's nomination.
Vice President JD Vance assured a crowd in Rocky Mount that Sen. Thom Tillis’ questions about an immigration operation in Charlotte would be answered.
On Feb. 2, Tillis sent the Department of Homeland Security a four-page letter asking questions about Operation Charlotte’s Web, which targeted immigrants in North Carolina last November. Among his questions was whether reports that U.S. citizens were detained during that operation were accurate.
When then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appeared before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on March 3, Tillis didn’t mince words, saying he believed she was “incompetent” and needed to resign.
Vance spoke to a crowd of around 200 people Friday at The Power House event space in Rocky Mount, and took questions from reporters, including one from McClatchy about Tillis’ unanswered letter and whether U.S. citizens were detained.
Vance did not directly answer the question, but did address whether Tillis would receive a response from the department.
“Look, Operation Charlotte’s Web is fundamentally an operation to try to make our country safe by getting violent criminals off the streets of the United States of America,” Vance said. ”Now I was not aware that Thom Tillis, who is a friend of mine — he and I’ve had our disagreements — but Thom Tillis and I know each other. I’ll go back and offer to speak with Thom about this. I didn’t know that he said his questions had been unanswered by DHS.”
He also joked that if Tillis sent his questions in the past week — Tillis didn’t — that could explain the delay.
“You may have seen we’ve had a little bit of turnover in the Department of Homeland Security,” Vance said, acknowledging that a week after Tillis called for Noem’s resignation, Trump demoted her and nominated Sen. Markwayne Mullin to take her position.
Both Tillis and Sen. Ted Budd have praised Mullin’s nomination.
“What I do promise Thom is that the new leadership in DHS is going to get a response to his questions,” Vance said, “but we’re going to keep on using the Department of Homeland Security to do the very simple thing of making the homeland more secure.”
Tillis has said he supports the deportation of people who are in the country without permission, but that the way Noem enforced that law has made people believe that deportation is wrong.
Operation Charlotte’s Web began in November, three months after the stabbing death of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian immigrant living in Charlotte. She was stabbed on the light rail after sitting down in front of DeCarlos Brown Jr., whom police charged in her death.
Republicans have pointed to Zarutska’s death to accuse the Democratic senatorial candidate, former Gov. Roy Cooper, of being soft on crime.
Vance mentioned Cooper and Zarutska in his speech Friday, saying: “Why does he care so much about the war in Ukraine, 6,000 miles away, but doesn’t give a damn about an innocent Ukrainian girl who lost her life in our backyard because he wouldn’t do his job.”
Brown was released from prison in 2020 while Cooper was governor, but state prison officials have said he was not released early, The Charlotte Observer previously reported. And he would go on to be arrested again, including in January 2025, after Cooper was no longer governor. He was then released by a magistrate judge and did not serve prison time, the Observer reported.
