Charlotte school district attendance plummets after immigration raid, sparking concerns about illegal alien numbers

With the launch of Operation Charlotte’s Web in North Carolina over the weekend, some have speculated that law enforcement has stumbled upon a large number of illegal aliens in a major city.

Social media was set ablaze on Monday and Tuesday as early reports were released about school attendance in one of the largest school districts in the country.

‘President Trump and Secretary Noem will step up to protect Americans when sanctuary politicians won’t.’

On Monday night, WSOC-TV reporter Joe Bruno posted on X: “A spokesperson for Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools says unofficial attendance data from today indicates that approximately 20,935 students were absent from school today. This accounts for approximately 15% of students enrolled in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.”

RELATED: ‘Climbing into the ceiling tiles’: DHS immigration raids hit Charlotte, where 1 in 6 residents are foreign-born

Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, highlighted the report, saying, “So a conservative estimate is that one-seventh of a major southern public school district is here illegally.”

According to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools attendance data obtained by Blaze News, attendance did indeed drop precipitously on the Monday following the commencement of Operation Charlotte’s Web.

Data from November 17 reveals that 30,399 students were absent, a number significantly higher than early reports suggested. Only 79.0% of the 145,030 students enrolled in the district attended school on Monday.

The vast majority of those absences, moreover — 28,136 — were marked as unexcused.

Blaze News also obtained data from the previous Monday.

On Nov. 10, 132,043 of the 144,909 students enrolled, or 91.1%, were in attendance. Only 12,866 students were absent, most, again, unexcused.

This constitutes a roughly 12% drop in attendance week over week, though there are likely other factors that contributed to this significant drop.

Operation Charlotte’s Web, one of the Trump administration’s latest immigration enforcement operations, was launched on Saturday. The operation is set to target Charlotte, North Carolina, a well-known sanctuary city where one out of every six residents was born in a foreign country.

“Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens hurting them, their families, or their neighbors,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a press release Saturday. “We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed. There have been too many victims of criminal illegal aliens. President Trump and Secretary Noem will step up to protect Americans when sanctuary politicians won’t.”

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