Leaders from several of the Triangle’s human rights and social justice organizations gathered in Raleigh for a press conference Thursday to demand an end to growing attacks on immigrants and refugees, international students, Muslims, and other vulnerable communities, and to protest U.S. wars abroad.
The gathering came as federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raid homes, workplaces, and public buildings; international students are being deported; and crimes against Muslims are rising.
Just this week in North Carolina, ICE agents raided a Kings Mountain fire equipment company and took more than two dozen people into custody. Numerous international students studying at Triangle universities have had their visas terminated, and at least two international students have left the United States. This spring, a 15-year-old Muslim girl was injured in a fight in her Charlotte high school classroom that triggered a federal hate crime investigation. In a March report, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) found that there were 8,658 complaints about anti-Muslim or anti-Arab incidents in the U.S. in 2024, an increase of 7.4 percent year over year, and the highest number since CAIR began gathering data in 1996…