Hoyt Gier

I’m very frustrated by what has transpired over the last week during Operation Charlotte’s Web, and it is not for the reasons that you think. After hearing from business leaders, farmers, politicians, and everyone in between about their concerns of how this operation was handled, I feel that good folks genuinely lack understanding of the size and scope that illegal immigration became under the Biden administration, and how that impacts the safety of our communities and the opportunities of future generations of American citizens today. At a minimum, 14 million illegal aliens entered the United States from 2021-2024, an unprecedented escalation. Some of these illegal aliens are not good people, and assertions that some foreign countries ‘emptied their prisons’ and relieved the burden of these folks onto the streets of the United States, are true. Absolute instances of illegal alien crime jumped from 71k to 174k between 2021 and 2023. In 2024 alone, there were 516,050 criminal charges filed against illegal aliens across the United States. That crime represents real impacts, to real American citizens, that should never have happened at all. More than the criminal impact, is the societal impact. 59% of illegal alien-headed households receive government welfare today. Since coming to Congress, the revelation of the sheer size and scope of our entitlement state, which is supporting illegal immigrants at the expense of American citizens, is ASTOUNDING, UNSUSTAINABLE, and largely UNRECOGNIZED by the same citizens who are sentencing their children’s and grandchildren’s generations to a mountain of debt—$38 trillion and counting by the way. It’s one of the reasons we closed the illegal alien Medicaid loophole in the Working Families’ Tax Cuts Act, because 39% of illegal-headed households were taking advantage of it at the expense of American citizens who actually qualify for and need it. North Carolinians need to wake up to the fact that OVER 30,000 children didn’t show up to school in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system during Operation Charlotte’s Web. There’s only 141,000 children in the entire school system, and folks always complain about class size and low per-capita spending as reasons why our schools are challenged. Countless children have reported their teachers have to have language translation apps operating during class so illegal alien students can understand what is being taught. Illegal immigration is absolutely impacting educational outcomes of the next generation of American citizens. If you’re in the middle class, you don’t need me to tell you that everything is too expensive and it is hard to make ends meet, let alone build wealth. Costs have risen over the last 4 years, and they haven’t come down enough, nor have wages caught up enough to meaningfully ameliorate the pain. We’re 4 million homes short in this country. We understand this acutely in Charlotte—and two weeks ago, the average age of a first time home buyer in America crept above the age of 40 for the first time in history. Young Americans are stuck in apartments or their parents’ homes, deferring the traditional wealth building process of home ownership by a decade or more. That carries a LIFETIME of consequence. You cannot tell me that being 4 million homes short, yet allowing AT LEAST 14 million people to enter our country illegally over the past 4 years, are not connected in any way and are not driving significant challenges for American citizens. I don’t buy it, and while I don’t buy it, Americans don't feel safe in their cities, either, Charlotte included. There are and remain serious consequences of a societal breakdown of law, order, and the way things should be. Enter the reaction to Operation’s Charlotte’s Web. The chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party just equated ICE and Border Patrol agents to members of the KKK. Yes, the leader of a statewide political party is villainizing law enforcement, something that has happened repeatedly in Charlotte and every other American city in recent years, simply for upholding our laws and apprehending only 370 illegal aliens. But what she’s either conveniently forgetting or deliberately ignoring is what we’ve already discussed: countless Americans feel left behind. They see elite politicians prioritizing 370 illegal aliens over 750,000 American citizens who are simply trying to make it in life—and are struggling to do so. Yet the elite politicians are out there breaking their backs to protect illegal aliens without any regard for the safety of law enforcement, or corresponding outcomes for American citizens. This is a betrayal of the purpose of the government. I want to state unequivocally that I believe immigration and immigrants are vitally important—LEGAL IMMIGRATION, and LEGAL IMMIGRANTS. And, I fundamentally believe there are good people in our country illegally, who simply want the same things we want: more opportunity, and a fair shake to work hard and make a go of it. I understand this and the humanitarian argument behind it. But, although ours is a compassionate nation—who has taken the huddled masses—we are also a nation of laws. And the enforcement of those laws makes us a just society, not a mean one, and not an evil one. It is a lack of opportunity and justice that illegal immigrants are fleeing, finding refuge here in the United States. But when their first act in coming here is breaking the law, it sows the exact same seeds of chaos here that first destroyed the countries from which they left. That destruction will follow them here, if we do not enforce our laws. We have an obligation to protect American citizens from crime and deteriorating opportunity. Enforcing the law does not make us Klansmen, but failing to enforce the law will be our national suicide.