Charlotte, North Carolina, is the latest city to experience a series of immigration enforcement raids, an effort that federal officials have dubbed “Charlotte’s Web.” The name, borrowed from the classic children’s book by E.B. White, has drawn criticism from White’s family. His granddaughter, Martha White, told CNN that her grandfather “certainly didn’t believe in masked men, in unmarked cars, raiding people’s homes and workplaces without IDs or summons,” adding that “he didn’t condone fearmongering.”
Homeland Security officials appeared to lean into the book reference. Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol official and North Carolina native, quoted a passage from Charlotte’s Web in a weekend social media post: “‘Wherever the wind takes us. High, low. Near, far. East, west. North, south. We take to the breeze, we go as we please.’” He then added his own commentary, saying that “the breeze hit Charlotte like a storm” and that agents “go where the mission calls.”
Martha White responded by highlighting the book’s themes of kindness and empathy, quoting Charlotte’s line: “By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a little. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.” She argued that using her grandfather’s story to brand an enforcement campaign clashes with the spirit of the original work.
In a commentary at Law Dork, writer Chris Geidner pointed to a 1940 E.B. White essay on freedom—one that warned of growing comfort with authoritarian behavior—to argue that the author would have strongly objected to the operation’s messaging.