The Trump administration is calling its new immigration crackdown sweeping North Carolina's largest city "Operation Charlotte’s Web.”
But the granddaughter of E.B. White, the author of the classic 1952 children's tale Charlotte's Web, said the wave of immigration arrests goes against what her grandfather and his beloved book stood for.
"He believed in the rule of law and due process,” Martha White said in a statement.
"He certainly didn’t believe in masked men, in unmarked cars, raiding people’s homes and workplaces without IDs or summons.”
White, whose grandfather died in 1985, works as his literary executor. She pointed out that in Charlotte’s Web, the spider who is the main character devoted her life on the farm to securing the freedom of a pig named Wilbur.
The Trump administration and Republican leaders have seized on a number of catchy phrases while carrying out mass deportation efforts - naming their holding facilities Alligator Alcatrazin Florida, Speedway Slammerin Indiana and Cornhusker Clinkin Nebraska.
Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official now on the ground in Charlotte, was the face of the "Operation At Large” in Los Angeles and "Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago, two enforcement surges earlier this year. As the Charlotte operation got underway, Bovino quoted from "Charlotte's Web” in a social media post: "We take to the breeze, we go as we please.” - AP
