Scenes of panic, paranoia, and solidarity unfolded across Durham on Tuesday as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents descended on the Triangle.
At Beauty World, a beauty supply store in a strip mall on Avondale Drive, an employee was taking out the trash around noon when she witnessed federal agents chase three people in the back parking lot and handcuff them, according to Beauty World co-owner Abraham Kim.
“They’re just kind of grabbing people right now,” Kim said.
Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam confirmed three people were detained outside Beauty World, saying she witnessed the detentions herself.
The operation in the Triangle comes amid “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” in which over 100 people have so far been detained in Charlotte, another Democrat-run city targeted by the Trump administration as part of the president’s efforts to ramp up deportations.
At the entrance to Beauty World, Syncere Jones stood manually opening and closing automatic doors for individual customers as a safety measure in the wake of the detentions.
“What they’re doing is not right,” Jones said of CBP, adding that he previously worked as a state corrections officer in Virginia and had “never seen anything like this.”
As news of the sweep spread, a sense of fear was palpable at Hispanic grocery stores. At La Superior on North Roxboro Street, customers were fleeing the parking lot, whipping their cars and trucks at high speeds, after a group of Siembra NC volunteers showed up around 1 p.m. and said agents were coming there next. Employees closed down the store and pulled the gates to the parking lot shut after the lot emptied out.
At Compare Foods on University Drive, the store remained open at 1:30 p.m., but uncertainty hung in the air. Some people driving in to do their grocery shopping stopped to ask volunteers positioned in the parking lot if it would be OK for them to shop.
“We have a lot of people here, so if you want to go buy groceries, it’s good for now,” Noah Liguori-Bills, a volunteer with Siembra NC wearing a neon yellow vest, told one shopper.
Liguori-Bills told the INDY that he and other volunteers were stationed at various spots across the Triangle where they anticipated federal agents might appear. When they spot vehicle makes and models that are known to be used by federal agents, they approach to confirm whether the occupants are federal agents by requesting badge numbers and asking what they’re doing in the area. When agents are verified, volunteers call a rapid response hotline that allows Siembra to track enforcement activity and warn community members, Liguori-Bills said.
So far, the coast was clear at Compare, though the heightened vigilance created a moment of false alarm. When a black SUV pulled into the parking lot, dozens of people blew whistles and honked their horns. It turned out to just be shoppers coming to buy groceries.
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