This article originally published online at NC Newsline.
The first thing they asked Fernando Vazquez was “Where are you from?”
When two unmarked SUVs full of Border Patrol agents arrived Tuesday at the Cary construction site where Vazquez, 18, is employed, the only thing he could think of was to call his dad, another worker on the site. “I just told him, run, and to hide.”
The work at the site was virtually complete, with only around 10 workers present on an average day. Because of absences — with fears of Border Patrol and ICE chilling construction sites across the Triangle— Vazquez said there were only about four people on the site, part of why he didn’t believe they would be targeted.
“I didn’t believe it would happen to me,” Vazquez said. “I was born here.”
Vazquez had left the site to buy a drink at a nearby store. As he walked back, he saw a gray Chevy Tahoe and a black Ford Expedition roll up to the site. Vazquez retreated into a fenced-off HVAC area and took out his phone to get a better look at them.
But the agents had already spotted him.
The agents who approached him wore masks, gloves, and dark glasses. At first, Vazquez reserved his right to remain silent, but when one agent began questioning him in Spanish, he started swearing at them “to make time to stall them,” he said. “I’m thinking about the workers and my dad.”
As he tried to step out of the enclosure, he said, Border Patrol agents climbed over the fence to corner him. One yanked an AirPod out of Vazquez’s ear and set it on the AC unit beside him. When Vazquez tried to retrieve it and put it back in the case, he said, the agent shouted, “Don’t touch me.”
“I’m like, ‘I’m not touching you.’ And then he said, ‘If you touch me, there’s going to be a problem,’” Vazquez said.
That was when they handcuffed him and searched him, pulling his wallet out of his pocket.
“They saw my North Carolina Real ID,” he said. “They were looking for an ID or some sort of documentation, so at that moment, they could have let me free. But no, they decided to take me.”
Vazquez was placed in the SUV with one of his fellow workers on the construction site, a young man who was crying. As they drove away, the agents continued to question Vazquez, asking him again where he was from and where he was born as they went through his wallet.
When he told them he was born in Raleigh, the agent questioning him grew angry, Vazquez said. They abruptly pulled off the road into the parking lot of a carpet cleaning company, where they dumped him, a half mile away from where they picked him up, throwing his wallet and cards out of the SUV window as they drove off.
“I have no idea why they just dropped me off,” he added. “I kind of felt like I was being kidnapped.”
His video of Border Patrol uncuffing him and driving away has gone viral on TikTok, accumulating 3 million views and thousands of concerned comments. In the video, an agent with his face covering lowered appears to lunge at the phone with a raised hand, which Vazquez said he believed was an attempt by the agent to conceal his identity.
As Vazquez left the SUV, the other detainee asked him, “Tell my brother that they got me.”
“It devastated me,” Vazquez said. “It broke my heart to realize how two brothers were being separated in front of my eyes.”
As he ran back to the site, he called his mom to pick him up. His first reaction was fear that his dad may have been taken in the other SUV. When he told her what happened, she didn’t believe him. “Until she heard me running worried and worried, that’s when she believed me,” he said.
When he got back to the site, he told his dad and the detainee’s brother, another worker on the site, what happened. “His brother was just outside in shock,” he said.
The other worker told Vazquez that another Border Patrol vehicle was still patrolling the area, so he called his mom back, warning her not to pick him up. Instead, he got the keys from his dad and drove home himself.
Vazquez’s encounter with Border Patrol comes as immigration enforcement agencies conduct large-scale raids in Charlotte, Raleigh, and surrounding areas. He was far from the only U.S. citizen to be swept up in them.
A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection declined to comment on the incident, but said Thursday afternoon that Operation Charlotte’s Web in North Carolina has resulted in 370 arrests. “The operation is not over and it is not ending anytime soon,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Earlier Thursday, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden said he had been told by federal agents that Border Patrol operations had ceased in Charlotte, though he noted that ICE will continue to operate in the area “as they always have.”
It is unclear whether Border Patrol operations in the Triangle area remain ongoing. A spokeswoman for Wake County Sheriff Willie Rowe said their office has had no communication from federal authorities.
North Carolina politicians from both parties have urged federal agents to focus their efforts on criminals instead of carrying out indiscriminate arrests.
Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) wrote in a post on X that operations should target “those who not only violated our immigration law but also pose a threat to our communities.”
“Federal law enforcement has been tasked with removing criminal offenders who never should’ve been in the U.S.,” Budd wrote Wednesday. “They should carry out this mission responsibly to ensure that violent individuals are quickly identified, detained, and deported.”
Gov. Josh Stein issued a direct condemnation of ICE and Border Patrol for “operating in the shadows” in the state on Tuesday.
“If this were targeted to going after known people who are criminals or known people who are drug traffickers who are engaged in violent crime, that would be a good thing,” Stein said after an event in Benson. “But they’re just sweeping sidewalks. They’re sweeping parking lots. They’re going into stores and churches.”
“This is causing widespread fear, widespread uncertainty,” he added. “This is not about public safety, and I wish that it were.”
Vazquez said he would advise those concerned they could be picked up to carry their documentation with them at all times. If possible, he said, don’t leave the house at all.
“If you don’t have to come outside, don’t come outside,” he said. “If you need any help, ask somebody.”
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