Two U.S. citizen brothers say Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers racially profiled and assaulted them in Salisbury, N.C., as federal agents continue heightened immigration arrests across the country.
On Monday, ICE officers pulled over Edwin Godinez, 29, and his stepbrother, Yair Napolés, 22, in an unmarked vehicle in the city located between Charlotte and Greensboro.
While starting the workday at their family's construction business, the stepbrothers learned that two of their immigrant coworkers were detained and arrested by ICE while on their way to work.
Their co-workers' work vehicle and attached trailer were left behind, so Godinez and Napolés decided to recover the vehicles. That's when officers stopped them, the men told WUNC in an interview.
But the officers did not identify themselves or give the two Mexican American men any explanation for the stop on Jan. 5.
What the viral video shows
Officers initially told the stepbrothers they were okay to record the interaction, as they remained seated in their car and provided their identification to them, according to a video that has since gone viral on Tiktok and X.
The officers appeared to have focused their attention on Napolés, who was born in Roxboro, North Carolina. Godinez was born in California.
Moments later, an officer said they were detaining the men and demanded they turn off their phones — Godinez calmly refused with one hand on the steering wheel and defended his right to record.
An officer then lunged for his phone through the window and reaches inside to open the door.
“We haven’t done anything wrong," Godinez said. "You are not allowed to do this!"
Officers tried to pull out Godinez, and appear to hit him while doing so, according to the video. They also tried to remove Napolés from the passenger seat.
The officers gave conflicting demands: while trying to remove Godinez and Napolés from the car, they also yelled at them to make their hands visible, while also demanding they stop recording. One officer can be heard saying they were "interfering with an investigation."
Neither men were arrested, and the officers eventually left them.
"In shock, traumatized"
Both of the men told WUNC in an interview that the incident left them physically and mentally shaken and unable to work for most of the week.
Napolés says he thinks the officers believed he was lying about being a U.S. citizen.
"I think they might have thought, 'he's illegal,'" said Napolés, in Spanish. "They opened the car door and tried to pull me out. I felt even more scared since we had already told them we were citizens."
Napolés said that unlike his stepbrother, he's not fluent in English, because he lived many years in Mexico.
"There's no reason why I've had to even turn off my phone," said Godinez. "(The officer) is telling me to comply, but yet he's also already hurting us, and then he's trying to drag me out of the car, and for me to still also not be recording, which to me, is insane."
The stepbrothers say they were fortunate to have captured everything on camera.
Godinez said doing so was especially important, in light of the fatal shooting by immigration enforcement agents of Renee Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.
"Look at what happened to her," he said. "I can only imagine what they would have done to us had we not been recording, and if they would have dragged us outside just looking for a reason to escalate the whole thing further."
As far as their coworkers who were arrested by ICE, they were described as Guatemalan immigrants who were hardworking men and essential employees of the family company for years.
Teresa de la Rosa, Godinez's mother and Napoles' stepmother, was present recording at the scene. De la Rosa told WUNC that she had to seek medical attention after she suffered an anxiety attack.
"I never thought I would live through something like that," said Napolés. "It leaves you in shock, traumatized."
What ICE said
In an emailed statement to WUNC, an ICE spokesman said officers were targeting a previously removed illegal immigrant. Officers "used reasonable suspicion to pull over the vehicle" which they believed had a previously removed illegal immigrant inside.
No U.S. citizens were arrested, and the stepbrothers were accused of refusing to follow "commands, including officers' concerns about keeping their hands visible" according to the ICE statement.
It's the second time in recent months that a video of federal immigration agents detaining a Latino U.S. citizen in North Carolina goes viral on social media.
In November, a TikTok went viral of 18-year-old Fernando Vazquez, a recent Raleigh high school graduate and landscaper, while he was detained by Border Patrol agents in Cary.
