Fernando Vazquez, a landscaper who was swept up in a Cary immigration raid last year, is challenging the federal government in court, seeking damages over what he describes as a wrongful arrest and mistreatment at the hands of federal authorities.
In a written statement Wednesday announcing his legal challenge, Vazquez alleged that federal immigration agents racially profiled him because of the color of his skin. “The entire experience left me feeling powerless, frightened, humiliated, and deeply shaken,” he said. “It has had a lasting emotional impact on me. I believe what happened to me was unjust, and I am seeking accountability and justice for what I experienced.”
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Vazquez says he was at work at his landscaping job in Cary last year when federal immigration agents swooped in, handcuffed him, threw him into the back of an SUV and drove away, despite his protestations that he was an American citizen.
After agents later confirmed the 18-year-old was telling the truth, he alleges, they threw away his wallet and abandoned him in the woods — leaving him alone, injured and frightened.
“They treated me like a dog, basically,” Vazquez told WRAL in November after the incident. “It was unreal.”
The Raleigh native is one of dozens of people across the country with similar allegations. They’re now filing administrative complaints against the federal government, seeking damages for the ways they say they were mistreated during President Donald Trump’s effort to increase immigration enforcement, which is ramping up deportations.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and other agencies, said its agents would never racially profile anyone.
“Allegations that ICE engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE,” the DHS spokesperson said in a statement to WRAL. “This type of garbage is contributing to our officers facing a more than 1,300% increase in assaults against them. A person’s immigration status makes them a target for enforcement, not their skin color, race or ethnicity.”
The agency didn’t respond to a follow-up question of how an American citizen such as Vazquez could be arrested if agents only target people based on their immigration status.
Vazquez and the others are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. There are at least five North Carolinians in that effort, including Willy Aceituno, who was stopped by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents in Charlotte last year on his way to pick up food but showed them his REAL ID, confirming he was an American citizen.
The ICE agents initially let him go, according to the ACLU. But after Aceituno started filming them on his phone, the agents shattered his car window, threw him onto the broken glass, then drove him two miles away before leaving him bleeding on the side of the road, the ACLU alleges.
“Mr. Vazquez and Mr. Aceituno's damages claims are part of a national effort to hold the federal government accountable and challenge the unlawful and abusive tactics that have harmed communities across our state and country," Corina Scott, an ACLU of North Carolina attorney involved in the case, said in a news release announcing the lawsuits.
