On the morning of July 9, around 7 a.m., a white construction van full of workers sped into the parking lot of a Greensboro Waffle House on Randleman Road, followed by a handful of unmarked cars and trucks. Shortly afterwards, at least two people were detained by agents wearing face masks and safety vests, according to witnesses.
“We spoke with a family member of one of the people arrested,” said Andreina Malki, defense manager for Siembra NC, a statewide immigrant advocacy organization. “[The agents] followed a van to the Waffle House.”
One of the people detained was Manuel Ezequiel Salazar Diaz, a man from Nicaragua who is being held at the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia as of July 28, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainee locator.
His sister, Jeylin Martinez, said Diaz is a hardworking man.
“He’s a very calm, quiet person,” Martinez said through Malki, who translated. “He was very focused on work, never had any problems with anyone, no criminal records.”
The men were regulars, said Waffle House employees who witnessed the detentions. “They’re really good guys,” said one of the workers, who didn’t give their name for fear of retaliation.
In the last several weeks, reports have shown an increase in the number of detentions across the country. Federal agents detained more than 10,000 people in five days at the end of June, according to the New York Times.
Then, there were the high-profile killings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine earlier this month.
This uptick in enforcement activity appears to be making its way to North Carolina, immigration advocates say.
“Since the beginning of July, we’ve seen an increase in community arrests,” Malki said. “We’ve seen an increase across the board, at probation check-ins, ICE check-ins.”
On July 23, the New York Times reported that ICE plans to open a detention center at the former Rivers Correctional Institution in Winton, NC, by the end of the year, the first such facility in the state. It is owned by the GEO Group, one of the largest private prison operators in the country. In February, The Assembly and Down from DC reported a potential contract for Rivers between the federal government and GEO.
“The move marks a major escalation in federal enforcement infrastructure within North Carolina, reviving a facility with a notorious operational track record,” Siembra said in a press release.
An Uptick
Last fall, when immigration agents descended on North Carolina—particularly in Charlotte and the Triangle—most detentions were community arrests in which agents stopped worker vans like the one at the Waffle House in Greensboro.
Greensboro has typically seen more arrests at courthouses and procedural check-ins for immigration appointments, Malki said. But lately, they’ve been seeing more out in the community.
In March, Siembra tracked 52 detentions across the state, 63 in April, 53 in May, and 53 in June. As of July 14, there have been 40. In Greensboro, there have been two detentions every month since April. All have been area jail detentions, except for this month’s detention at the Waffle House, when detainees were sent to Georgia.
“It does seem like they are ramping up their arrests,” Malki said.
Stefanía Arteaga, co-executive director of the Carolina Migrant Network, said they’re seeing the same thing in Charlotte.
“We’re seeing the targeting of work vans and individuals being picked up on their way to work,” Arteaga said. “It is concerning that this is something that is becoming more prevalent.”
In the last two weeks, there’s been a 41% increase in calls to Siembra’s hotline, Malki said, although not every call is related to a detention.
After Araujo and Guerrero were killed during traffic stops this month, ICE paused stops for one day before resuming operations.
There were more than 43,000 arrests in June, according to recent statistics released by ICE. That’s the highest recorded month since President Donald Trump took office again in January of last year. There were 65,765 people in ICE detention as of July 11, the last date for which there was an update. That’s lower than the record 70,766 people at the end of January.
It is unclear with which agency the agents in Greensboro were affiliated. They wore face masks and vests but nothing that indicated whether they were with ICE or U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The Assembly has reached out to ICE, CBP, and the Department of Homeland Security but has not received a response from any of the agencies.
In the fall, when agents flooded the state, many participated in workplace raids where several people were detained at once. These days, Malki said, agents seem to be looking for a specific person. They may end up detaining others they come into contact with as well, which appears to be the case at the recent Waffle House incident in Greensboro.
“We don’t have any evidence that they are driving around targeting random people, but that doesn’t mean they don’t end up taking other people as well,” Malki said.
Workers at the Waffle House say they serve many Spanish-speaking patrons. About 60 percent of their customers are Latin or Hispanic, they said. Often they are construction workers, painters, or plumbers.
The Assembly is not naming the Waffle House workers who described what they witnessed because they want to avoid any potential retaliation.
“It’s just sad because we knew them,” said one worker.
From Inside
Diaz, whose sister said he turns 30 next month, came to the U.S. three years ago looking for work. He has three kids at home ranging in age from 4 to 11 years old, Martinez said.
“The economy [in Nicaragua] was not good, so he came to this country to help his family,” Martinez said. “He really missed him.”
After he came to the U.S., she said, the only problem of which she was aware was his missing an immigration check-in appointment.
Now he waits at Stewart in Georgia.
Part of the federal government’s deportation strategy, according to immigration experts, is to open as many detention centers as possible so people give up and agree to leave the country while waiting for their day in court.
After being detained, Martinez said, her brother signed such a form so he could return to Nicaragua.
“In the cases we have followed, we have seen many people sign voluntary departure,” Malki said. “Some sign soon after being detained because they do not understand what they are signing.”
But things are looking bleak, Martinez said.
After her brother was detained, Martinez said she received a call from her brother’s boss who witnessed the detentions from inside the Waffle House. Then, her brother called her from the center in Georgia.
“He said it was one of the most horrible things to happen to him,” Martinez said. “The first three days he was sleeping on the floor with no blanket, and he couldn’t eat any of the food because it was so horrible.”
Martinez sends money into his account so he can get extra food to eat, she said, as part of the detention center’s commissary system.
Some people have been at Stewart for months, even years, her brother told her.
“They don’t tell him when he can go home,” she said.
People are detained for an average of 45 days while in ICE custody, according to ICE statistics. Those being held in CBP custody are held longer, an average of 89 days.
Stewart, where Diaz is being held, is an ICE facility run by CoreCivic, a private prison company. Earlier this year, there was speculation that a private prison company would open a similar facility in Greensboro at the old American Hebrew Academy. In February, city council voted to amend existing ordinances to add extra layers of security for any future proposals.
Last week, the New York Times reported the federal government plans to use the former Rivers Correctional Institution, which closed in 2021, as a detention facility by the end of the year. However, a spokesperson for ICE said in a statement to the Times that the agency had “no new detention centers to announce at this time.” If opened, the facility at Rivers would be the first in North Carolina and would have about 1,400 beds, making it one of the largest on the East Coast.
On Wednesday, The GEO Group, Inc. announced a five-year support services contract with ICE for the activation of a federal immigration processing center at the GEO-owned, 1,320-bed Rivers Facility.
“The planned reopening aligns with a massive surge in enforcement across the region over the last 18 months, which has increasingly targeted non-citizens without criminal histories,” Siembra’s press release said.
“The planned ICE detention center in Winton is not state-owned, and I did not approve this transaction,” Gov. Josh Stein said in a statement last week. “Like many other North Carolinians, I do not want it in our state. ICE and Border Patrol have not earned our trust.”
Detention centers like Stewart and Rivers have been found by news outlets, advocacy groups, and the federal government to have inhumane living conditions stemming from overcrowding, a lack of medical care, and meager food.
From January 2022 through June 2026, there were 587 emergency calls related to Stewart, according to recent reporting by WXIA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Atlanta. The calls included reports of head injuries, cardiac issues, suicide attempts, overdoses, pregnancies with complications, and possible miscarriages.
Martinez hopes her brother can go home soon. His kids back in Nicaragua are concerned because they haven’t heard from him in weeks.
“The four-year-old is asking if his phone isn’t working,” Martinez said. “We have to tell her that he’s working on a mountain where he doesn’t have service. The eleven-year-old is having nightmares because they watch the news and they know about the two people who were killed. They’re constantly afraid that her dad is in a bad situation.”
‘This Is Everyone’s Problem’
The City of Greensboro has no knowledge of the detentions at the Waffle House on July 9, officials say.
“ICE does not coordinate with us or report their activities to us, but no citizen notified us that they were there,” said Andrea Harrell, assistant city manager for the city of Greensboro.
Members of city council, including the mayor, did not respond to requests for comment.
In the spring, the city shared its protocols for when ICE agents request information or access to city facilities. The city also shared a fact sheet on how city employees should interact with ICE agents. The police department does not ask people about their immigration status during stops or arrests.
The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office does not currently participate in the 287(g) program, a voluntary program in which local law enforcement works with federal immigration authorities to identify, process, or detain people suspected of violating federal immigration laws.
However, new state laws have expanded requirements for local agencies to cooperate with ICE.
House Bill 318 requires local jails to check the legal status of a detainee for specific charges and notify ICE of releases, while Senate Bill 153 compels state agencies, including the State Highway Patrol, to cooperate with ICE. So far, immigration advocates have not seen arrests by the highway patrol due to the law change.
Phil Byrd is the Republican candidate running for Guilford County Sheriff this fall against incumbent Democrat Danny Rogers. If elected, Byrd said, he would not assign deputies to a task force with a primary function of immigration duties. Instead, he said, he would employ what is known as the “jail model,” which deputizes local jail officers to act as federal agents by interrogating inmates regarding their citizenship status and country of birth. Officers can also issue immigration detainers to hold people for up to 48 hours after they would otherwise be released.
“Transparency in any investigation is what must transpire across the country to build confidence and trust in law enforcement operations,” Byrd said.
Byrd said the killings of Araujo and Guerrero need to be seen in the context of the “20 or so immigration shootings in the past two years.”
“If this were true, it’s around 20 of the 3,000 shootings [including non-fatal] in two years by law enforcement,” Byrd said. “Pull the numbers and look, it would be interesting to see the exact statistics.”
Byrd’s estimation matches data by Mapping Police Violence.
The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
But community advocates are still worried.
“I think that this is everyone’s problem,” Malki with Siembra said. “The fact that workers can get out of a car to have breakfast and they can be surrounded by agents and taken, that doesn’t make me feel safer.”
Still, there are things people can do to keep each other safe, Arteaga with Carolina Migrant Network said.
“It goes back to basic constitutional rights,” Arteaga said. “You have the right to remain silent; you don’t have to respond to questions about immigration status if you’re stopped by local police.”
People should record interactions with agents when possible, she said.
“North Carolina is a one-party consent state so we encourage people to record interactions with any law enforcement, especially now,” she said. “So the broader public knows how ICE is operating.”
Allies should be doing the same, Arteaga said.
“It’s up to each and every one of us to prove these injustices are happening,” she said.
Workers shouldn’t waste their opportunities to work, Martinez said—they should just be careful while they do it.
“It’s incredibly hard,” she said. “You never prepare for something like this to happen. It’s a shock. I just pray that everything is in God’s hands.”
