Five people alleged in a lawsuit Tuesday that federal immigration agents attacked or arrested them in North Carolina last year without warrants or probable cause.

Department of Homeland Security agents arrested the plaintiffs “without a warrant and without probable cause to believe they were removable or any evaluation that they were likely to escape before a warrant could be obtained,” the lawsuit said.

Four are U.S. citizens and one is a visa holder, according the lawsuit. They are being represented by the ACLU, Southern Coalition for Social Justice and Democracy Forward. They are seeking to move forward as a class action in federal court in Charlotte.

Federal agents stopped Willy Aceituno twice in the same parking lot in Charlotte before they shattered his truck window, pinned him to the ground, handcuffed him and took his keys, The Charlotte Observer previously reported. It happened during “Charlotte’s Web,” the five-day U.S. Border Patrol operation in the city and North Carolina last autumn.

Originally from Honduras, Aceituno is a United States citizen who has lived in Charlotte for 25 years, the lawsuit said. When he encountered agents on Nov. 15 , he was waiting for a food order from a Honduran restauranT.

Agents asked Aceituno for his last name and whether he was a citizen, the lawsuit said, and he responded by asking whether had to answer yes or no. He also asked whether they were looking for some specific.

The lawsuit said that when he gave the agents his REAL ID, they “asked for a different document demonstrating citizenship, and Mr. Aceituno questioned whether they knew what a REAL ID was, and stated that a person has to be in the country legally to get a REAL ID.”

Four agents questioned him for about 15 minutes, then let him get his food once they scanned his license and confirmed he was a citizen, according to the lawsuit.

But once he emerged from the restaurant, a different group of masked agents approached him. He was about to drive away when agents blocked him in with their vehicles.

That’s when an agent ordered him to “open the door,” according to the lawsuit, and Aceituno started recording.

“If you break it, you will pay for it,” the lawsuit said he told them before an agent busted out his window with a baton, shattering glass on Aceituno, and before an agent knocked his phone to the ground.

“Mr. Aceituno told them that his REAL ID was in his back pocket but avoided reaching for it because he was scared the agents might think he was reaching for a weapon.”

“Two agents dragged him from the vehicle, forced him to the ground, and handcuffed him,” the lawsuit said. “In video footage of the arrest, Mr. Aceituno and a bystander who had also witnessed the first interaction can be heard pleading with agents to check his wallet for his identification, which would prove that he had legal immigration status, and telling the agents he is a U.S. citizen.”

They handcuffed him and placed him in a vehicle.

“After driving around for ten minutes, one of the agents finally looked into Mr. Aceituno’s wallet, ran his REAL ID through a system, and stated that he was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record. They pulled over and told Mr. Aceituno to get out,” according to the lawsuit.

Bloody from the encounter and far from his truck, he asked for a ride back, but agents threatened to arrest him again if he did not walk away, the lawsuit said.

Today, news of immigration arrests scares him so badly that he is afraid to leave his home, the lawsuit said.

“When agents killed two people in Minneapolis and Mr. Aceituno learned about it, his first thought was that he should be thankful that they only assaulted him because others were being killed.

Three other plaintiffs say they were attacked, arrested or taken in vehicles by masked federal agents without probable cause:

—Yoshi Cuenca Villamar, a U.S. citizen, was arrested while doing landscaping work, according to the lawsuit. The suit said agents grabbed him from behind, pushed him to the ground, handcuffed him, drove him around for about 30 minutes, threatened to detain his brothers, then finally dropped him off on the side of the road when they confirmed he was a citizen.

—Ruben Arguera Lopez got stopped by agents in Charlotte on his way to work, the lawsuit said, and handcuffed and threatened with being taken away after he exercised his right to remain silent. They questioned him for about an hour and tried to put him into an SUV, but eventually gave up when they saw his U-visa and work permit, the lawsuit said.

—The Observer previously reported on Edwin Godinez and Yair Alexander Napoles, both U.S. citizens, who were pulled over in Salisbury and told to stop recording their run-in with agents.

The Observer has reached out to DHS for comment.

Named as defendants are: the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Secretary Kristi Noem; U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney S. Scott; U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael W. Banks; senior ICE official Todd Lyons; and ICE Atlanta field office Director Sean Gallagher.

_____

(Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.)

_____

©2026 The Charlotte Observer. Visit charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.