An ICE agent questions a U.S. citizen on Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in Salisbury, N.C.
Video screenshot
Cellphone video circulating online shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents telling two men in Salisbury to stop recording them at a traffic stop on Monday, as well as the fracas that followed.
Charlotte ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams confirmed it was ICE agents who were seen in the video.
“Do me a favor and turn off your video. You’re being detained right now, so you’re not free to record,” one agent told the men, whom advocacy group Siembra NC identified as Edwin Godinez and Yair Alexander Napoles.
When Godinez and Napoles responded that they were not being detained, the agent reached through the car’s driver-side window and tried to grab Napoles’ cellphone, then grabbed him by his hoodie and yanked him. Then, agents opened the car door and tussled with him inside the vehicle.
“Get off the phone!” the agent who told them to stop recording said before he started yelling more commands.
A different agent also reached into the car and yanked Godinez by his coat before pointing his finger in his face and telling him to put his hands on the dashboard.
Agents eventually removed the two from the car. They were not charged, Siembra spokesperson Marley Monacello said.
Both are United States citizens and step-brothers, according to Siembra, and were picking up a work truck left behind after two people in their family’s business — Adelso Perez Sales and Alejandro Domingo Ambrosio Bamaca — were arrested by ICE.
“I can record for my safety, right?” Godinez asked in the video, before the struggle.
“Sure,” an agent answered before pulling his face mask up.
The agent then asked him how he got “in the United States.”
The Charlotte Observer asked ICE for more information about the incident and whether agents in the video violated any policies. The First Amendment allows Americans the right to record or photograph police.
“Federal agents should not be targeting us for the color of our skin,” Napoles said in a statement. “They kept saying, ‘You’re not a citizen, you’re not a citizen’ to me, even when I told them I was, just because of how I look.”
Godinez added in his own statement that agents are arresting “hard-working people, not hardened criminals,” and should “stop abusing our community.”
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.
This story was originally published January 7, 2026 at 3:30 PM.
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.png "President Donald Trump in a White House video Sept. 9, 2025, where he blamed policies in Democratic-run cities like Charlotte for contributing to the death of Iryna Zarutska, who was stabbed to death on the light rail. A Salisbury man was charged for making threats on social media against Trump in November.")
