Tyler DeSue, a resident of Washington, D.C., did what many people would do when they wake up exhausted and hungry on a Saturday morning: he ordered burritos from Uber Eats.
DeSue examined the app when his driver took longer than normal and saw that the delivery vehicle’s GPS location had stopped short of his residence, suggesting something was amiss. He stepped out to find him.
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In an interview, DeSue stated, “I walked into the street, looked down, and saw lights in the direction, like police lights, in the direction where my driver was.” There were about nine different officers in various outfits, and my driver was alone. The majority of them wore facial covers.
DeSue stated that when he went to look into it, the driver whose name was Sidi on the food app was being questioned about his immigration status after first being asked about the registration of his car.
In the video that DeSue captured and gave to NBC News, a disguised agent can be heard telling Sidi, “You’re going to come with us, you’re going to come with us today.”
Would you please inform me in Arabic? Sidi adds that he felt anxious and that he did not comprehend what was being said.
They don’t have an Arabic interpreter, one of the agents responds, sporting a vest bearing the acronym POLICE HSI, which stands for Homeland Security Investigations, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. After that, the men handcuff Sidi’s hands, waist, and feet before putting him in an unidentified vehicle. According to DeSue, he has subsequently informed Uber about the event.
Uber did not immediately reply to a request for comment, and NBC News was unable to confirm the driver’s full identity, nationality, or location.
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Since the Trump administration assumed control of law enforcement in the nation’s capital last week, a number of arrests of delivery drivers captured on camera by bystanders throughout the Washington area have gone viral.
The drivers themselves are feeling frightened by the films, which are circulating on social media and being discussed in D.C. delivery driver chat groups. A few of them have made the decision to no longer deliver in the city.
Five days have passed since working and determining what has to be done. A delivery driver in the D.C. area who wished to remain anonymous told NBC News in a Spanish voicemail, “And, well, closed down here waiting for things to pass, because I don’t know what to do.”
DeSue claimed that the lot in front of his house, where 15 to 20 delivery drivers usually park and check their phones for upcoming orders, was deserted on Sunday afternoon.
He remarked, “I haven’t seen a driver anywhere in the last two days.”
Other residents of D.C. have also observed that delivery drivers are becoming less common.
Clarissa Vasquez, who works at a restaurant in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, stated that fewer people are coming to pick up meals. Four percent of those who come to pick up food are here.
Vasquez saw and documented the arrest of Josue Mercedes Franco Cerros, a delivery driver who frequently stopped by the restaurant to pick up deliveries, last Thursday.
According to Vasquez, he was in front of the restaurant when he noticed two police officers holding him. They offered no explanation at all. In order to take a picture, the police would ask him to lift his hair. Because he was working, the man was obviously in shock and crying, and anyone would get anxious when the cops suddenly showed up.
Law enforcement eventually removed Cerros, a citizen of Honduras. According to Vasquez and video that NBC News was able to get, his bike was loaded into a truck with the Metropolitan Police Department’s emblem from D.C. Cerros was still in ICE custody in Virginia on Monday night, nearly a day after he first showed on the ICE detainee locator website.
Cerros had lived in the region for at least ten years, according to his acquaintance Veronica Gonzalez, and had worked at a nearby restaurant at night and as a delivery driver during the day.
Gonzalez stated that he never imagined anything would occur. Because of all we witnessed in the news, I told my son to exercise caution. “No, no, I don’t think anything will happen,” he would reply.
A request for comment on Cerros and Sidi’s detentions, as well as an inquiry regarding whether the detentions of delivery drivers like them are a part of a larger campaign to stop and verify their immigration statuses, was not immediately answered by the Department of Homeland Security. A request for comment was not immediately answered by the mayor’s office, which was forwarded to by the Metropolitan Police Department.
“The nonprofit Amica Center for Immigrant Rights in Washington also has similar reports about delivery drivers,” said Atenas Estrada, deputy program director, adding that such incidents can instill fear in both documented and undocumented immigrant groups.
Personally, I’m witnessing a generalized fear in the community. According to Estrada, people are making choices or staying away from locations that they might not otherwise avoid or depart from.
Out of concern for the drivers, Tyler DeSue, who has since produced a number of TikTok videos regarding Sidi’s arrest, has chosen to temporarily discontinue using delivery apps.
I created a video about quitting DoorDash and Uber Eats, and I know many friends who have done the same,” he stated.
