ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
So what happens when immigration agents show up to question the people working at your house? One woman in Charlotte, North Carolina, had to face that situation last month when Border Patrol agents suddenly appeared on her front lawn. NPR's Adrian Florido has her story.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: There's a big pine tree in Rheba Hamilton's front yard, about 10 feet tall. Each year, just before Thanksgiving, she has it strung with Christmas lights. But this year, the lights are wrapped only around the very top of the tree, just the tip.
RHEBA HAMILTON: It looks completely ridiculous unless you know why it looks like that.
FLORIDO: On November 15, Hamilton was on her front porch drinking coffee while two men she'd hired to put the lights up set up their ladder and got to work. They'd just gotten started when an unmarked minivan pulled up out front.
HAMILTON: I see the car rolling to a stop, and I see the door's already open with the guys getting out. Border Patrol is here.
FLORIDO: Two uniformed agents with their faces covered got out of the van and approached her workers. Hamilton grabbed her phone and started filming.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HAMILTON: Randy (ph), they're in our yard.
FLORIDO: She yelled out to her husband as the agents started peppering her workers with questions in Spanish.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED BORDER PATROL AGENT: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: I want to know what country you're a citizen of, the agents say. You're not answering my question. I'm a federal agent. In the video, you see the worker on the ladder freeze in place. The one on the ground slowly moves away. Neither says a word. Hamilton gets up close to record.
HAMILTON: I wanted their faces. I wanted to be able to show them hiding their faces. They're not proud of the work they're doing.
FLORIDO: She says she was terrified for the workers, who were undocumented. Then, suddenly and without saying a word, the agents stop their questions and run back to their van and drive off. At that moment, Hamilton felt her fear turn to rage. She rushed toward the van.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HAMILTON: Get the hell out of my yard, you [expletive].
I was so angry, and I was really surprised to hear myself bid them farewell because I don't really cuss. But I stand by it.
FLORIDO: DHS says its agents do not racially profile, but Hamilton says that is what it felt like. The agents came onto her property without permission, she says, ready to haul away two men because they look Latino.
HAMILTON: Of course, they chose them because they were brown. But I think, also, they chose them because they thought they were going to be a real easy target.
FLORIDO: Once the agents were gone, her workers ran to their truck and drove off themselves.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HAMILTON: Yeah. Just go home.
FLORIDO: Hamilton says she fully supports law enforcement, but she thinks immigration agents under Trump are terrorizing good people like her workers.
HAMILTON: If this is happening in your yard - and while you do not know the people well, you know them well enough to know that they are well and truly screwed if this goes down, that they will maybe never see their families again. So I feel like a lot of people would have done exactly what I did.
FLORIDO: As for the still half-decorated Christmas tree in her yard...
HAMILTON: I thought maybe we'll just leave it like this as a symbol of what happens when ICE and Border Patrol gets involved in your world. Things don't go as planned.
FLORIDO: And you wind up, she says, with no work getting done.
Adrian Florido, NPR News, Charlotte, North Carolina.
(SOUNDBITE OF FLYING LOTUS' "CRUST") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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