On May 28, a Venezuelan man living in Lake Placid began his morning walk to his truck, expecting a normal workday.
He entered a parking lot adjacent to the Grandview Resort, where he’s employed as a maintenance worker, and noticed two unmarked vehicles parked nearby.
“It struck me as very odd,” he said in Spanish via an interpreter. “I got scared, but I told myself, ‘No, I don’t think so.”
The man, who asked not to be identified because he fears speaking publicly could affect his pending political asylum case, soon realized the unknown trucks belonged to federal immigration agents.
As he exited his truck, the worker said two men stepped out from behind the unfamiliar truck, telling him to raise his arms. He claimed that he attempted to ask the agents why he was being stopped, but they ignored his questions.
“I started telling them my wallet was inside my truck,” he said, asking if he could retrieve his work authorization documents. “But they said, ‘You are under arrest.’ They put handcuffs on me.”
The man was one of 14 workers—most of whom were contractors working on a roofing job at one of the Grandview Resort’s facilities—taken during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation that occurred during the early morning hours of May 28. Days later, ICE detained seven employees who were on their way to work at Heritage Indian Grill in Lake Placid.
A community living in fear
The recent detentions are part of a broader series of ICE activity in the North Country since the Trump Administration began its immigration crackdown in 2025.
Last spring, ICE detained nine workers at a lumber mill in Tupper Lake, NY. A month later, agents detained several workers and their family members at a dairy farm in Jefferson County, sparking public outcry from community members in Sackets Harbor, NY.
Lake Placid’s hospitality industry has long relied on immigrant workers, many of whom live and work in the area legally while seeking asylum or working under temporary protected status. During the summer tourism season, the village also hosts hundreds of seasonal student workers through the J-1 Summer Work and Travel program
Although immigrants represent a large number of the village’s hospitality workforce, local advocates say the workers often go unnoticed and live their lives out of the public eye, particularly as ICE operations continue in the area.
“So many of these immigrants came to our country because the environments they were in did not feel safe,” Keela Grimmette, an organizer with North Country Immigrant Allies, said. “And now they are here, and the environment feels very similarly not safe.”
Grimmette, a Lake Placid resident, said the Venezuelan worker’s experience reflects what her organization has heard from other immigrants detained across the region.
She said some immigrants have told advocates they believe they were monitored or followed before being detained.
“The reality is that people are being surveilled, that they are being tracked,” Grimmette said. “In some situations, we’re finding out that they’ve been told by ICE that they were followed for multiple days across multiple towns until they got to a location where ICE could detain them with very little awareness from the community.”
Inside the arrest
ICE did not respond to several requests for details about the workplace raid in May.
The worker said that after his arrest, he watched ICE agents detain over a dozen more men. He claimed that some detainees were thrown to the ground and that he heard one individual screaming for help from inside ICE’s vans.
“They chained us around the waist and legs as if we were criminals,” he said.
The worker said he also observed ICE agents congratulating each other after the operation.
“In fact, they even celebrated as if they had succeeded,” he said. “As if they had accomplished their mission.”
After being processed at a local jail, the detainees were taken to Batavia Detention Center near Buffalo. The worker said the trip lasted about 12 hours and that he was given only a bottle of water during the journey.
For three days, he said, he was unable to contact his family. He said he worried about his wife and children and whether they knew what had happened to him.
“When my wife found out about the arrests in Lake Placid, she cried,” he said. “She collapsed. We knew something like this could happen, but we never thought it would happen to us.”
Grimmette said many of the immigrants she has seen detained in Lake Placid had pending asylum cases and no criminal history—a contrast, she said, with the Trump administration’s repeated claims that ICE is targeting “the worst of the worst.”
That includes the maintenance worker, who said he has never missed an immigration check-in since moving to Lake Placid more than two years ago. He said he is authorized to work and has no criminal offenses, making it difficult to understand why he was detained.
“I don’t even have a traffic ticket,” he said. “You’re never prepared for things like this to happen because you never think you’re doing anything wrong.”
Life after detention
Rather than accept voluntary deportation, the worker fought his case. He was eventually released on bail and now wears an ankle monitor, which he said is embarrassing and inhibits his daily life.
“It makes working uncomfortable for me because I work outdoors,” he said. “I walk nearly 20,000 steps a day, and it really bothers me when it comes to getting dressed.”
While the worker said he is grateful to be out of detention and back with his family, the fear he experienced has spread beyond those who were detained in Lake Placid.
Father John Yonkovig, a retired priest at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Lake Placid, said many immigrants he knows have become more cautious about their daily lives.
“For the last year, they have gone underground,” Yonkovig said. “They’ve embraced a low profile. They’re out only when it’s essential, for work and things like that.”
Yonkovig said fear has grown as reports of violent encounters involving immigration enforcement have reached smaller communities, including the recent shooting of an immigrant by federal agents in Biddeford, ME.
“I sense a deeper concern,” he said. “People wonder: Could that happen in a quiet little community like Lake Placid?”
Speaking out
About a month after his release, the Venezuelan worker said he is still looking over his shoulder, fearing that ICE agents could be lingering nearby. He said he avoids the parking lot where he was detained because of the trauma he associates with it.
“It really affects my daily thoughts,” he said. “Now I go outside feeling afraid.”
But despite his concerns, he said he decided to speak publicly because he wants people in the community to know exactly what happened. He said some residents—even people born and raised in Lake Placid—do not fully understand how immigration enforcement is impacting their neighbors.
“Especially in this community, which is small compared to other cities, people should be informed,” he said. “Because I know there are many people here who support us and want us around.”
David Escobar is a Report For America Corps Member. He reports on diversity issues in the Adirondacks through a partnership between North Country Public Radio and Adirondack Explorer.