Federal officials confirmed Saturday that a surge of immigration enforcement in North Carolina’s largest city had begun as agents were seen making arrests in multiple locations.

Willy Aceituno, a Honduran-born U.S. citizen, was on his way to work when he saw Border Patrol agents chasing people.

“I saw a lot of Latinos running. I wondered why they were running. The thing is, there were a lot of Border Patrol agents chasing them,” he said.

Aceituno, a 46-year-old Charlotte resident, said he himself was stopped — twice — by Border Patrol agents. On the second encounter, they forced him out of his vehicle after breaking the car window and threw him to the ground.

“I told them, ’I’m an American citizen,” he told The Associated Press. “They wanted to know where I was born, or they didn’t believe I was an American citizen.”

After being forcibly taken into a Border Patrol vehicle, Aceituno said he was finally allowed to go free after showing documents that proved his citizenship. Aceituno said he had to walk back some distance to his car. He later filed a police report over the broken glass.

President Donald Trump’s administration has defended federal enforcement operations in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago as necessary for fighting crime and enforcing immigration laws.

But Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat with a Republican-majority legislature, said Friday that the vast majority of those detained in these operations have no criminal convictions, and some are American citizens.