A father is reported missing from a Browne’s Addition laundromat. He was arrested by ICE

Jefferson Fernando Cando Llano left a laundromat in Browne’s Addition on March 8 and headed for his car.

Moments later, gray pickups pulled into the Super Wash Laundromat’s parking lot and blocked him from driving away. Masked men jumped out of the trucks, detained Cando Llano and drove him away.

The episode rattled friends who watched video of the encounter at 1632 W. Second Avenue and called Spokane police.

Cando Llano’s detainment is the first local arrest by federal immigration agents where someone called police because they were unable to identify the agents, according to Spokane police Chief Kevin Hall. And it underscores the concerns among some police agencies about the secretive nature of federal immigration enforcement with agents wearing masks and driving unmarked vehicles.

Cando Llano, 29, came to Spokane around three years ago and is seeking asylum from Ecuador. He is married and the father of a 6-year-old boy.

A March 8 police report states Cando Llano’s friends initially filed a missing persons report with the Spokane Police Department because he was “taken from the location by multiple men,” and the friends feared he could have been kidnapped. The friends went to the laundromat to view the security footage and thought it could have been immigration personnel, but they could not verify, according to police records.

Hall had warned his department about such actions last year amid widespread fear across the United States as agents began wearing masks and driving unmarked vehicles.

Cando Llano brought his family to the U.S. from Ecuador because his wife faced trauma and violence there, according to a family friend. Cando Llano declined to comment, and his attorney did not respond to requests for an interview.

He and his brother, who also fled to Spokane from Ecuador, both have open asylum cases, according to friends. The two traveled to Seattle a month ago for an immigration court hearing.

The family friend, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being targeted for assisting Cando Llano’s family, said Cando Llano does not have a criminal record. A background report and search of Washington’s court database did not turn up a criminal record.

Security footage observed by The Spokesman-Review showed Cando Llano walking out of the laundromat and getting into a car. Seconds later, a gray truck pulled behind the car to box him in. The truck did not appear to have any identifiable law enforcement markings.

An agent stepped out of the vehicle and appeared to pull up a mask that covered half his face. He is seen wearing a police-like vest with a marking on the back. Another truck pulls up within seconds.

Agents then take Cando Llano into custody, video shows. The entire interaction lasted less than five minutes. The owner of Super Wash declined to comment or provide a copy of the video for publication.

Cando Llano was able to tell his family something similar to “they’re taking me,” according to the police report. Police stopped looking into the missing persons report after they were told ICE agents had arrested Cando Llano. Friends say he was taken to the Kootenai County Jail, the nearest jail to Spokane where federal detainees are housed before they are transported to a federal immigration facility. They said he was questioned by agents and held for 10 days before being released because his “papers were in order.” An ICE spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

National Public Radio reported last year that increased use of masks and unmarked vehicles are stoking fears across the country. While it is not unheard of for law enforcement to drive unmarked cars during investigations, many of these ICE immigration arrests do not rise to the level of disrupting a well-organized drug ring or something similar, experts told NPR. The report also states agents have been accused of changing their license plates to avoid identification, making it harder for local police to check who is who.

Police in North Carolina arrested a man in January who they say impersonated an ICE officer and threated a woman with deportation if she did not have sex with him, ABC11 reported. Two men in South Carolina and Pennsylvania have also been accused of impersonating ICE agents, according to NBC News.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has told reporters in the past the reason for using unmarked cars and wearing masks is because immigration officers are being targeted and doxed online. One agent outside an ICE raid last year told The Spokesman-Review they are wearing masks because “we are getting threats.”

The widespread uncertainty surrounding ICE agents prompted Hall in July to issue a departmentwide bulletin to his officers, alerting them it’s possible people may witness an ICE arrest and believe it’s a kidnapping due to a possible lack of markings, unmarked vehicles or mask-wearing, The Spokesman-Review has reported.

“When responding to one of these incidents, there will be confusion, tension and fear,” the bulletin states. “… Uniformed SPD officers will create legitimacy and hopefully bring calmness and order to the incident.”

Hall told The Spokesman-Review in an email Friday that Cando Llano’s arrest “highlights a broader issue” – that unidentifiable agents can cause confusion for the public, and that ends up being the local police department’s responsibility to handle.

“When such situations occur, we are the ones responding to families and the community to help determine the incident’s legitimacy. Clear communication and proper identification during these operations would greatly help prevent misunderstandings,” Hall wrote. “Most importantly, we want our community to know they should never hesitate to report a missing loved one. We will continue to respond promptly, take those concerns seriously, and work to provide families with answers as quickly as possible.

“And we will arrive unmasked, uniformed, and clearly identifiable as SPD officers.”

After Cando Llano’s arrest, messages for Spokane immigrants were pinned to power poles and trees up and down the streets of the Browne’s Addition neighborhood warning them ICE agents were “seen disappearing a member of our community” at the Super Wash Laundromat.

“Stay Vigilant!” the flyer reads, urging people to call the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network’s deportation hotline for help. “Tell your neighbors!”

The flyers are just one example of the fear that has overcome the immigrant community in the wake of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, Latinos en Spokane’s Interim Executive Director Martin Martinez said in an interview Monday. Immigrants in contact with the nonprofit have said they only go to work and then go home so they don’t risk being approached by federal law enforcement.

“They are having to change their lives to feel somewhat secure, to find some type of stability. The majority of people are here to work,” he said. “After work, they lock themselves in. They make themselves invisible.”

But the method to warn immigrants is working, he said. In immigration work, dropping flyers en masse is “one of the best types of defense,” he added.

Martinez has spent years in immigration work and even took an advocacy job in Washington, D.C., before coming back to Washington to help found Latinos en Spokane. Immigrants were fearful during Trump’s first term, he said, but things have gotten more intense in Trump’s second term.

“We are feeling what racism looks like. We hear from the community people who are Brown or Black or look like immigrants are also fearful. That is something I didn’t see the first time,” he said.

It’s unclear what is next for Cando Llano.

Friends describe him as a soft-spoken, friendly man who cares deeply about his family. His social media posts show he is grateful and excited about his life. In one post, he is shown posing in front of the Spokane River with a caption in Spanish that reads “I’m doing better than before.” Other photos and videos express love for his family, his son and God. Many photos show him and his son’s cheeks, squished together with large smiles.

In one post, he shares his young son’s first day at school in Ecuador and then shares his first day of preschool in Spokane.

“I love you,” he wrote in Spanish.

In the last few years, Cando Llano worked as a private security guard in Ecuador before doing roofing and construction work in Spokane, social media posts show. One of his posts shows him outside a home under construction. The caption says in Spanish that God gives him work and brings him health “so I can keep dreaming in a country that isn’t mine.”