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Niño-Moncada at first thought the masked men who surrounded the truck were “gangsters.” When he realized they were federal agents, he said he panicked and feared being “disappeared,” knowing he could be detained and deported by immigration enforcement officers, according to his lawyers. Immergut that he loved the United States and Americans “in comparison with my experiences in Venezuela.” “When the incident happened with the agents, I thought I was going to be killed,” he said through a Spanish interpreter. “I was more frightened than I had ever been before.” He said he was scared that his passenger, his girlfriend Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras, who was shot in the chest, was going to die.