Legal immigrant sees small business boom after opening doors to police injured during anti-ICE riots
LOS ANGELES – A restaurant owner outside Los Angeles is opening up about her decision to help police officers who were tear-gassed during riots outside her business June 7.
Elizabeth Mendoza is the owner of La Ceiba Restaurant, a Salvadoran eatery in Long Beach, who told Fox News Digital she welcomed both police and protesters who entered her business seeking help after being pepper-sprayed that Saturday afternoon.
"I feel sad because my city … it's a good city," she said. "My people is honest. My people have to work a lot. I'm here for 14 years. I know my people, and I feel bad … when I saw the police. The police need my help, too, because they are human like me. They feel everything like me.
"They have to … work," she said, adding she has received thanks from police for helping officers that day
Mendoza initially said her restaurant had suffered because the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and police presence in the area made people "scared" to walk around. But now her business is thriving due to the positive attention she has received nationally for helping officers.
She has been living in the United States for more than 30 years and is a legal U.S. citizen.
The business owner said the recent riots and ICE raids have made her "sad" because immigrants like her want "peace" and "work" in the United States.
While outsiders have treated what she described as her "hole-in-the-wall" restaurant with respect, Mendoza called on protesters to condemn violence against other local businesses.
"Everything is OK. I want to say that protest is good," she said. "But no[t] something bad — the street, the windows. Please, don't do that."
Protests escalated in the Los Angeles area beginning June 6 and June 7, when ICE raids began across the county, resulting in hundreds of illegal immigrant arrests. The Department of Homeland Security shared information with Fox News about some of the most violent offenders arrested by ICE those two days.
Rioting broke out on the evening of June 7, a Friday, as agitators burned cars, threw objects and fireworks at police, blocked traffic, vandalized public buildings with graffiti and smashed windows of the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters downtown.
The rioting continued into the weekend and ensuing weeknights.
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