3 days ago
As ICE ramps up activities targeting undocumented immigrants, communities are fighting back
Periodically, the Latinx Files will feature guest writers. Filling in this week are De Los reporters Carlos De Loera and Andrea Flores.
Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers tried to execute two raids in San Diego. San Diego fought back.
It all started on May 30 when heavily armed ICE agents showed up at the Italian eateries Buona Forchetta and Enoteca Buona Forchetta in the South Park neighborhood of the SoCal border city, as The Times' Ruben Vives reported.
A spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations, a branch within ICE, said the agents were executing search warrants related to alleged 'violations of hiring and harboring illegal aliens and false statements.'
But as ICE members were making arrests, San Diego community members came out to defend those targeted and push back the agents.
'Shame! Shame! Shame!' hordes of San Diegans yelled at the gun-wielding, protective vest-wearing agents while forcing them to move away from the restaurants, social media video showed. Other videos revealed that ICE used flash-bang grenades against the protesters who interfered with the raids.
Ultimately, four people living in the country illegally were taken into custody, HSI claimed. A federal search warrant, obtained by several San Diego news outlets, claimed that the restaurant owners were 'knowingly employing both illegal immigrants and individuals not authorized to work in the United States.' Additionally, it stated that HSI initially received tips about the restaurants' alleged activities in 2020 and a follow-up tip on Jan. 31 of this year.
Reports on exactly how many restaurant workers were initially apprehended vary from a handful to the entirety of the staff.
Claire Cody, who works at Buona Forchetta, spoke with KPBS San Diego about the situation.
'You always see this anywhere else, but then you experience it,' Cody said. 'I'm just thinking about my co-workers and I'm thinking about their families. This is just really unfortunate and very sad. I'm just praying that they're OK.'
Officials from San Diego and across California commented on the situation, often scolding the ICE agents for their brute display of power.
San Diego Rep. Scott Peters, whose district includes South Park, said, 'People must have thought: 'Wow, there must be an MS-13 [gang member] here or some drug kingpin like El Chapo at the bar.' No. They took four people away — dishwashers, busboys, maybe a cook.'
North San Diego County/south Orange County Rep. Mike Levin also criticized the move.
'If there is any evidence, even a shred of evidence, that any of the individuals at that restaurant on Friday were guilty of any other crimes, they were violent in any way, if they were gang members, if they were drug dealers — that evidence needs to be put forward right now,' Levin said. 'In the absence of that evidence, what happened on Friday was fundamentally wrong, fundamentally un-American and could happen presumably to 1 in 5 San Diegans working in the service sector.'
California State Sen. Steve Padilla called the events a 'disproportionate and dangerous display of force' in an official statement and applauded the San Diego community's response to ICE agents.
'Over-the-top tactics to carry out the policy stunts of this small president will not deter us in our fight to protect all Californians, nor succeed in intimidating hard working immigrant families. Immigrants have always and continue to enrich our society and their earnest belief they can make a better life in America is what makes this country great already,' he wrote. 'As our neighbors so bravely demonstrated in protest of these attacks, we stand together against this weaponized hate.'
Last week's raid was the latest in a series of similar ICE activities carried out throughout Southern California. In late May, officials announced a raid at an L.A.-area underground nightclub that ended with the arrest of 36 Chinese and Taiwanese citizens suspected of being in the country illegally. Roughly two dozen day laborers were detained in a border patrol action outside a Home Depot in Pomona in April.
But the protests from San Diegans spotlighted a growing contingent of people who are ready and willing to combat ICE agents to protect their communities.
Last weekend, 18-year-old Massachusetts resident Marcelo Gomes da Silva was detained by ICE while on his way to his high school for volleyball practice. The Brazilian native was eventually granted bond on Thursday.
On Monday, students at Gomes da Silva's school in Milford, Mass., staged a walkout in protest of his detention. Students were seen holding 'Free Marcelo' signs and Brazilian flags. Other members of his community protested the arrest outside Milford Town Hall on Sunday, where they called for the teen's release.
On Wednesday, protesters, politicians and community organizers gathered in downtown Chicago to decry the detention of several immigrants at the hands of ICE, the Chicago Tribune reported. The protest was led by Organized Communities Against Deportations, a group that describes itself as 'undocumented, unapologetic, and unafraid organizers building a resistance movement against deportations and the criminalization of immigrants and people of color in Chicago and surrounding areas.'
To combat against ICE activity in Southern California, groups such as Unión del Barrio — an independent political organization advocating for immigrant rights and social justice — have helped train community members on how to spot federal immigration officers and alert local residents to their presence using social media.
'We're not violent, we're not trying to break any laws, but we're doing everything within our legal means to protect the community,' Ron Gochez, a member of Unión del Barrio, told The Times in February.
The organization has been working with communities for decades, including heavy involvement during crackdowns in the '90s and during the Obama administration. Participants volunteer in patrolling various locations for potential raids and proudly tout that they have helped in stopping and/or disrupting several ICE operations.
Adalberto Ríos, a member of Unión del Barrio, summed up the group's mission concisely, telling The Times, 'We're just trying to help the community protect itself.'
— Carlos De Loera
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