Latest news with #ElPotro
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
After ICE raid, Liberty restaurant sees boost of customers, fundraising for 12 detained
One week after agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) – a branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – entered El Potro Mexican Cafe and Cantina in Liberty reportedly without a search warrant and apprehended 12 employees, the restaurant's manager says community members have been showing up to support the restaurant, detainees and their families. 'It's a harsh situation,' general manager Yadira De La Torre, whose parents own El Potro, said Friday. 'Feeling support from others feels really good to us.' About 30 community members, including teachers, school board members and Liberty City Council members, gathered at the restaurant at 116 Stewart Court Friday afternoon in support of the De La Torre family and detained employees. The event was coordinated by Jackson County legislator Manny Abarca. 'One common goal that we all have is to support the business, and not just the business but the community, the Latinos in general,' Helen Ortiz, a board member of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City, said Friday. 'Regardless of legal status, immigrants or legal immigrants, we are all human beings.' Along with the Consulate of Mexico in Kansas City, the Hispanic Chamber has been working with restaurant staff and impacted families to coordinate a response to the operation at El Potro. The De La Torre family, as well as every family affected by the immigration enforcement operation, has retained an attorney, Abarca said. At least 12 federal agents entered the restaurant around 11:40 a.m. on Feb. 7, according to De La Torre. Agents told her father Chico that they were looking for one person accused of committing a crime, De La Torre previously said, though a language barrier between agents and her father complicated the exchange. In a statement to The Star Friday, an ICE spokesperson said that agents had conducted a 'worksite enforcement action' at the restaurant, attributing agents' presence to 'information or allegations received by ICE Homeland Security Investigations' for the purpose of ensuring 'compliance with federal employment eligibility requirements.' The spokesperson confirmed that those arrested at El Potro are in ICE custody and could be 'subject to removal from the United States' pending the required legal process. De La Torre said Friday that along with apprehending 12 employees, agents from HSI/ICE confiscated two boxes of employment documents from the restaurant. The boxes contained I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification forms submitted by past and present employees, De La Torre said. At no point did HSI/ICE agents give any advance notice that they would be confiscating employment documents from the restaurant, she said. 'What did we do [that was] so bad?' De La Torre said Friday. 'We were working. We're just here to work. It's making it harder to do it now.' As of Friday morning, most of the detained employees were being held in Chase County, Kansas, about three hours from Liberty, Abarca said. Representatives from the Consulate of Mexico visited the facility Monday and were able to speak with detainees, Ortiz said. One woman, a 60-year-old grandmother, has been transferred to a detention facility in Indiana, Ortiz said. She said the woman has high blood pressure conditions and has been without her medication since Feb. 7. The Mexican consulate in Indiana is involved in a coordinated effort to get the woman access to her prescriptions, Ortiz said. Several of the detained employees were the sole breadwinners for their families, Abarca said. 'You've probably got … children who are participating with your children or grandchildren now in schools, who have no breadwinner,' Abarca said, addressing Liberty residents. 'Who have to pay bills, who have to pay rent, who have to figure out how to survive.' El Potro operates multiple locations, several of which were affected by the events of Feb. 7, De La Torre previously said. While the Liberty location is now short-staffed, the Lee's Summit location temporarily closed after the raid, also citing staffing shortages. However, De La Torre said Friday that she does not expect any location of El Potro to close in the aftermath of the raid. Residents have been keeping the restaurant full as a show of solidarity, she said. 'We've been getting a lot of support from Liberty,' De La Torre said Friday. 'A lot of new customers are coming in.' The staff of El Potro is collecting cash donations at the restaurant's front register, supporting the detained employees and their families. A GoFundMe fundraiser for legal costs for the detained employees, who some community members are calling the Liberty 12, has raised about $1,650 as of Friday evening.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Community stands in support of local Mexican restaurant after employees detained
LIBERTY, Mo. — One week after federal agents made an unannounced visit to El Potro Mexican Café in Liberty, their community came to help the restaurant on Valentine's Day. 'Let's focus on Valentine's Day,' said Jackson County Legislator Manny Abarca. 'Let's put the Super Bowl behind us and help out in the kitchen side of things because this is a very busy day on Valentine's Day for restaurants.' Abarca and others didn't come to just show their support at El Potro, they came to be put to work. Abortion facility licensing requirement lifted by Missouri judge 'When we asked them what they needed, this is what they needed,' Abarca said. 'They needed help immediately, as 12 of their dedicated employees were taken from them.' Last week, restaurant staff said that Homeland Security Agents surrounded El Potro, before detaining and leaving with 12 employees. Clay County Sheriff Will Aikin told FOX4, at the time, that the agents had come to the restaurant to serve a warrant for a single person. El Potro closed another location in order to staff their Liberty store, which stayed open. Now, Abarca and others are helping out around the restaurant on one of their busiest days of the year. Abarca says it's time for local leaders to step up about decisions being handed down from the federal level. 'Local officials, I think now more than ever, are going to have to step up to the plate and do this for a myriad of issues right now, not just for the Latino community, or for immigration broadly, but for any federal issue that is now coming down that challenges our current existence. There is some level of accountability that folks in Liberty and in the Clay County community should be asking of their own elected officials. And if anyone's going to show them how to do it, I'm happy to help.' Neighbors and Liberty residents who offered their support on Friday brought signs that read 'Immigration Built This Nation' and 'We Support Immigrants and Refugees'. One of those signs was held by Laura Gitterman, an English teacher who regularly works with immigrants. 'Unfortunately, I'm not surprised because I fear that something like this would be in the works and would come to fruition,' she told FOX4. Some details released in Independence chase that led to police shooting She says her students have been worried for weeks about operations like this, and some have expressed their fears to her. 'I've had students ask me for their parents, where can they be adopted if the parents get deported?' she said. 'I have had students saying, 'I'm carrying my papers with me to school because I'm afraid ICE is coming. How many windows, how many doors do we have in school? Will I be safe?' And then when I heard that this happened in Liberty and I'm from Liberty, Missouri, I felt like I needed to take a stand and show the support and solidarity for my community.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Clay County detective under investigation for social media post after ICE detained workers
The Clay County Sheriff's Office is investigating a detective who potentially violated the agency's professional standards by posting a photo online in response to Friday's ICE raid in Liberty, when agents detained at least 12 workers from El Potro Mexican restaurant during lunch hours. Detective Tom Butkovich was placed on immediate leave pending an ongoing investigation, according to Sarah Boyd, a spokesperson for the sheriff's office. The detective allegedly posted a photo of President Donald Trump with the words 'Time to put the 'panic' back in Hispanic' in a Facebook comment. 'We strongly condemn any actions by our employees that have the potential to erode public trust in our agency,' Boyd said. 'We want to assure members of our Hispanic community that they will be treated fairly and with respect during any contact with the Clay County Sheriff's Office.' The investigation will determine if Butkovich violated the office's conduct or social media policies or procedures. The investigation will also look into if the comment was actually posted by Butkovich or someone impersonating him. In the wake of community concern following Friday's ICE enforcement in Liberty, Sheriff Will Akin has reached out to several local leaders in Kansas City's Hispanic community, including the vice-consul of Kansas City's Mexican consulate, Boyd said. Boyd was unable to immediately verify Butkovich's other off-duty law enforcement roles. Some details about exactly what happened when federal agents showed up to El Potro in Liberty on Friday are still unclear, and reporting is ongoing. Neither the Clay County Sheriff's Office or the Liberty Police Department were involved in the federal enforcement. Akin told The Star that he heard about the ICE operation at the restaurant on Friday through a family friend. He then decided to go and see for himself what was happening. He said agents told him they were looking for a person charged with child sex crimes who was not a U.S. citizen, and that they were also conducting a 'worksite enforcement operation,' to ensure the business had the required legal documents for every employee. Akin said agents detained the person accused of sex crimes and 12 other employees. He did not know the immigration status of the individuals detained. A group of local immigration advocates and lawyers was not able to confirm that agents provided a search warrant or any documentation proving they were searching for a sex offender, according to Kansas City immigration attorney Michael Sharma-Crawford. He said agents also confiscated two boxes of employment papers from the restaurant. 'They say they got consent from an owner,' Sharma-Crawford said. 'But we're not sure if the consent was predicated on the fact that there was a sex offender there, or if that person really had the ability to give consent.' The detained workers were placed in ICE custody, Sharma-Crawford said. Until the restaurant operation Friday, Sharma-Crawford said recent stops by ICE agents around Kansas City have been 'targeted,' with agents seeking out specific people they allege committed sex crimes, Sharma-Crawford said. He said he still has several key questions about the agents' behavior and the people detained on Friday. 'Who are they looking for?' Sharma-Crawford said. 'What gave them the authority to just round up 12 people, other than they were brown and working at a Mexican restaurant? That's not sufficient.' The Star's Bob Cronkleton and Ilana Arougheti contributed to this story.
