A gang of ICE agents ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant—then reportedly went back and detained staff who had served them.
Four Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sat down at El Tapatio in Willmar, Minnesota, just before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, alarming staff at the diner, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Later that night, witnesses told the paper that agents followed workers’ vehicles after closing and carried out an arrest at about 8:30 p.m., as bystanders blew whistles and shouted.
Three workers from the restaurant were reportedly detained, though it was unclear whether any of them were owners or what their immigration status was, the Star Tribune reported. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the paper’s questions about who had been arrested or why. The Daily Beast has also asked DHS for a comment.
The agency has also declined to answer detailed questions from other outlets about how its agents are choosing where to operate in Minnesota’s growing immigration crackdown.
Migrant-owned restaurants, though, appear to have become a “hunting ground” for such raids, according to several proprietors. In St. Paul, the owner of El Burrito Mercado, a 47-year-old Mexican market and restaurant long described as a local “mini-empire,” said federal agents had been circling her business in unmarked vehicles for days, scaring off staff and customers.
“ICE is using my business as a hunting ground,” CEO Milissa Silva-Diaz told CNN, describing masked officers “swirling around the block waiting for people” and forcing her to slash business hours because workers were too frightened to come in.
Another St. Paul restaurateur, Miguel Lopez of Homi, told the same outlet he shut his dining room and switched to pickup-only orders after seeing federal agents in the neighborhood. Lopez, who opened the Mexican restaurant with his wife in 2009, said, “I don’t feel safe either in my house or my business,” and added, “I’m not going to put my employees or myself in that position.”
It is perhaps little surprise, then, that more migrant-owned restaurants are now telling immigration officers they are no longer welcome as customers.
In Muskegon, Michigan, the owners of Fatty Lumpkins Sandwich Shack said they would deny service to ICE agents after the Minneapolis shooting by an ICE agent of 37-year-old mom, Renee Nicole Good.
“You are NOT welcome at Fatty Lumpkins Sandwich Shack. You NEVER will be,” co-owner Brett Gilbert wrote in a Facebook post addressed to the agency. “You will be denied service. You will be laughed at and escorted out,” the post read. “F–k you. F–k your murderous ways. F–k your disregard for due process and our beloved Constitution.”
In south Minneapolis on Monday, workers and neighbors at Wrecktangle Pizza went as far as to chase away men identified as ICE agents who tried to enter the restaurant. “They stormed up on our door to try to get in,” co-owner Breanna Evans told CBS News.
Staff and community members reportedly forced the officers back onto the street, where agents appeared to deploy chemical spray that was kicked back toward them. The pizzeria had recently raised more than $83,000 for nonprofits helping families affected by the surge in federal immigration enforcement.
And in St. Paul on Sunday, diners at Cancun Mexican Grill & Cantina confronted federal agents walking through the restaurant, demanding they leave. Video showed customers shouting at the officers, and some patrons asking whether they had a warrant, before the agents eventually exited the business. “Take off your mask,” one woman yelled, as others tailed the officers out of the dining room.
Those scenes mirror the anger that flared on that Willmar street when agents grabbed El Tapatio’s workers after dark, with bystanders whistling and jeering as officers led them away. The episodes are just a small part of Minnesota’s already-tense stand-off over federal immigration raids in neighborhoods where immigrant workers keep much of the local service economy running.
Minnesota has been on edge since the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Metro Surge in December, sending around 3,000 ICE and other federal officers into the Minneapolis–St. Paul area for what the agency has called its largest-ever immigration enforcement operation.
The fatal Jan. 7 shooting of Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, 43, during an anti-ICE protest sparked further demonstrations, business closures, and a wave of “No ICE” stances across the region. Minnesota, Minneapolis, and St. Paul have now sued the Trump administration, alleging Metro Surge is unlawful retaliation and warning that mass raids are terrorizing families, schools, and workplaces.
The Daily Beast has approached the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
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