ICE agents in Ann Arbor, Michigan, enjoyed a breakfast of waffles with bacon and egg whites made by immigrant employees before rounding up at least three of them in a raid, the business owner said. ICE agents stationed themselves at the restaurant’s entrance and exit while two others ordered food and asked about one particular employee, who turned out to be not present at the time. But instead of leaving, agents carried out what appeared to be “collateral arrests,” a crass term ICE uses to describe when “bystanders are … taken in if they are suspected to be undocumented, even if they have committed no crime”. From Huffington Post:
Line cook Carlos Rivera-Ochoa took out the trash in the back when officers slapped handcuffs on him, according to Lelcaj. Rivera-Ochoa told MLive he carries his permanent residency card with him, and he was released shortly after being taken into a vehicle and fingerprinted.
But when three other cooks in the kitchen saw officers confront Rivera-Ochoa, they “panicked,” Lelcaj said, and ran out the front door and were then arrested.
Rachael Yong Yow, ICE public affairs officer, said the agents were “conducting a targeted enforcement action” and arrested the three men on immigration violations. Two men who were detained had unlawfully entered the country, Yong Yow said, and the third had entered lawfully “but did not depart in accordance with the terms of his status.”
However, the restaurant owner claims her business “goes through a vetting process to make sure potential employees have the right documentation to work in the United States” and that “those taken into custody do have the proper documents to work in the country,” but “they did not have the papers on hand when the agents were at Sava’s.”
There’s still conflicting reports about the status of the men who were arrested and hauled off to detention, though Newsweek reports “the people taken into custody were released on Wednesday evening, after the restaurant owner’s company, Savco Hospitality, sent the workers’ documents to ICE.” What isn’t up in the air, though, is the fact that the worker with a green card, a Latino man, was detained and fingerprinted. Guess ICE agents just thought he looked the part of a “bad hombre”?
"They just slapped some handcuffs on him," Nicki Sanchez, Rivera-Ochoa’s wife, said about his detainment. "Not only is that offensive, he was embarrassed in front of the whole restaurant. Why didn't they ask him before they detained him?" The truth is he shouldn’t have been asked “papers please” in the first place—after all, were any of the white employees asked for their papers as well?—but that’s the kind of world an unshackled and emboldened ICE wants.
