Today We March, Tomorrow We Get Detained by ICE?

El Mensajero, News Report, By Erika Cebreros, Translated by Suzanne Manneh and Peter Micek, Posted: May 07, 2008

Traducción al español

Editor’s Note: The day after the May 1 immigrant rights marches, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted raids at a chain of taquerias in the San Francisco Bay Area. Immigrant advocates say the timing of the raids was no coincidence.


SAN FRANCISCO – After eating burritos in a San Francisco taqueria, plain-clothed immigration agents arrested three of the restaurant’s employees. José Sánchez López, the cook who prepared the food the morning of Friday, May 2, was one of those arrested. He was released the same day, but not before they put an electronic monitoring device on his ankle that marks every step he takes.
José Sánchez López shows his
electronic monitoring device.
It started out as a normal day. Taquería El Balazo (“The Shot”), located at 2560 Marin Street in San Francisco, opened its doors at 10 a.m. Half an hour later, the first “customers” arrived: “a woman who spoke perfect Spanish, a dark-skinned man and a white man,” recalls Sánchez, 32.

They ordered burritos: chorizo with egg, grilled beef and one of “just beans,” for the woman. The three sat down to eat but never lost sight of the movements of each employee and the surroundings. “They ate and analyzed,” remembers the cook, who has worked in El Balazo for almost seven years.

The woman went to the restroom and that’s when the raid began. According to Sánchez, he and his colleagues suspected from the beginning that something was wrong.

“Come here!” ICE undercover agents demanded of the three undocumented workers, all of whom were from Mexico: José Sánchez López, the cook, Antonio “Tony” Gonzalez, the dishwasher, and Gonzalez’s sister who was working the cash register.

In a matter of seconds, uniformed ICE agents had blocked the entryway, says Sánchez, gesturing nervously as if it was happening all over again.

“This is when everything came to an end, all of my dreams,” Sánchez said. That was the first thought that came to his mind when he saw the immigration raids happen before him.

“They (ICE agents) asked me for my identification and I told them that I didn’t have any,” said Sánchez, a native of Guadalajara, Jalisco. The agents went through the workers’ lockers and removed their belongings. Sánchez says they took his driver's license, which he got in Washington state.

Without understanding the reason for their arrest, the three immigrants were detained. The biggest surprise, Sánchez says, was when he ran into a number of employees from the same taqueria chain in jail.

He was shocked when he learned that the other detainees were his colleagues from the taqueria branches in cities like Danville, San Ramon, Concord, Pleasanton and Lafayette, Calif.

“We looked like thugs,” recounted Tony Gonzalez, Sánchez’s friend, remembering what it was like to be handcuffed. Gonzalez has worked at the taqueria for eight years and said that he is worried about what the future will hold.

Protesting the raids

Sánchez and Gonzalez told their stories in the middle of a crowd of protestors shouting, “Without justice, there is no peace,” and “We want a world without borders.” The protest, organized by immigrant rights and religious groups, took place on May 5 in front of San Francisco’s ICE offices, to condemn the recent raids.
Antonio “Tony” González (left) and José Sánchez López
were arrested at San Francisco's El Balazo taqueria.
“I pay my taxes, I don’t have any tattoos and I don’t have a record,” said Sánchez, who lives in San Pablo, Calif. “I’m one of those people who goes from my house to work, and on the weekends I take walks with my family,” said the young father of three.

In a telephone interview, ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice confirmed that 63 undocumented workers were detained from the raids – 62 Mexicans and one Guatemalan – at 11 Bay Area taqueria chains.

Of the total number of detainees, only 10 are still in custody, she said. The rest were released and are awaiting immigration proceedings.

Kice said that the raids were a result of an investigation, but declined to provide further details or explication.

The majority of immigrants who were released, like Sánchez, were forced to wear electronic monitoring devices.

Evelyn Sanchez of the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition said that many pro-immigrant organizations have been in contact with affected families and are helping them with any legal proceedings they may face.

The activist added that the families of those arrested in the ICE raids are frightened. “They feel vulnerable that they could be exposed,” she said, “because someone at home is being electronically monitored and immigration authorities know where they live.”

Evelyn Sanchez summed up the emotional state of the affected families as “temor, terror y tristeza” (fear, terror and sadness).

For Sheila Cheng-Hagen, an immigrant rights representative in San Francisco, it was no coincidence that the raids occurred the day after May 1, when thousands of immigrants took to the streets demanding immigration reform.

Chung-Hangen cited a similar episode in New Haven, Connecticut in 2007. Two days after that city approved a program offering identification cards to all immigrants, ICE conducted a large immigration raid on the city, resulting in the arrests of nearly 30 undocumented workers.

Mark Silverman, attorney for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) said that ICE operations are derived from established federal law. Congress and the current administration, he said, are responsible for these raids.

He explained that protests, like the ones that took place May 5 in response to the May 2 raids, are beneficial because they unite the immigrant rights community and remind the government and politicians that the immigration system is not working and that immigration reform is needed.

For more information about immigrant rights, visit: http://www.immigrantrights.org/ or call 510-839-7598. For more details on people who may still be detained from the El Balazo taquería raids, call ICE at 415-844-5345.

Photos: Erika Cebreros/El Mensajero


Related Articles:

ICE Raids Bay Area Taqueria Chain

Short-Lived Reprieve from Anti-Immigrant Attitudes in Connecticut

Immigration Raids Can Cost L.A. Millions

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