ICE Stages South Park Raid to Make Community Afraid, Fails

People responded with courage, the antidote to fear

Photo by Pedro Rios/AFSC

News of a Friday night raid on Buona Forchetta and Enoteca Buona Forchetta by Immigration and Customs Enforcement has garnered national media coverage.

This was no ordinary enforcement action, it was performative nonsense designed to provoke a response. It’s no different than the theatrical arrest of a judge in Milwaukee or the indictment of a Congresswoman in New Jersey.

The Buona Forchetta raid was supposed to instill fear in the community; instead the community fought back. Neighbors from the South Park made a lot of noise after seeing what appeared to be soldiers in full regalia surrounding a beloved small business. They chanted “shame, shame, shame!” at the men carrying automatic rifles and wearing body armor.

There was NO RIOT. There was no property damage. No violence was directed at ICE agents. People did yell bad words at them. Why? Because it was obviously a deliberate attempt by the government to intimate people.

On Saturday, residents returned to the area of the restaurant for a sign wave with messages condemning the ICE raid. These acts of resistance show the nation generally and those under threat from ICE that there are people who understand that what is happening is deeply wrong, and are willing to say so.

Community residents exercising the First Amendment rights demonstrate what resolve and empathy in the face of armed force looks like. The government meant to instill fear, instead they prompted courage. If San Diego can resist, so can other communities. Courage is contagious. Remember that.

In the future, officials will understand that they cannot assume a compliant citizenry. With enough pushback, they may choose to alter their practices. One way (not as performatively shitty) or the other (shittier) their actions will be noticed. Many people will agree that these “enforcement actions” amount to using a shotgun for mosquito control.

Buona Forchetta is one of San Diego’s most popular restaurants. It’s not cheap, but most people would agree that it’s worth the price you pay. Nor is there a bar scene or a history of rowdy customers. As they have opened other locations in San Diego County, their standards — including lots of community involvement— have not been changed.

Via The Times of San Diego, whose account of the raid included details from veteran reporter J.W. August, who was at the scene.

• On the Buona Forchetta Facebook page 600-plus comments indicated overwhelming support for the restaurant and its owners.

• Some commenters did say there could be a valid reason for the surprise raid, but most were angry about how it came to pass.

• As an example, former San Diego City Councilmember Jim Madaffer commented that he was “disgusted,” saying that ICE personnel “totally crossed the line. And flashbangs on the crowd witnessing this disgusting abuse of power? So sad for the trauma inflicted on employees.”

• Another supporter, Christopher Dowling, added, “I’m surprised Kristi Noem wasn’t there taking selfies,” referring to the Secretary of Homeland Security. He described the ICE activity as “theatrics and performative right down to the uniforms, tactical kits, time of the raid and place. It was by design to send a message. ICE couldn’t care less about stopping VIOLENT illegals.”

If the government thought there really were unlawful migrants on the premises, I’m pretty sure two guys in suits with badges could have shown the warrant and completed the task.

Instead, the ICE agents were there to feed into the narrative pushed by the Trump administration about blood-thirsty criminals roaming the country looking to do harm to upstanding (white) citizens.

The warrant carried by the ICE agents claimed they had two reports, the first of which was in November, 2020, from an informant claiming the restaurant was using undocumented people in its kitchen with an abusive owner forcing them to work 12 hour shifts. Another report –5 years later– made the same claim, and this time ICE decided to raid.

Here’s a problem with those scenarios: Buona Forchetta’s owner is well known in the communities his restaurant serves, and former employees paint the picture of an entirely different man who bends over backwards to be fair and ethical. So somebody’s lying here and they just happen to have a reputation for making shit up.

A case in point, via Propublica:

• The Trump administration knew that the vast majority of the 238 Venezuelan immigrants it sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador in mid-March had not been convicted of crimes in the United States before it labeled them as terrorists and deported them, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security data that has not been previously reported.

• President Donald Trump and his aides have branded the Venezuelans as “rapists,” “savages,” “monsters” and “the worst of the worst.” When multiple news organizations disputed those assertions with reporting that showed many of the deportees did not have criminal records, the administration doubled down. It said that its assessment of the deportees was based on a thorough vetting process that included looking at crimes committed both inside and outside the United States. But the government’s own data, which was obtained by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and a team of journalists from Venezuela, showed that officials knew that only 32 of the deportees had been convicted of U.S. crimes and that most were nonviolent offenses, such as retail theft or traffic violations.

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Right wing trolls are coming out of the woodwork to puff up justifications for the raid, where roughly two dozen officers in full military gear surrounded the restaurants, threw the manager up against the wall for demanding to know what was going on, and made the staff sit zip tied until they were made to produce identification.

I guess you could call that behavior violence, right?

News reports indicate ICE was looking for specific individuals, AND DID NOT FIND THEM. A couple of employees who failed to produce ID were led out in handcuffs and leg chains.

So there were NO “illegal invaders’ found. (Migrants sometimes present fake documents, but since Homeland Security hasn’t made any announcements, there’s no way of confirming arrests.)

The actions and demeanor of the government agents frightened the staff and customers. As neighbors learned of the raid, a crowd gathered outside the restaurants, jeering at the government agents. Some tried to physically block an ICE vehicle; agents discharged three flash-bang grenades to disperse the crowd.

• CBS 8 reported that the San Diego Police Department confirmed its officers were called in at 6:07 p.m. Friday “by an urgent request for assistance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to assist with the gathered crowds.”

• “The nature of their involvement at the time of the request was unknown to us,” the SDPD said in a statement. “SDPD was not involved in the operation beforehand, nor were we involved in any immigration enforcement. Federal agents had left the area prior to our arrival, and our officers did not ultimately provide any assistance or take enforcement action.”

Via Christian Nationalist troll Lauren Witzke, who apparently work(s)ed for professional victim and pillow guy Mike Lindell:

• Another angle of San Diego libtards blocking ICE from leaving after making their arrests.

• It’s time to use the FBI to identify and mass arrest these domestic terrorists interfering with ICE operations. ICE should also use way more force as well. That's what the grill guard on the SUV is for.

Chanting “shame, shame, shame”, protesters confronted men in full military regalia. Photo by Pedro Rios/AFSC

Witzke, again, playing judge, jury and prosecutor:

• The libtarded owner of the San Diego restaurant ICE-raided put out a statement about the raid, and nowhere in it does he apologize for harboring illegal invaders.

Here’s blowhard Republican Carl DeMaio, commenting on a photo posted by San Diego City Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera of the raid with the word “terrorists” written across it.

• San Diego City Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera needs to RESIGN! Moreover until he does, I hope the federal government bars San Diego from any federal funding. It is time to send a message: inciting violence against law enforcement will not be tolerated.

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The local Democratic Party, along with city and county officials issued statements of ‘concern.’

Mayor Todd Gloria:

• “Like many San Diegans, I was deeply upset by Friday night’s immigration enforcement operation at Buona Forchetta and Enoteca Buona Forchetta in South Park. Federal actions like these are billed as a public safety measure, but it had the complete opposite effect. What we saw undermines trust and creates fear in our community. I raised these concerns and my strong objections directly with Homeland Security Investigations leadership this morning. I will continue to advocate for the respect, dignity, rights, and security of everyone in our city.”

Hey guys, your constituents were traumatized. Maybe drop in to the restaurant, now that it’s reopened, for a pie. We’re going to need more from you as it appears the federal government is going to be terrorizing people.

Oh, and I’ll bet the HSI leadership Gloria spoke to said something like: “So what?”

I can only hope that the people in other communities take heart from the acts of defiance and protests in South Park and follow their conscience; safely, of course.

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The Fair Information Reform Movement has prepared a community raid preparation checklist for activists.

The San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium (A project of Alliance San Diego) involves more than 50 community, faith, labor, and legal organizations who have come together to pursue four common goals: support comprehensive immigration reform; stop the spread of local policies and practices that target and violate the civil and human rights of immigrants; educate immigrants, and educate the public about the important contributions of immigrants

Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans by Sheera Frenkel and Aaron Krolik at The New York Times

• “Current employees are discussing the implications of their work and raising questions internally,” she said, adding that some employees have left after disagreements over the company’s work with the Trump administration.

• Last week, a Palantir strategist, Brianna Katherine Martin, posted on LinkedIn that she was departing the company because of its expanded work with ICE.

• “For most of my time here, I found the way that Palantir grappled with the weight of our capabilities to be refreshing, transparent and conscionable,” she wrote. “This has changed for me over the past few months. For me, this is a red line I won’t redraw.”

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Men are lonely, but mothers are losing their minds by Lyz and Isabela Rosario at Men Yell At Me

• I’m not pointing this out to play a game of misery Olympics. Or to belittle the struggles anyone is facing. There is no point in telling someone, “I know you’re sad, but statistically you earn more than me!” (Also, 46 percent of men don’t believe in the pay gap.)

• But it’s also not helpful to spend too much time wailing about men. The American crisis is not just among men; it’s everyone. As Gavin Newsom tries to be the Joe Rogan of “left” and Democrats spend $20 million to appeal to men, we are all breaking down; we are all falling apart.

• And while there is a clear effort to benefit men, women are actively and intentionally being pushed out of the labor force.

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The Narrative Imagination: The Value of Writing and Literature in the Anti-Intellectual Age by Kaitlin Smith at Sweetbitter (A Response to Martha C. Nussbaum's "Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities.")

• I would like to expand on one claim Nussbaum makes in Chapter VI: “The third ability of the citizen…is what we call the narrative imagination” (95). Narrative imagination, for the purposes of this article, is the act of writing. How, then, might we assess the value of writing and literature in an increasingly anti-intellectual society?

• The answer shall appear simpler than it is: We write. Writing is protest, as the saying goes. Margaret Atwood once wrote, “A word after a word after a word is power.” One of the most valuable things we can do under this administration, in light of so many national and global atrocities, is to write about it. Silence becomes an enemy in times of threat. If no one will speak up, if no one will put words to the harm being done, then harm continues. People pay the cost. The loss of literature, as I’ve highlighted through the library funding cuts and book censorship, indicates a particularly troubling element of the devaluation of education. In 1985, Audre Lorde wrote the phenomenal essay “Poetry is Not a Luxury” in which she highlights the pervasive power—the necessity, especially to women—of poetry and, by extension, of writing:

“For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence…The white fathers told us, I think therefore I am; and the black mothers in each of us-the poet- whispers in our dreams, I feel therefore I can be free. Poetry coins the language to express and charter this revolutionary awareness and demand, the implementation of that freedom…If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and directly toward and through promise, is a luxury, then we have given up the core-the fountain-of our power, our womanness; we have give up the future of our worlds.”

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San Diego County sheriff’s deputies repeatedly violate body camera policies, oversight board finds by Kelly Davis at the Union-Tribune

• A letter from board leadership to Sheriff Kelly Martinez says that while members of the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board, or CLERB, didn’t find any of the violations to be deliberate, repeated failures to follow camera policies risk undermining public trust.

• “Whether in public interactions or in the detention setting, (body-worn camera) is the only direct view of arrests, searches, alleged peace officer misconduct, uses of force or deputy-involved shootings,” Executive Officer Brett Kalina wrote to Martinez.

• Between November and April, CLERB found deputies violated body-worn camera policies 12 times — including by failing to activate cameras, muting audio without explanation or neglecting to document why a camera wasn’t activated. CLERB’s jurisdiction only covers complaints made against the Sheriff’s Office and Probation Department.