After ICE Raids Restaurant, San Diego Folks Demand ICE GTFO. Ice Got TFO.
New ASMR video just dropped!
On Friday, teams of ICE agents in full military-style combat gear did raids at two Italian restaurants in San Diego, handcuffing restaurant staff and arresting four people, according to ICE. The raids drew an angry backlash from residents of the South Park neighborhood, who gathered to protest the arrests. People joining the spontaneous protest chanted “Shame! Shame,” at the Deportation Gestapo, following them back to an unmarked Gestapomobile van that whisked them off. At one point, ICE agents used flash-bang smoke grenades to drive back protesters.
Just another day in Deportation Police State.
Here’s video reposted to Bluesky (the original TikTok vid appears to have been removed) of the crowd shouting at and following the ICE creeps; this footage doesn’t include the use of the flashbangs.
The flashbangs can be seen in this report from San Francisco’s Diego’s KPBS.
The arrests were denounced by Democrats who represent San Diego in Congress, who pointed out that the four people who were hauled off by ICE weren’t accused of any violent offense, just immigration and false document charges.
Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, a spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations, the agency within ICE that’s conducted many of these raids, said the agency was executing warrants for alleged “violations of hiring and harboring illegal aliens and false statements.” A copy of the warrant claimed that 19 employees at the Buona Forchetta restaurants had used false green cards to get their jobs, which, yes, is a criminal offense, but not exactly the sort of thing that justifies immigration cops cosplaying as if they were taking down Osama bin Laden.
And the use of flashbang devices? Totally necessary, because, horrors,
“The demonstrators became unruly and as a result less lethal noise flash diversionary devices were deployed to allow law enforcement to exit the scene as safely as possible. […] “When gatherings like these are formed, it not only places law enforcement in danger but also the demonstrators and onlookers attempting to impede law enforcement activity.”
ICE objected on Twitter to a social media post calling the brave soldiers immigration stormtroopers “terrorists,” calling the comparison “sickening,” claiming that ICE officers are constantly in danger, and asserting that “ICE is working day and night to remove murders [sic], pedophiles, and gang members from American communities.”
Again, the warrant in the San Diego raid mentions only the false papers and the immigration violations. Gotta make those waiters and cooks seem a lot scarier! We bet some of the kitchen staff were seen holding knives!
Oh, also too: The investigation into Buona Forchetta was based on a tip from 2020 about the place maybe having undocumented workers, although there was apparently also another tip in January 2025, which would certainly line up with some asshole in friggin’ San Diego freaking out about over seeing Latino people, who may even have been speaking Spanish.
Rachel Maddow wasn’t impressed with the HSI cops pretending they were going to war. But she was impressed by the San Diego residents who showed up to protest and tell them to GTFO. Here’s that part of her excellent report on the HSI goon squads last night:
Maddow said that it looked like someone must have told the HSI guys they were
“going to be invading Fallujah on Friday afternoon. I mean, this was bananas! […] multiple clown cars full of Trump’s HSI agents in full battle rattle with helmets and long guns and flak jackets and goggles and masks, literally looking like they were gonna rappel out of helicopters into the Tora Bora cave complex to fight al-Qaeda!”
But the good people of San Diego weren’t having it:
“Unsurprisingly, the whole neighborhood came out to say, ‘What the heck are you doing? Is this 'Red Dawn?' Are we being invaded? Wolverines! This is what you're doing to save us from the terrible menace of, like, the nice waiter at our favorite local restaurant?’”
Yes, that’s exactly what Trump, Stephen Miller, and the whole rotten fascist crew want us to believe. There are no innocents, no asylum seekers, no abuelas looking after the kids while people are simply trying to make their American Dream (“BUT THEY’RE ILLEGAL!!!!”). Americans aren’t terrified of waitstaff and home health aides and nannies, so all immigrants, if they lack papers, have to be murders and rapists.
But as the response in San Diego shows, we aren’t buying it. We aren’t going along. We actually prefer our undocumented neighbors to the fascists. As Maddow said, “Everyone in America hates it. Everyone hates what they're doing.” (Not entirely accurate, because of course there are Trumpers who love it and want more brutality. Fuck them.)
Way to go, San Diego.
OPEN THREAD.
UPDATE: HSI was also busy making America look like a war zone in Minnesota today, where City Council Member Jason Chavez took this amazing photo of an HSI Bearcat armored car (complete with LRAD sound cannon) parked in front of a restaurant with the helpful suggestion “Make Tacos, Not Walls” on the awning.
Boy, this country, I don’t know.
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Updated with a note that HSI said in the warrant that a tipster said the restaurant hired undocumented people. The tip was from 2020, children.
Once again I must take issue with language. Are the people scooped up in this raid before ICE was sent off getting hearings? Until we know they are, these are not arrests, they're abductions.