A group of San Diego-area Democrats Monday denounced Friday's federal raid on two restaurants in the South Park neighborhood, which saw armed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detain four people in an operation the officials said left the community shaken and traumatized.
The late afternoon operation at Buona Forchetta and Enoteca Buona Forchetta involved at least 20 agents in military-style gear taking a group of workers into custody, while also confronting and handcuffing others and at one point detonating flash-bang grenades in the vicinity.
The detained individuals included three Mexican nationals and another from Colombia, according to Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Chula Vista, but he and other officials said it hasn't been shown that the detained people had violent criminal histories warranting the tactics employed.
Vargas said Monday morning's news conference was being held outside San Diego's federal courthouses specifically because a local federal judge — U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Crawford — signed off on a warrant that he said authorized agents to detain everyone working inside the restaurants, whether or not they were undocumented.
Vargas said part of the lawmakers' demands were to meet with the chief judge for the Southern District of California to inquire how and why warrants of this sort were being approved.
Along with Vargas, Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, Rep. Sara Jacobs, D- San Diego, Rep. Mike Levin, D-Carlsbad, and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria spoke out against the impetus behind operations like Friday's and the manner in which it was carried out.
Jacobs said recent immigration enforcement tactics "have crossed a new line."
The congresswoman was not only referring to Friday's incident, but also recent arrests conducted at San Diego courthouses of people attending immigration hearings and a workplace immigration raid in March near El Cajon.
"This isn't about going after criminals. They're going after people who are trying to do the right thing and people who are contributing to our economy," Jacobs said.
Peters described the incident as "our government terrorizing our own communities." He said the operation shows White House officials are not prioritizing violent criminals in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
"We were told that this whole move on immigration and deportation was about violent criminals," Peters said. "Well, we know that's not true."
Vargas said the ICE agents were "armed to the teeth as if they were entering a war zone," "terrorized the patrons and workers," and he charged that the intent of the operation "was to intimidate and to bring terror and fear into everybody's hearts, especially immigrants."
Gloria said, "This kind of operation does not promote public safety, it undermines it. Our community's trust in law enforcement is diminished when scenes like that unfold in their communities."
Levin cited reports stating that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is calling for 3,000 people to be arrested daily by immigration law enforcement officials.
"Setting an arbitrary quota is what created a mess like what we saw on Friday and it will continue unless we all speak out against it," he said.
Levin noted that approximately 20% of San Diego’s service sector workforce is made up of immigrants without immigration status.
“What happened on Friday was fundamentally wrong, fundamentally un-American and can happen presumably to 1 in 5 San Diegans working in the service sector,” he said.
ICE has not commented beyond confirming the operations occurred at the restaurants. Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe, an ICE spokeswoman, told City News Service: "As this is an ongoing investigation, we have no further releasable information at this time."
At Monday's San Diego City Council meeting, Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera stood by statements he made over the weekend. Describing the Friday incident as "terroristic" and "fascist," Elo-Rivera urged San Diegans to stand up and push back against ICE raids in the community.
Councilman Stephen Whitburn denounced the raid and said it was intended to make people afraid. Council President Joe LaCava demanded an apology from the agency.
San Diego police were called in to assist the operation with crowds that gathered.
"The nature of their involvement at the time of the request was unknown to us," the department 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."
The company behind Buona Forchetta said in a statement that all its restaurants in San Diego and Orange counties will remain closed through Tuesday in response to "the traumatic incident involving a federal enforcement operation at our original and beloved South Park location."
The statement continued, "We will be back soon. But for now, we are holding our people close and leaning into the love you have so generously given."
In a separate social media post on Saturday, Buona Forchetta said it was working with attorneys "to locate and support our detained employees and their families."
Administration officials have conducted stepped-up enforcement of illegal immigration since President Donald Trump took office in January, and data show that illegal border crossings have reached historically low levels.
