S1: Hey , San Diego , it's Andrew Bracken in for Jade Hyneman. On today's show , we hear the latest local reaction to Friday's immigration raid at a restaurant in South Park. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. Last Friday , US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made multiple arrests at Buena Vista , an Italian restaurant in the South Park neighborhood. Community members and local leaders are responding. Here's Representative Juan Vargas at a press conference this morning.
S2: It's just outrageous what we saw. What we had was Ice agents that would storm a local business. They terrorized the patrons there. The workers. The restaurant manager. One of them describes being immediately pushed against the wall , handcuffed by officers. He was traumatized.
S1: Earlier that week , the Trump administration also put out a list of so-called sanctuary jurisdictions. These are cities they claim are not cooperating with immigration enforcement. San Diego and four other local cities were part of that list , but that list appears to have been taken down. KPBS investigative border reporter Gustavo Solis is here with the latest. Gustavo , welcome. Hello. So , you know , remind us what happened. You know , at Friday's ice raid.
S3: Well , it was a workplace raid. We've seen one similar one here in El Cajon , which we'll talk about a little bit. Right. But you saw it was a Friday evening after 5 p.m. , right. South Park is a very walkable neighborhood. People had a lot of reservations over there. It was kind of peak time to do this raid. And we saw what the congressman described. It was a very militarized response. People with machine guns , Um. They used flash grenades afterwards to disperse the crowd. They went in and handcuffed everybody. All of the workers , uh , independent of whether they were U.S. citizens or not. They basically went in there , arrested everyone , and then decided to ask questions. And the result was four people arrested , uh , who I've been told by by congressional staffers , none of them have a violent criminal record or even nonviolent criminal record. They are guilty of being in the country without immigration status. So then , therefore , they called into question the level of response. Right. Are you going to send in 20 armed men with machine guns for for people who aren't violent ? That's been a big criticism of the raid.
S1: And you painted this picture. You know , this was Friday evening. South Park , we know , is a very you know , it's a pretty tight community , but there's lots of restaurants. There's a lot , a lot of activity. I mean , what does that kind of signal to you , what this raid was like and the intentions behind it ? Because there was , you know , the first things I saw was like a lot of community reaction. People took to the streets.
S3: Oh , instantly. Instantly. And even the day after there's been the chalk painting that says Melt ice. Um , even the mayor , Todd Gloria , had an interesting line at the press conference. You said it wasn't the appropriate time and place for something like that , which I'm curious to know what the appropriate time and place is. But I think it is noteworthy because it's I think you can view it as an escalation or just a change in tactics. I mentioned the first raid was in an unincorporated part of the county , just outside of the city of El Cajon. It was an industrial paint shop , not a lot of foot traffic right by a major road. Uh , pretty quiet , except obviously for the people directly impacted. Right. The workers and their their children and family. There wasn't a big outcry after that. Um , this totally different , right ? South Park , a much more affluent part of town. A much more politically connected part of town. A lot of social media videos asked the raid was happening And even the response , right. The response is night and day. From what you saw in El Cajon to what you're seeing in South Park. Um , but I think it doesn't. There's been a lot in between that got us here , right ? Even last week , there were a viral videos of a hot dog vendor being taken by Ice outside of Petco Park. Uh , I reported on this last week. Uh , Ice agents arresting people in immigration court. So I think it can be viewed as an escalation of Ice enforcement.
S1: So you mentioned some of Mayor Todd Gloria's words , you know , reacting to this raid. Um , what about congressional leaders ? I mean , you just attended a press conference earlier this morning.
S3: All four of them were outraged. I think it is noteworthy that they used the word terror , say that the US government is terrorizing local communities. Um , they decided to have the press conference outside of the federal building because at least Juan Vargas wanted to draw attention to the fact that a federal judge signed off on this warrant. And I think that's part of a strategy that Democrats are trying to come up with. They realize that they're a minority right in the House and in the Senate. They're not going to be able to legislate their way out of this one. They don't have that kind of power. So I asked them just straight up , hey , like , I know you all are outraged and you're trying to draw attention to this , but you're the political class. What are you going to do about it ? And Juan Vargas said , well , we got to put pressure on federal judges because this warrant , he believes , should not have been signed at that level. Like I said before , right. That level of response for for non-criminal folks. The other , um , strategy , if you can call it that , was proposed by Congresswoman Sara Jacobs , who said this is part of the strategy , speaking out about it , messaging around it being a lot more vocal and trying to change public perception. Right. Just be more , like I said , more vocal and really pushing back on the white House narrative that they're only going after hardened criminals , murderers and rapists. Now , every. I'm pretty sure most , if not all of the Congress members at that press conference straight up said that , you know , the Trump administration is lying to us about that priority , that they are not going after criminals. Uh , they followed up with the folks who were arrested. They looked at the warrant , they looked at their criminal record and couldn't find anything. They described them as dishwashers , cooks and busboys. Um , Congressman Mark Levin raised the fact that about 20% of the service industry here in San Diego is , um , undocumented labor. 1 in 5. Just about right. So think about it. And he made this point. If this continues , 1 in 5 service industry workers could be next. Right. So that's the messaging they're going after trying to change public perception. Because if you do , if you look at polls and I do think this has been interesting , we've reported on it. Pew had a poll out about support for deportations , and it did come out and said , a lot of people support deporting convicted felons , especially if they're convicted of violent crime. But support for deportation decreases dramatically when you factor in , are they working in the US ? Have they been here 15 years or more ? Are they married to you as a citizen ? Do they have U.S. citizen children ? I mean , some of those categories support for deportation is below 10%. So I think if you change the public discourse , you might be able to to change the perception of those changes.
S1: Yeah , yeah. There's also this news of , you know , San Diego being part of this sanctuary jurisdiction , this designation. The Department of Homeland Security has since taken down this list after criticism from sheriffs across the country.
S3: There's no Legal definition for what a sanctuary jurisdiction is. In different cities , different counties will approach it differently. Generally speaking , it means that they aim to limit cooperation between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement. But if Friday showed us anything , and I feel like it was clear before , but now is abundantly clear. Sanctuary designations , sanctuary laws like like the Truth Act and Values Act , they don't stop the federal government from coming in here and enforcing these rules , right ? They just prevent San Diego PD San Diego Sheriff's Office from helping them do that. But if the federal government wants to flood California with Ice agents and have federal judges sign warrants to do this kind of stuff , there are no sanctuary laws preventing that from happening.
S1: And so San Diego was on this list , apparently , but other San Diego County cities were as well.
S3: Right. Um , Chula Vista has never called itself a sanctuary city. I covered them years ago when they went through this in the first Trump administration. They worked really hard to to just be a welcoming jurisdiction , which is slightly different. But they went through this accrediting process and came up with policies to kind of , uh. Balance , right balance between wanting to recognize and serve the needs of the immigrant communities , but not coming out and saying you're you're a sanctuary city. So they weren't welcoming , uh , Santee , as far as I know , I don't think they're they're known for being particularly progressive or lefty. Um , outside of San Diego , I mean , Huntington Beach was on the list. Huntington Beach is known as a red dot in a pretty sea right.
S1: In Southern California. Yeah.
S3: Yeah. The city council there months ago unanimously passed a resolution that said , we agree with what the president is doing , and they did not want to follow California sanctuary laws. So it scratched a lot of heads to have Huntington Beach , of all places on that list. Interesting.
S1: Interesting.
S3: Right. People are kind of starting to get a sense of what this looks like. This is what mass deportations look like. And there are some counties the New York Times just reported out of , uh , Missouri. There was a town that was very pro-Trump. Uh , but that's starting to change because one of the there was a similar raid over there and a workplace , a waffle House. And one of the people arrested was a Chinese woman who had been there for 20 years. And these Trump voters said , look , I'm all for mass deportations , but I'm not for , you know , this woman I've known for a long time that gets me waffles being deported. So I think we're seeing a lot of that play out throughout the country.
S1: So a lot more to come and we'll be following your coverage. I've been speaking with KPBS investigative border reporter Gustavo Solis. Gustavo , thanks.
S3: Thank you.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm Andrew Bracken. KPBS Midday Edition airs on KPBS FM weekdays at noon , again at 8 p.m.. You can find past episodes at pbs.org or wherever you listen. Thanks again for listening. Have a great day.
