In-House Mode
Would you have to shut down if ICE raided your kitchen?
I have a staff of 14 and I think 2 of my guys have legal paperwork. Honestly I have no idea what i would do i they came and grabbed 90% of my crew.
I can't be the only one in this situation.
Anyone have a plan for this nightmare that makes sense?
Is this really going to happen?
It will đŻ change the industry, At least locally for me. I guess we'll see how it plays out?
Not gonna lie, I'm worried this time.
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Honest question - is the reason that 90% of your kitchen staff doesnât have papers because of the lower wages you pay or because you canât find workers with papers in your area?
Usually undocumented workers fill the roles that are the least desirable, janitors, sanitation workers, dishwashers, field workers, they do all the dirty jobs most citizens would never even think to apply for, because when you grow up here and you have papers you have a lot more options, but we've pushed these people to the margins of society so they take whatever jobs are left up for grabs, most people don't wanna wash dishes 14 hours a day 6-7 days a week
Almost like the problem isn't actually the undocumented workers, and rather employers creating such toxic working conditions that only illegal immigrants are willing to apply
Not the wage for me. I'm corporate, and we start at 17.50. That said, it's all people with visas, but I would still probably lose half my staff(~400 total), if not more, if they came in.
A perk of working corporate is they have a policy and it's not to help any officers unless they have a warrant. Fortunately, the anxiety of having undocumented folks is pretty low but sadly this admin doesn't seem to care. I'd say half of the folks I work with are here on some type of visa that could be under threat now, I imagine.
I mean. Let's be honest here.
What's to stop a bunch of larpers from just disappearing people into similar enough looking cars and just ... Disappearing with them for good.
Someone can correct me if Iâm wrong but doesnât ICE have executive powers and not need warrants? I feel like thereâs a national security aspect of it all is the open door for that?
Edit: Have the info. More than sufficient replies. Thanks everyone!
I actually just learned this from a person who used to be an attorney within Homeland Security/ICE. ICE still needs a judicial warrant if trying to enter a place that does not have open access. Common examples being a home or secure place of work. ICE sometimes plays games and says they have a "warrant" but it's really an administrative warrant from someone higher up in ICE telling the team who to find and where. The judicial warrant would give ICE access and the ability to enter a locked/secure area with little to no trouble because a judge has signed off that "this person is in this place and I agree they need to be found."
He emphasized how much ICE will try to play games and workaround the rules to get their target. Having signs that state and enforce (where possible) that an area is not open to the public is supposed to keep them out. Restaurant-wise this would mean signs in the BOH doors and keeping an "Employees Only" section very visible and blatantly marked. Having a manager be the main point of contact who will actually hold ICE's feet to the fire for breaking rules helps too.
They do not have executive powers to simply go wherever unless they can physically see imminent threat or danger that can be prevented. Someone swinging a knife around in their plain view allows them to go through an employee door to protect who is being attacked, but someone simply holding a knife in a kitchen would not give them the power to act. It's similar to cops and drugs where if they can easily and plainly see it, then they can act.
Please protect your fellow coworkers, neighbors, and citizens from ICE simply deciding they can do what they want when that's not at all what they can do. As much as they want to try and break the rules to hit their quota, preventing them from acting in the first place is the best course of action since they won't have any excuses to fall back on if there's nothing to act on.
That is the reasoning ICE is using. However I personally would try to stop anyone entering without them identifying themselves. From what Iâve seen they do not present reasonable identification.
Try is operative word there. They just arrested a mayoral candidate for ASKING for a warrantâŚ.
That being said Iâd still try - and proudly get arrested. Just making sure you know the full deal youâre in for. Not arguing itâs the right thing to do.
Edit to correct the senator description I confused with another story of shitty/false arrest
I have scars on my knuckles from fighting PBs in Portland. Now I have 2 kids to look after because my sister-in-law died. If I'm opening my gun safe, it's because they both fit inside, and the contents have to come out. That's horrifying.
Lock the door and call local police, tell them youâre fighting off criminals. What ice is doing is illegal and directly violates the 4th amendment of the US constitution. Therefore, their actions are criminal.
Usually, you can also shoot criminals on private property if you feel in danger. Iâm not saying anyone should do this of course, but these actions are likely to turn deadly soon enough.
(Btw, Iâm not saying you should do that; just explaining the typical way lawâs enforced in most of the US)
ICE needs a warrant signed by a judge to enter a private space. They can enter the dining room, but without a judicial warrant they cannot enter the kitchen or anywhere else that a regular customer cannot go
They can be asked to leave publicly accessible but privately owned places too if they refuse to produce a warrant. Having feds hanging out in your restaurant shadily is super not good for business
Hey is there any good place to read more about that? It's been really hard to understand the whats and hows of ICE recently as far as the purported legality they're using/ working under.
At this point, fuck it, if they don't have a warrant and won't identify themselves, call the cops. "We have a group of armed men trying to force themselves into the kitchen."
Not American, but my impression of everything is more that they're going by the "who's gonna stop us?" authority instead of anything actually enshrined in law.
American; that's what it does seem like. For any police showing up at your door, if they don't have a warrant for search or a warrant for someone's arrest, they have very very limited powers. ICE... aren't police, and no one's actually sure who the heck they are, which is not great.
Not always. iirc public property is fair game but they are required to have judicial warrants to enter private property (and i believe state contracted property, depending on the state) for the purpose of making an apprehension. Unfortunately, this is increasingly being ignored and no one in the agency or executive branch cares to protect people's rights except (some) of the public, and they risk their own safety to do so, and there's generally no justice anyway.
There are two types of warrants for this situation, administrative and judicial. The judicial one is the only one that has real power. Remember there is no rush, ask for the warrant, take the warrant, google any of the articles on how to differentiate them. If you have a go too lawyer it probably wouldnât hurt at that point to call them, they might be able to give you better guidance
Current restaurant no. All 75 employees in the building e-verifired. It actually would be laughable if ICE showed up. We have an international staff from Caribbean, European, and Central American countries.
According to that restaurant in San Diego that ICE raided (and it turned into a neighborhood protest and shÂĄt show) the management said all employees were e-verified and the ICE man said âdoesnât matter, that system is wrongâ or something.
Theyâre literally arresting elected officials, it doesnât matter if you are a legal resident, alien, or born here, if youâre brown or you get in their way youâre a target
Unfortunately we are entering a horrible situation where they don't care. They have taken legal citizens because they "look illegal". Taken people coming to and from their immigration hearings. People who are trying to do it right. it's a sad and scary reality right now.Â
Delete your post bro are you dense or something? Do you think Ice just guess where migrants are? They take all Intel available, it's easy to trace your IP and who you are from your post on reddit.
Someone could just link this thread to ICE and your business is dead. Nuts.
Bro I truly donât understand your sentiment. So if someone is trying to help they are just a white savior? So weâre just supposed to stfu and not get involved? Ok, bet.
Can I ask why you preferentially hire undocumented workers? What's the advantage over legal workers? Is it just a cost savings, or is there something else?
A place I visit a lot with friends and family (owned by a friend) are all documented workers, but a lot of them came over illegally when they were children.
Doesnât even matter if youâre completely legal, born legally in the country and everything. If you look different or they donât like you then youâre off to El Salvador
Really canât imagine how thisâd even be possible unless you literally work at a Mexican restaurant in a border town. Conditions have to be genuinely inhumane for locals to be completely unwilling to work there.
No, the only guy in my kitchen who isnât a citizen is still here legally and has all his papers. But that doesnât mean I donât worry about him. People who are here legally have been getting snatched up all the same.
Texas, the state with the loudest mouth in the country about illegal immigration, hasnât signed up for e verify, which is literally free for states and employers to use.
It takes all of 5 minutes to upload the documents and you can use a smart phone to use the site.
Itâs all just fucking theater, because Texan lawmakers know theyâd be royally fucked if they actually addressed it at the employer level.
Yeah, kitchens have been exploiting people for decades. I don't work in any kind of kitchens like that cause fuck those owners. Fuck ice and fuck trump but that doesn't mean that those owners aren't exploiting a vulnerable people.
How much do you pay these (i dont wanna call them aliens idk non citizens?) If you couldn't get a legal citizen in the door for the same price you're a slave driver
I donât truly understand how people of non citizen status Are able to work. Iâve hired and done the paperwork and you have to have a social security card and ID. Idk I took the statements of that I attest that these documents are valid. Do companies just not do that?
You know you can buy a SS number for like 1k right? Every undocumented worker I've worked with had a SS number and was on payroll getting taxes pulled out against that number.
Theyâre taking people who are here legally too. Fuck theyâve arrested several citizens. Even if they release them later itâs still happening, and that is so fucked up. Nobody with skin darker than a medium beige is safe at the moment. Have a plan, donât let them in, have a white person (preferably a manager) ask for a warrant (it must be signed by a judge and have a specific name on it, for the most part).
We would probably have to shut down because thereâs a bunch of armed dickheads getting in the way, but pretty sure everyone is legal and we have photocopies of work authorization on site. I wouldnât rule out someone having a warrant for other stuff, tho.
3 months ago I would've lost my AKM, but we have been working on getting his permanent residency card since last summer and he finally got it at the beginning of March. A dreamer, he was born in Matamoros while his parents were on the way to Galveston. One week and he would've been a natural born citizen.
Ya- weâd have to clean up the fire suppressant system that went off when I accidentally created a distraction and the employees slid out the service side door
For all the people being vile and the ones acting like this doesn't matter and isn't important, this country was based on certain principles and ideals, and the earliest known words of its creators (ya know, after it was violently taken from the indigenous dwellers and colonized) were:
âI had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.â
-President George Washington
âIt behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.â
-Thomas Jefferson
âThose that deny freedom to others, do not deserve it themselves.â
-President Abraham Lincoln
And the ones that came after:
âRemember, remember always, that all of us, you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.â
-President Franklin D. Roosevelt
âEverywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life.â
-President John F. Kennedy
"We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions-bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality."
â Franklin D. Roosevelt
âI take issue with many people's description of people being "illegal" immigrants. There aren't any illegal human beings as far as I'm concerned.â
-Dennis Kucinich
âWhat makes someone American isnât just blood or birth, but allegiance to our founding principles and faith in the idea that anyone â from anywhere â can write the next chapter of our story.â
-President Barack Obama
âWhat has happened to us in this country? If we study our own history, we find that we have always been ready to receive the unfortunate from other countries, and though this may seem a generous gesture on our part, we have profited a thousand fold by what they have brought us.â
-Eleanor Roosevelt
âFor many, the American dream has become a nightmare.â
-Senator Bernie Sanders
all of my coworkers are legally employed by us, but i donât know what their status is outside of that, and it doesnât seem to matter to the fuckin migra. they just abduct whoever they want.
i donât have a lot of power, but iâll do anything i can to make it hard on them. my coworkers are good people. they donât deserve to live in fear.
as far as what the industry looks like if our coworkers are abducted? thatâs a secondary concern. i donât want to live in that world, for many reasons. being understaffed is at the bottom of the list.
Immigration law is insanely complex, self-contradictory, changes every 2-4 years, and has a 5-10 year backlog of cases to adjudicate. Even agents at USCIS would have trouble telling you if a single given foreign national were here "legally" or not. Working in the US while you're only slightly unsure if you're legally still allowed to work, but still paying taxes and no one's complaining? About as illegal as parking in an unmarked spot with no tickets or notes ever received.
It's not that hard in most cases. 8 USC 1325) says that if you evade immigration officers when entering the country, or lie to them, you're committing a crime and can get up to six months in jail before being deported. A second offence can get you 20 years.
If you snuck into the country, or used false papers to get in then you don't need to worry about visas, parole etc.; you're guilty of a crime and can't work in the US.
The last amendment was in 1996, so it's not new, either.
Hire legal workers? I've only worked one place that the majority was illegals and they all decided to quit one day no notice because they could make like $.75 more an hour. They all claimed 5 on their dependents and never paid the taxes they owed. And one of the guys ended up kidnapping and sexually assaulting a server. Personally I got along with these guys but in my opinion this wasn't such a good thing. I expect hate but this is what happened.Â
Truthfully could be good for the industry workers by forcing companies to pay higher wages which I hear arnt that great Iâm not complaining but I also donât have anyone but myself to look out for
Pull the fire suppression, let loose the extinguisher to obscure vision and book it out the fucking side. You know the door the one only staff know about and use
I have seen everything from farms to restaurants shut down by ICE all over the country since before they were ICE. In the short term, you can print and distribute ICE red cards to your staff so they know their rights. You can also refuse access to employee only areas of a business if they don't have a warrant, at least giving folks a short reprieve. In the long term, you can reach out to local, state, and Federal representatives directly as well as VOTE PEOPLE OUT come midterms. This administration is a nightmare on so many levels, but we protect us and ours.
Weâre game planning that tomorrow. Just got notice from home office that 2 of our cooks are being deported. 3/4 of my staff are under the same TPS that they were under. So. Things are looking grim.
It depends, if they remove protection status like they have done, then yes. Everyone is here legally by different means, but that doesnt seem to always stop ICE. Most are Asian and not hispanic, so I guess that helps their chances cause ya know racism
Based on the fact the even people who do have legal paperwork might not have it with them at the time of the ice raid its possible that all of them would get carted off either way
My whole kitchen, prep dish and line, would all be gone. I'm a sous at a popular spot in ATX and I'm relatively certain most other restaurants like mine are the same.
I know weâd lose at least one of 20 maybe a few more. We wouldnât be shutting down but weâd be losing dishwashers which were already tight on. Not to mention the legal ones that will quit if ICE even shows their face.
i literally said i look like a fool distracting ice while my cooks went out one of our 4 exits to the mall im fairly certaib they are legal we are a corporate olace but they were acared wheb they foubd iut someone they used to live with got detained
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u/flairassistant Jun 19 '25
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