What is the law if ICE comes to a taco shop and asks to see employees' papers?
L.A. TACO takes our commitment to the taco lifestyle very seriously and sometimes our responsibility goes beyond telling you where to find the best tacos in the city. We have sought the legal help of KIWA (Korean Immigrants Workers Advocates) and their Senior Organizer, David Ricardo Abud.
L.A. TACO has confirmed with KIWA that ICE stings in restaurants do happen in Los Angeles. Although they are not as dramatic as a scene in “Born in East L.A.” nor do they happen often.
“It’s complicated, we have massive raids like the one that happened in states like Mississippi where they swept over 670 immigrants, but this kind of I-9 Audit mainly occurs in southern states,” Abud tells L.A. TACO over the phone. While there have been I-9 raids in the past in California, they are rare. “The ICE raids that we have in Los Angeles are much smaller and focused on one individual, so if that individual is in a work environment, this can occur at a restaurant.” This kind smaller raids are called “Enforcement Actions.”
Abud would like to remind L.A. TACO and our readers that this person of interest isn’t always an undocumented immigrant since it has been shown that permanent residents and VISA-holders with a criminal record have also been susceptible to being detained by ICE. He goes on to say that it is possible that ICE will even detain other people without deportables offenses in the process of looking for their person of interest. “There are numerous instances where this has happened. Last year, a man who had no prior convictions was caught up in a raid.”