Border czar Tom Homan made good on his promise to crack down on undocumented hospitality staff within the nation’s capital on Tuesday, sending out groups of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers to go to a swath of notable D.C. eating places and request correct employment verification.
In one of the vital seen D.C. demonstrations of the Trump administration’s hardened immigration insurance policies but, brokers reportedly visited American tavern Chef Geoff’s, Italian pizza store Pupatella, and Mexican restaurant Lauriol Plaza, amongst different companies, in the present day. ICE brokers entered into Chef Geoff’s authentic location in higher Northwest on Tuesday, per Fox 5, and nobody was reportedly taken into custody. Brokers who recognized with the Division of Homeland Safety visited Pupatella’s two D.C. restaurant places in Dupont Circle and Capitol Hill earlier in the present day to ask about worker I-9 kinds “for administrative functions,” VP of brand name advertising and marketing Natasha Neely tells Eater. As they didn’t current a warrant, the brokers had been referred to the Neapolitan chain’s company headquarters for any additional data. The brokers departed shortly thereafter, “and we now have not obtained any further requests from them” as of Tuesday night, provides Neely.
“They got here to the entrance door, they by no means entered the constructing,” Michael Jones, common supervisor of the Dupont location advised Eater. “It was very cordial, very well mannered.”
Eater additionally independently verified Zeppelin in Shaw obtained a “discover of inspection” from DHS brokers in the present day, says proprietor Ari Wilder. He put in workers’ rights indicators on-site forward of the talked-about visits.
The visits adopted in the future after a flyer circulated on-line Monday night time alerting the restaurant business of impending ICE exercise focusing on its staff and meals supply drivers this week (Could 6 to 10). Extra restaurant visits from ICE staff are reportedly scheduled to happen on Wednesday, too.
Tuesday’s visits had been largely centered round neighborhoods within the Northwest quadrant of the town. Dupont’s Chang Chang — prolific Chinese language chef Peter Chang’s first restaurant within the District — was one other restaurant ICE brokers reportedly visited, a supply tells Eater. A rep for the restaurant declined to remark.
Per Washingtonian, round eight or 9 brokers wearing a mixture of plain garments and gun-toting ICE gear swarmed Millie’s in Spring Valley proper earlier than lunch service began. “All of them got here in all the public entrances on the similar time,” proprietor Bo Blair advised the publication. He added Millie’s couldn’t produce its I-9 employment verification kinds as a result of they’re saved at its company workplace, not on the restaurant.
“They made it fairly public that they’re coming again to the restaurant on Monday [to collect the forms], which is fairly unnerving to the workers, clearly,” the group’s CEO Marisa Casey advised Washingtonian. “We additionally don’t need them to return to our eating places scare all people.”
For the previous few months, D.C. eating places — Millie’s included — have taken the time to coach workers on tips on how to correctly react to potential ICE raids ordered underneath the Trump administration — a lot of which depends on worry.
“We had been underneath the impression that they had been specializing in looking for criminals,” Blair advised Washingtonian. “And that is only a entire new stage of harassment to our hard-working, law-abiding workers.” Blair tells Eater he’s happening NBC4 this night to debate the incident.
—Emily Venezky contributed to this report
