DC Restaurant suffers from ice-cold feared workers: “You don’t want to go out” | Washington, DC

Hernán Latin American Restaurant Washington, DC His staff began receiving calls last week and related Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Nearby checkpoints. Employees fear that they might be targeted and racialized and asked if they could go home.

Within hours, Hernán had to close the door and the restaurant has not opened since.

“Literally President Trump Hernán said: “Hernán said: “Because of concerns about Bing’s revenge, he asked his last name not to be used. They are not on the street now. My people, most of my chefs are Spanish[-speaking] They don’t want to go to DC now. ”

Hernán, he also owns a restaurant MarylandHe said he hopes to be able to reopen within a few weeks if the Trump administration’s end of DC police and approval of immigration enforcement arrests and immigration enforcement are less frequent. But for him and many restaurateurs in the U.S. capital, the future is unclear.

Already suffered Fewer customers Restaurants must also compete with staff shortages due to three weeks of government crackdown, because many migrantwith both records and no documents, fear of entering DC and on the street, some were detained by Ice.

Trump’s attempt to claim that the crackdown is benefiting restaurants. “Half of the restaurants are closed because no one can go because they are afraid to go out,” he told reporters Monday before his intervention. “Now those restaurants are opening, new restaurants are opening.”

In the whole city, the opposite is true. Some restaurants, such as Hernán’s, have to close. But, it has to be with fewer workers, fewer delivery drivers, and fewer customers.

“Restaurants are closed because you have guns and gun troops that harass people, making people afraid to go out,” José Andrés, a well-known Washington restaurant owner, wrote on social media.

Immigration accounts for 253,000 workers in Washington, DC, hotels and related departments, accounting for 36% of the staff. According to immigration insidersreferenced data from fwd.us. The total of 42,000 self-employed immigrant entrepreneurs run local food and services businesses.

Maketto, an Asian restaurant and market located in Chinese in Northeast China, posted on social media on Monday, and its migrant workers were affected.

“Last week, two of our beloved team members were detained when they came home from get off work,” the restaurant wrote. “They were detained and our hearts were with them and their families.” The restaurant did not respond to a request for comment.

Hernán said business pauses were very difficult in a family business, especially after a few slow months in the summer. He is looking for people living in DC, speaking Spanish and English, and willing to go to work so they can reopen. “But I don’t know if we can find people,” he said.

About a mile away, near Colombian Heights, last week with a Spanish sign hanging in front of Elizabeth Pupusería and the deli, hung last week: “We are temporarily closed in the horrible situation of the larger community. We want to serve you as soon as possible. Let’s take care of ourselves and stay safe in our homes.”

Elizabeth Rodriguez, an Salvadorian immigrant who owns the restaurant, told the Guardian that the restaurant is fulfilling some orders previously called for by customers, but its doors are not open to the public.

“It’s a very ugly thing because the nerves, the nerves rise,” Rodriguez said in Spanish. “The customers don’t come for the same reason. Our business relies on construction workers because they are a large group that brings all kinds of orders to all colleagues. And they don’t have a job all month.”

She said she paid workers a total of about $500 a day, and she made only $300 a day after Trump’s crackdown on August 11. She has been unable to pay any staff for the past two weeks, only she and her daughter woman have come in.

“We see what we can do to avoid explicitly closing,” she said. “I know it should be only one month, but suddenly it’s very complicated because of the rent, the bill, you have to pay the same fee.

She added: “We ask God to change that because if we don’t do that, we will not be able to pay many months of rent.”

The restaurant usually does not allow delivery, but Rodriguez is considering that it will change if it reopens because many people don’t want to leave their homes. But it was difficult, she said.

“Today I said, ‘Today is the right time to increase delivery’, so I called Doordash and he told me he had no workers because most of them were taken away and others were afraid to leave.”

ICE has been reportedly targeting delivery drivers at motorcycles, exacerbating the restaurant crisis.

Several videos of detaining delivery drivers have been spread across social media and The Washington Post Reportciting anonymous police sources, ICE accompanied DC’s Metropolitan Police Department to accompany officials to tail the driver’s traffic stop to check their immigration status.

“You don’t want to go outside,” Yonatan Colmenarez, an asylum seeker from Venezuela two years ago, told The Post. “It gives you an emotional hurt; you’re not sure who they might be.”