Editor's Note: This story was updated at 3 p.m. on Jan. 29 to include statements made to WKYC and Fox 8.
On Monday evening, bouquets leaned against the closed glass doors of Cilantro Taqueria. Handmade signs were taped to the front windows: “Te queremos y te apoyamos.” (We love you and support you.) “Te queremos: You belong.” “No human being is illegal.”
On Sunday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested at least 956 people across the country, according to its statement on social media. That included workers at Cilantro Taqueria in Cleveland Heights’s Coventry neighborhood, according to numerous posts on social media and a report from cleveland.com, who interviewed a witness of the event. WKYC reports that Cilantro Taqueria co-owner Sandro Galindo confirmed that ICE agents took six employees of the restaurant into custody, and that they are being detained.
Immigration attorney Margaret Wong, who is representing the business, told Fox 8 News that agents were looking for one individual who was not present but detained others while there.
“They said they were there for one person, and whatever that one person’s name is I have yet to have seen it, and from that they started hoisting guns two cars up front, four cars at the back, they came in from the back first you know so they come for one person, don’t you think you should leave if that person is not there?” Wong told the news outlet.
The restaurant was named one of Cleveland’s Best in 2023 by Cleveland Magazine.
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Following President Donald Trump’s inauguration last week, ICE raids have swept across the country in a widespread deportation effort that has seen hundreds of people arrested every day.
Early this week, a photo of ICE officers near Cilantro surfaced on Reddit, along with reports from customers and neighborhood residents witnessing the event. In an apparent response to the incident, Coventry Village’s social media accounts shared a video explaining the rights of restaurant employees and customers if an ICE raid takes place.
Rey Galindo, the owner of Cilantro Taqueria, declined to comment.
RELATED: Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb Condemns Recent ICE Arrests in Northeast Ohio
The restaurant was closed on Monday, and reopened on Tuesday at 11 a.m. for business.
Thomas J. Rowan, Geauga County Chief Deputy, said that ICE brought 20 detainees to the Geauga County Safety Center on Sunday night and that, in total, the center held 58 ICE detainees as of Monday afternoon. He did not confirm where the detainees were from and said that they could have come from anywhere in the country.
“It’s not just limited to Northeast Ohio. Anytime that ICE calls us, it could be somebody from California or the Midwest, anywhere they just are looking for bed space and they have them, and make the transfers happen,” Rowan says.
However, in an interview with the Geauga County Maple Leaf, Geauga County Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand said that most of the center’s recent influx of detainees came from Cuyahoga County.
On Cleveland’s Reddit page, users mentioned ICE raids at other local businesses, like La Plaza. However, La Plaza owner Adrian Ortega says that ICE did not come to his establishment this weekend.
“We haven’t had a problem yet. I’m not saying we will. Who knows? But right now, nothing,” Ortega says. “People are saying that they came in and took 50 people. Jesus, I don’t have that many employees to begin with.”
Despite that, Ortega says he’s been in conversations with his lawyer to know how to handle a potential future ICE raid at his business.
“What do we have to do in case they come in? You know, how do we have to behave ourselves as a company? And that's all I can do because if they want to check everything, they're going to come and check everything,” Ortega says. “Nothing I can do.”
According to census data, about 621,000 Ohioans are foreign-born, and just under half of them (48.9%) are not naturalized citizens. Pew Research data from 2022 estimates that Ohio has about 75,000 unauthorized immigrant workers in the labor force.
Cleveland Magazine has reached out to ICE for comment.
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