At least two workers were arrested this week in a federal immigration operation that targeted a Mexican restaurant in Frisco and sparked protests in the mountain community.
The workers were detained after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived at the Hacienda Real restaurant Tuesday, immigrant-rights advocates said. The operation also targeted a home in nearby Dillon Valley. Agents’ clothing identified them as part of ICE’s investigative arm, Homeland Security Investigations, and they removed computer equipment from the restaurant.
In a Facebook post, Hacienda Real said it had been working with ICE “for several months” after the agency received an anonymous call “reporting that we had undocumented workers in our restaurant.”
“Unfortunately, this process led to a broader inspection of the restaurant,” the business wrote. Because its equipment was taken, the restaurant is now temporarily closed.
The operation comes amid an increase in ICE actions across the United States and Colorado, including in the state’s rural and resort communities. Immigration arrests rose statewide throughout the summer and increasingly have resulted in detentions of people with no prior criminal convictions, The Denver Post reported recently.
Voces Unidas, an advocacy group, has documented other ICE operations on the Western Slope, and the Vail Daily reported an increase in ICE operations in May in Eagle County, which borders Frisco’s Summit County. ICE has arrested 69 people in Craig and Glenwood Springs so far this year, arrest data show, with 140 more detained in Grand Junction — all significant increases for those areas compared to last year.
Alex Sánchez, the president and CEO of Voces Unidas, said he believed four people were arrested in this week’s Frisco operation, though his group had only definitively confirmed two. Those individuals are now in the Aurora detention center, he said.
“We cannot hide the fact that there’s victims, that families went to bed or tried to go to bed without their family members — and we know they were calling us trying to find their loved ones,” Sánchez said.
Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons said in a statement that ICE conducted a “targeted federal criminal investigation” Tuesday. He said his office learned of the situation as it began.
FitzSimons wrote that “ICE’s primary purpose (Tuesday) was to serve search warrants connected to their criminal investigation, not to conduct civil immigration enforcement.”
But the action has gained wide notice in the community, which includes ski resorts, ritzy homes and thousands of service workers, including many immigrant families.
Tony Byrd, the superintendent of the Summit School District, told representatives from U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet’s and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse’s offices on Thursday that the ICE operation “was terrible and may happen again.” He said he wanted federal policymakers to stand up and oppose similar efforts in the future.
“The experience we had this week … was absolutely brutal for the students and families of this community, and we witnessed it live,” Byrd said at the beginning of Thursday evening’s school board meeting.
Later in the meeting, Byrd said school attendance dropped 35% late last week, when rumors spread of a coming ICE raid. On Tuesday, the day of this week’s operation, “over 200 students were doing everything they could to go home,” he said. Attendance on Thursday was 10% to 14% lower compared to the district’s normal average, he said.
Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie, who represents Frisco, said the biggest outcome of ICE’s operations would be “the amount of fear and suspicion” sown in the community.
“Our immigrant community is a critical part of our neighborhood fabric,” she said in an interview Thursday. “They are a part of our workforce. Families are part of our school system. Our immigrant community attends churches with us and community events.
“That is what makes Summit County so special, and I am deeply concerned with the amount of fear that is part of the outcome of rumors, and this raid, and the rhetoric that we are hearing at the national level.”
As ICE agents conducted the operation Tuesday, local residents shouted at them and stood in front of their vehicles, according to video captured by the Summit Daily News. One woman can be heard yelling, “You are separating and harassing. You are not wanted here.”
In a video posted to social media by Mountain Dreamers, restaurant owner Luis Flores thanked the community for its support. He indicated that his lawyer was in contact with ICE and that “we are clean of everything that has been said.”
It’s unclear if the Dillon Valley house and Frisco restaurant were part of the same operation. Sánchez said his group has been told by “first-hand witnesses and other parties connected to this case” that the two locations were part of the same effort and that the home is connected to the restaurant.
A restaurant employee declined to comment when reached by email Thursday and did not respond to a follow-up question about whether workers had been detained.
FitzSimons, the county sheriff, wrote in his statement that ICE had publicly stated that no one was arrested Tuesday. On Thursday, a sheriff’s office spokesman referred questions to ICE and did not respond to a voicemail seeking more information.
Steve Kotecki, ICE’s Denver spokesman, and regional representatives of the agency did not return a message seeking comment.