“There is a perception that we are walking into restaurants and collecting IDs,” she said. “We work just like other law enforcement does — we have targets we are looking to arrest, we do intelligence research looking for specific individuals who are known fugitives to us, who have orders of removal, who have criminal convictions in the United States.” But she did acknowledge that others could be detained in the process.
A spokesman for the city, Felipe Romero, said the stories about raids were untrue. When ICE receives any complaints, it gives businesses time to respond. “The ‘as seen on TV’ raids do not take place in our region,” he said.
But Ana, 35, a server at a Southmost taqueria who did not give her surname because she is undocumented, said she was certain that restaurants were being raided. “I knew a cashier, she had an accent, and they took her away along with the whole kitchen,” she said. “We are very scared.”
Mr. Vera, of Vera’s Backyard Bar-B-Que, has heard the stories, too. “It’s just chisme,” or gossip, he said, as he unwrapped the foil around a steaming cow’s head, plucking out an eyeball to serve to a regular. “People exaggerate. We are all still here.”
Norma Almanza, who was born and raised in Brownsville and owns Sylvia’s with her husband, Javier Almanza (they bought the place from a previous owner in 2001), said she still freely crosses the border, to see friends or her ear doctor.
“People say you are going to get killed and all this,” she said. “That doesn’t mean it is going to happen.”
