Los Fresnos, Texas (AP) -Lonardo Baes and Nora Avila-Great Bakery in the Texas Community in Los Fresnos is a daily stop for many residents to share coffee gossip and take birthday cakes, office parties or themselves.
When the internal security investigation agents appeared in Abi’s bakery and arrested owners and eight employees, Los Fresnos residents were shocked. Abby’s Bakery does not use violent criminals, and Baes and Avila-Gali are not the people who border King Tom Homan, he calls “the worst of the worst” and says they are a priority for mass deportations.
“I was surprised because I know they don’t take advantage of people,” says the 43 -year -old Esteban Rodriguez after being inserted into the bakery parking lot to find it closed. “It was more about helping people. They had nowhere to go instead of being on the street.”
The reaction in the city to 8,500 residents can show the restrictions on the support for the immigration repression of President Donald Trump in a majority Spanish region, full of cotton, sugar cane and red grapefruit flight, where Republicans made profits in the elections last year. Cameron County has voted for President of GOP for the first time since 2004. For the neighboring Starr County, this is the first time in 1896.
Now Baes and Avila-Goel, a Mexican couple who are legal for permanent US residents, could lose anything after being accused of concealing and attracting immigrants who were illegally in the US. This is a rare case in which business owners face criminal charges, not just a fine.
Los Fresnos, which is 90% Latin American and counts the school neighborhood for its largest employer, is about half an hour away by a car from the US-Mexico border. Hundreds of school buses, artists, retirees and parishioners from the nearby Catholic Church enter the Aby Bakery every day. Customers with silver trays and clips choose glass door cakes.
Owners had green cards but employees did not
Six of Abby’s eight employees were in the US visa visitor visas, but no one had a job permits when internal security investigations came to business on February 12th. The owners admitted that they knew that according to a federal complaint.
The employees lived in a room with six beds and shared two bathrooms in the same building as the bakery, according to the agent’s declaration.
55-year-old Baez and 46-year-old Avila-Guel pleaded guilty. They directed questions to their lawyers, who noted that the workers were not held against their will and had no attempt to hide their presence, as a smuggler would.
As green card holders, the couple can be deported if convicted. They have five children who are US citizens.
The bakery closed for a few days after their arrest, attracting about 20 people to protest against an uncharacteristic frosty evening.
Monsignor Pedro Barzeho of St. Cecilia Church often visited before the early morning liturgy for Campechana, flaky, crispy dough for sweets, layered with caramelized sugar. His routine was interrupted when Plaincloths immigration agents arrived in unmarked vehicles.
“A woman came here and cried. She said,” Father, father, they take my brother, “Bris said. The priest passed and saw agents use zip connections to tie the hands of the employees.
Support for deportation has restrictions
There is huge bilateral support for deportation of people who are illegally illegally and have been convicted of violence, by 82% in favor, according to the Associated Press Center for Public Affairs Research in January. Support is significantly softened for the deportations of all people in the country illegally, with 43% in favor and 37% opposing.
Trump and the best helpers repeatedly emphasize that they deport criminals. But, as Homan often says, others in the country illegally, who are there when officers arrest criminals, will also be deported, a deviation from the practices of the Biden administration.
So far, Trump has avoided large -scale factory and office raids that characterized his first term and that of Republican President George W. Bush. The scattered reports for less operations included recent arrests of 37 people in a roofing business in the state of northern Washington.
Ice says he has made 32 809 arrests in the first 50 days of Trump for a service or average for every day 656, which compare to the average for every day 311 during a 12-month period ending on September 30. ICE said nearly half (14,111) were convicted and nearly one -third (9,980) were in the course of criminal charges but did not specify the prosecution.
People with deep ties in their communities and no criminal records are inclined to generate more sympathy.
The bakery is a staple Los Fresnos
Abby opened again after the owners were released to the bond.
Alicia Vega, two sisters of her 60s, who withdrew from the school neighborhood and knew the owners of bakeries for years, were among the customers who fill the trays with sweets. Read Vega said the couple once took a week from work to get them to San Luis Potosi in Mexico after their sister died. When a hurricane struck, Leonardo Baes cut off his damaged trees without charging.
For the 61 -year -old Terry Sponsor, shopping in Abby is already a political statement. “With everything that is happening right now in our country, we have to find ways to protest,” she said.
Mark W. Milum, Los Fresnos City Manager, said Abby is an important business that contributes to the revenue of ownership and sales of the annual municipal budget of $ 13 million.
Some customers just love products.
“Other bakeries, they appear, right?” Ruth Zamora said, 65 “But when you go there, it’s not the same.”