Immigrant Restaurant Workers Are Not Criminals
Plus: A few words about Milu's duck buns, and the Taiwanese turnip cakes at Win Son Bakery
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The immigrants who risked their lives to feed us during the pandemic are not criminals. They are heroes
A lot of folks are hurting right now — for a lot of reasons.
The Los Angeles fires. The plane crash. The pardons for insurrectionists who attacked Capitol police on January 6.
And the immigration crackdown.
Earlier this week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that undocumented residents were criminals by definition. Simply because they are here.
Here’s how it went down.
During a televised briefing, a reporter asked the press secretary how many of the 3,500 ICE arrests so far had been for folks with criminal records. Leavitt responded categorically: “All of them, because they illegally broke our nation’s laws, and, therefore, they are criminals, as far as this administration goes.”
Let me be clear: Undocumented folks are not criminals.
Many of them worked at restaurants during the depths of COVID, while so many of us remained at home as the world shut down. They were and are essential workers.
They pay their taxes, yet they were ineligible for the type of benefits that allowed so many of us to shelter in place during the worst of the pandemic. They scratched out an incredibly dangerous living. Except their job wasn’t to dodge bullets in violent places or treat sick patients. Their job was to feed us. Some of them died doing just that.
They are not criminals. They are heroes.
That’s not just a rhetorical distinction; being in the country without authorization is a civil violation; many folks who are undocumented crossed the border legally.
But here’s the thing: language matters as much as the law here, if not more so.
When someone with a national bully pulpit brands an entire class of people as “criminal” — folks who are our neighbors, co-workers, or friendly faces at the local pizza parlor — they aren’t really trying to change the law by fiat. The audience is not the legal community. The audience is you. Trump wants you to think of these good people as different from you. Trump wants to dehumanize our friends, some of whom have lived here for decades as part of mixed-status families.
Trump wants you to feel okay about shipping immigrants off to Guantanamo — that international symbol of American violence and impunity — or back to countries where their lives and livelihoods are at risk.
You should not feel okay about any of this.
The U.S. hosts about a million undocumented restaurant workers, according to the Center for Migration Studies. An earlier study showed that nearly 75,000 of them work in New York restaurants.
One of those workers is near and dear to my heart. That person, a very chill server from Latin America, lost their sense of smell for well over a year during COVID. That person — who I understand was ineligible for benefits — worked throughout the pandemic. He was the person serving me takeout (and after the vaccines dropped, sit-down fare), no matter what.
I think about that person a lot, because that server’s occupation might’ve cost them their olfaction for over twelve months. That server was distinctly unhappy about that reality. That server literally couldn’t taste what I was eating in front of them, con gusto, from their restaurant’s own kitchen.
That person is not a criminal. That person is someone who kept me and so many other New Yorkers nourished during some of the worst years of our lives. That’s a hero in my book, as much as any police officer, doctor, teacher, nurse, or first responder.
Don’t arrest heroes. Don’t deport heroes.
We should thank them, and we should do everything in our power to keep them safe.
Immigrants don’t owe us their labor or their food. Rather, it is we who owe them our protection.
So what are restaurants doing to keep their staffs safe?
“Restaurants Are Racked With Fear,” a New York Times headline reads, and indeed, the reporting shows that culinary establishments are actively preparing for a crackdown. A sign hanging in the kitchen of one Chicago restaurant reportedly reads: “Don’t let ICE in the building! And no snitching!,” according a photo received by the Times.
The owner of a Mexican restaurant even reported that he’s seen a drop in business due to unauthorized immigrants cutting back on spending.
A Los Angeles chef told the Times that he’s been advising employees where to shelter in the restaurant in case of an ICE visit. Agents can visit dining rooms, but need a warrant or staff permission to enter certain private areas of a venue, the Times reported. Shout out to Brett Anderson, Korsha Wilson, and Tejal Rao for the article
Who’s actually getting picked up?
Just 52 percent of the 1,179 people that ICE arrested last Sunday were considered “criminal arrests,” NBC News reported, citing an unnamed Trump administration official. “The rest appear to be nonviolent offenders or people who have not committed any criminal offense,” NBC reported.
The rest, to be clear, were 566 people. Nearly half of those arrests were non-violent offenders, or those who committed no offense. Yes, that’s just a single day’s worth of arrests. But nearly half is a pretty high percentage for so-called “collateral” arrests.
Make no mistake: Arresting law-abiding migrants is not incidental. It is part and parcel with Trump’s nativist rhetoric. It fully aligns with the administration’s belief that they are simply criminal because they’re here. Like the press secretary said.
What about street vendors?
Street vendors are a backbone of the New York dining scene. They serve some of the city’s best cuisine. They serve some of the city’s most affordable cuisine. Critics review them. And they draw lines. Long lines.
Street vendors are already on edge, as officials under the Eric Adams administration slap them with more and more criminal summonses. And now, since the inauguration of President Trump, more of them are sacrificing their income and staying home from work, for fear of arrest or deportation, The City reports in a detailed column by Haidee Chu.
Do read the whole story, but one of the central plot lines is of an Egyptian American businessman who says his own income is down 80 percent. The reason: The halal, peanut, and other vendors who park their carts in his garage are laying low to avoid run-ins with law enforcement.
Andrea Strong, writing for Eater NY, filed her own report on street vendors, and a key line comes from her conversation with Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, deputy director of the Street Vendor Project. Kaufman-Gutierrez has been “encouraging vendors to identify and befriend nearby standalone businesses that have a private area as a place to go and hide,” Strong writes.
The City also reported earlier this week that immigrant parents are keeping their children out of New York schools for fear of ICE sweeps — in the wake of Trump’s decision to reverse a longstanding policy and allow arrests at educational institutions.
I hope all these vendors and families stay safe. As I wrote previously: Immigrants don’t owe us their labor or their food. Rather, it is we who owe them our protection.
Fear is the operative word here, because a central thrust of Trump’s immigration policy is to use fear as a weapon. To make our vulnerable friends and neighbors think twice about dropping by the local bakery or going to school — everyday activities that so many of us take for granted.
This is the type of fear that can lead to alienation and isolation, and that’s no small matter. It’s easy for our society to forget about folks when they retreat from public spaces. When they stop working at restaurants; when they stop dining out. These are the type of societal shifts that Trump and Stephen Miller hope will make deportations easier.
This is systematic cruelty. This is fear as government policy.
A new affordable eats column from The Lo Times? Maybe?
I wrote in last week’s column that I’d keep writing about prices as much as possible, something I’ve long done within reviews and as standalone news pieces.
But here are some more specifics: I’m going to do my best to focus a little bit more on affordable-ish stuff this coming year — without backing down on my coverage of steaks, splurges, and tasting menus.
Some quick background: Yes, overall inflation has dropped from post-pandemic highs, but insane rents and food prices have ensured that the cost of living in New York is still mad high (that’s a scientific term). And the prices of certain key goods are still going up. Beef prices will rise this year and eggs prices have skyrocketed amid an outbreak of avian flu. And soon, we’ll see the impact of Trump’s tariffs on scores of food prices, including avocados and tomatoes.
So am I debuting a new column? Well, maybe….
Behind the paywall:
More thoughts on so-called affordable eats
Why the duck buns and pineapple buns at Milu are so great
Why you should get back to Win Son Bakery…
A few quick words about egg prices