‘Is it safe?’ How one Chicago coffee shop took a stand against the ‘monsters’ of ICE

Jesse Iñiguez, a coffee shop owner, has inadvertently found himself at the center of Operation Midway Blitz — the Trump administration’s contentious U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) mission that’s brought military-style raids, violent clashes and National Guard troops to Chicago.

“It's extremely frustrating,” said Iñiguez, owner of Back of the Yards Coffee.

“We didn't ask to be in the forefront of it, but they brought it to our store steps, and so we've had to find ways to deal with it.”

That’s literal.

Iñiguez was at City Hall on Oct. 16 when one of his baristas sent him a video of federal agents tackling a man they knocked off a bicycle outside his store in Back of the Yards, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood near Chicago’s South Side.

Another staff member sent him a video of families painting sugar skulls at the coffee shop, which Iñiguez created as the sort of “safe space for the community” he longed for when growing up in the neighborhood.

The staff member created a social media post, a “juxtaposition of the two” videos with parallel soundtracks of classical music and the Rage Against the Machine protest anthem, “Killing in the Name.”

“Who's the one creating safety, and who's the one that's causing chaos?” Iñiguez said.

ICE referred Raw Story’s questions about the arrest outside Iñiguez’s shop to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It did not respond.

‘Pretty traumatic’

When the man was arrested, his bicycle was abandoned. Iñiguez said he was storing the bike at the shop, in case a family member comes looking for it.

This wasn’t the first time ICE encounters overlapped with his business, Iñiguez said, recalling a woman, a U.S. citizen, running into the shop while “getting chased by ICE.”

The ICE agents drove away, Iñiguez said.

“They've arrested citizens as well, and they've detained them for hours and hours,” Iñiguez said. “The community member wasn't sure what they would do with her, so she obviously was scared.”

Such encounters have prompted Iñiguez to train his staff on how to respond when ICE shows up, along with teaching “coping mechanisms because they're seeing pretty traumatic things that community folks shouldn't have to experience.”

“I commend them for being brave and responding to the call whenever the community needs them,” he said, “but I also understand that's quite a weight to carry.

“They didn't sign up to be first responders when they signed up to work at the coffee shop, so I'm really appreciative of what they're doing, but we also want to make sure that we're finding the resources to help them cope with the trauma that they're experiencing seeing this.”

‘Not welcome’

Iñiguez said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's “ICE Free Zone” executive order allows him to be “explicit that ICE is not welcome in our space” and display signs saying such.

“They're not welcome here. We want them to know that, and we'd like them to leave, to be honest,” he said.

Patrons wearing full facing coverings are not allowed in the shop, Iñiguez said, adding that he suspects ICE agents have entered “undercover,” to scope out the space.

“These monsters are just not respecting any laws as it is … but if we need to close our doors and close shop for the day to protect community members, we will do what's necessary to make sure that our community is safe and protected,” he said.

Other businesses in the community are “scared” to speak out against the Trump administration for fear of being targeted by ICE, Iñiguez said. He said some businesses are attempting to keep patrons safe by locking their doors and requiring people to ring a doorbell to enter.

Iñiguez said his 76-year-old mother has expressed concerns about coming to his shop for senior events because she said “I look Mexican, and I don't speak English.”

“This is a U.S. citizen that's asking, ‘Is it safe?’ We have kids who are scared that their parents are going to get taken away.

“The trauma they're causing in our community is going to last for a very long time. It serves no purpose other than to demonize Latinos because that's who they're going after.

“It's a real shame because these are people who want to be here, who want to contribute to the country and who are working, and this administration has demonized us.”

Raw Story has chronicled how everyday people have been affected by the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement, including the detention of a breastfeeding mother seeking asylum and the deportation of brothers from El Salvador despite pending Special Immigrant Juvenile Status cases.

Raw Story also revealed how the immigration advocacy community came together to fight a plan to offer unaccompanied alien children financial incentives to self-deport.

Iñiguez said: “We have community members coming in, feeling safe, but then right outside our doors you have ICE coming in, terrorizing our communities and chasing people down and being aggressive and creating the exact opposite [of] the administration claims to be doing, which is safety, when we're the ones who are actually providing that safety for the community.”