An immigration raid at a Mexican restaurant in central Ohio has divided the population in a deep-red small town.
Federal immigration agents pulled up to Panchos Tacos in unmarked cars on Oct. 9. They drew guns when they raided the family-owned restaurant in Mount Vernon, where they arrested five alleged undocumented workers when they arrived for their shifts. The fallout from the raid continues to reverberate in the town, reported The Wall Street Journal.
“They call it ‘Gestapo tactics,’ but when Homeland Security comes knocking on your door, they’re not coming to play patty-cake,” said Fred Dailey, chairman of the Knox County GOP and Ohio’s former agriculture director. “We like Mexican food, and we like to visit the restaurants. But we’re not going to sell out our birthright for a bean burrito.”
Dailey supports the operation and the way it was conducted, but fellow Republican Tanner Salyers, who serves as the safety-service director, was alarmed by the raid.
"[It's] not only bizarre, but inappropriate," Salyers said. "This is not how this works.”
Knox County is more than 90 percent white and just 2 percent Hispanic. President Donald Trump won 72 percent of the vote there in 2024, but locals rallied around Panchos, which sponsors softball teams and hosts Rotary Club meetings.
“Everybody was just totally freaked out,” said Meg Galipault, a retired grants writer who founded Knox Co. OH Indivisible. “We were completely unprepared for this to happen here. We’ve been watching this stuff on TV about L.A. and Chicago.”
Galipault said interest in her group, which was founded to oppose Trump administration policies, jumped after the Panchos raid, and her group is studying ways to respond to future immigration enforcement operations.
“Neighbors, friends, people who serve them are being whisked away,” said Noel Alden, a Mount Vernon lawyer and former Republican candidate who supports the Indivisible group. “Panchos was just the first place they hit. They haven’t even started on farms yet.”
Panchos has announced plans to reopen, but the pastor of a church next door said many people in town remain uneasy after the raid last month.
"Others are like, oh man, if it’s happening here, where else is it happening?” said Bryan Wolf, executive pastor of Lifepoint Church.
Rod Harstine, a 70-year-old Trump supporter who lives across the street from Panchos, said he believes the U.S. needs secure borders, but he appreciates the immigrants' willingness to work.
“They come because nobody here wants to do it,” said Harstine, a semiretired orchard packer. “I can have empathy for them. They’re not really hurting anybody. But I feel you have got to have laws, and people have to respect them.”
