Sandra Godoy said Los Portales in Chicago Heights was unusually quiet when she arrived for her shift Monday morning, a stillness that only continued as she served one or two tables over the next three mornings instead of the usual bustle in the small, popular restaurant.
She said the restaurant changed after two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were seen Sunday exiting a truck in the parking lot, wearing vests that identified them. Customers who had just left quickly returned and they locked the restaurant doors.
Servers and customers watched as the agents arrested a man who had just been in the restaurant with his uncle, and who was a regular client, Godoy said.
She said she only knew the man by his first name, Bruno, because she mostly remembers repeat customers by their orders or what they look like.
“It was super busy and full and everybody was like ‘oh my God,'” Godoy said from what she was told by restaurant staff and area residents. “It was so so bad, I don’t know, it’s just like, ah, I’m scared. I’m Latina and maybe they see my face and arrest me.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement ICE officers arrested Bruno Leonardo Rodriguez-Desiderio in Chicago Sunday. The statement said Rodriguez-Desiderio illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico Dec. 17, 2022, near El Paso, Texas.
The statement said Rodriguez-Desiderio received full due process and was issued a final order of removal by a Justice Department immigration judge Jan. 31, 2024.
Rodriguez-Desiderio is set to remain in ICE custody, pending his removal from the United States, the department said.
Several months had passed since ICE officers were last seen in the Chicago Heights area, Godoy said, and the return left businesses struggling to attract customers, and advocates reeling to organize immigration resources, said Godoy and four other residents.
Advocates said the sighting caused a lot of anxiety in the community about a possible return of Operation Midway Blitz, a federal immigration enforcement effort that led to roughly 3,800 people detained and 2,500 people deported last fall.
Benjamin Cabral, a manager at Heights Fresh Market, down the road from Los Portales, said he was working Sunday when he received a call about the agents. He said he locked the store doors and placed an employee at the door, a protocol the store adopted to respond to reports of ICE sightings. He also said employees regularly watch the store cameras.
The rest of Sunday, which he said is usually his most popular day, was extremely quiet and slow.
ICE sightings, whether they are verified or not, he said, worry him.
“Some of my workers, customers, they could lose their lives, their families lives,” he said.
Cabral said he decided not to close the store Sunday.
“We can’t live like that,” he said. “How are you going to stop buying groceries? I’m not going to tell people to stop going outside.”
Just outside the store, Jose Euceda was selling chips Wednesday, and said he was concerned. He took a break from selling in the parking lot after an encounter with immigration officers in October.
Euceda said the officers let him go when he mentioned to agents some health issues he’s dealing with, including cholesterol and diabetes. That day, officers arrested at least seven people in Crete and Chicago Heights.
Euceda, a 71-year-old Honduran, said he’s been in the United States for 26 years after he left his country to escape poverty and in search of economic opportunity “to see if I could overcome,” he said through a translator.
Now he’s trying to raise money for a ticket home and back to his family. But the recent return of immigration officers to the area concerns him.
“We want to be at ease,” he said.
Several advocates also said they witnessed the officers at Los Portales Sunday and that it prompted a new effort to organize immigration resources.
Arcelia Gonzales, of Chicago Heights, said advocates organized a “know your rights” crash course Wednesday due to alleged increase ICE activity.
She also said she started gathering rapid response volunteers to patrol the Chicago Heights and Blue Island areas to look for ICE agents, just as she had organized last fall.
“We’re trying to get people together again so they have safety net,” she said.
awright@chicagotribune.com
