Owner Was Target, but Restaurant Workers Are Swept Up in Immigration Raids

By Liz Robbins, New York Times
November 11, 2016

BUFFALO — Immigration enforcement agents were supposed to be targeting the restaurant owner. But Antonio Ramos Salazar, a cook, was the one with guns pointed at his head.

One morning last month the officers burst through the back door at La Divina, a no-frills Mexican market and taco counter in suburban Buffalo, capping a two-year investigation into the labor practices of the restaurant’s owner, Sergio Mucino. According to the authorities, Mr. Mucino, 42, a legal permanent resident from Mexico City, along with two associates, had been harboring undocumented workers in homes around Buffalo, transporting them to jobs at his restaurants and paying them off the books.

Mr. Mucino was arrested at his home on Oct. 18. But two dozen of his workers were swept up in simultaneous raids that morning at all four of his restaurants.[...]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/nyregion/immigration-workplace-raids-buffalo.html