By MENNATALLA IBRAHIM
Capital News Service
WASHINGTON – Department of Homeland Security agents visited more than 100 businesses in the Washington area last week, including nearly a dozen popular restaurants, leaving owners and staff on edge.
“For the community as a whole, throughout the entire D.C. and DMV region, it’s an unnerving time…for the industry as a collective,” said Natasha Neely, vice president of Pupatella, one of the restaurants targeted by DHS.
DHS spokesman Mike Alvarez confirmed the agents’ visits in a May 7 statement to Washington area news outlets.
Neely told Capital News Service that DHS agents unexpectedly visited both Pupatella locations on Tuesday, May 6, inquiring about I-9 forms, which are documents used to verify employees’ eligibility to work in the United States.
At the restaurant’s Dupont location, agents met the general manager outside, identified themselves and asked about the I-9s. When the agents failed to present a warrant, the manager followed company protocol and referred them to the corporate office.
A few hours later, agents arrived at Pupatella’s Capitol Hill location, where the manager had already been alerted by Neely. Though they still did not have a signed warrant, the agents presented a four-page Notice of Inspection stating they were conducting a standard I-9 audit. The notice stated that agents would return the following week and included a list of suggestions for compliance, Neely said.
The notice, which used nearly identical language across businesses, also required owners to hand over the employee records to DHS within three days, according to Abel Nuñez, the executive director of the Central American Resource Center, a nonprofit that provides legal aid to the Latino community in the Washington area.
“(DHS) seems to be going to what I would call D.C. staples that everyone knows,” Neely said. “Things that D.C. is known for—that the community gets behind, that started out in this region—and then it expanded beyond that.”
In addition to Pupatella, DHS visited Millie’s, Chef Geoff’s, Chang Chang, Ghostburger, Officina, Jaleo, Call Your Mother, Clyde’s, Cynthia, Santa Rosa Taqueria and others, according to reports by The Washingtonian and Eater DC.
As of Wednesday, no arrests had been confirmed, and no agents had returned to Pupatella.
Still, workers at bars and restaurants across the city remain on high alert. Representatives from four restaurants said Wednesday that they had lost employees, either permanently or temporarily, since the DHS visits, according to a report by The Washington Post.
The two-day sweep began a few days after warnings started circulating online about possible immigration enforcement action targeting restaurants and food delivery drivers in Washington.
“It was very much a blindside—aside from the rumor mill…there was nothing directly to us as a company,” Neely said. “Nothing that had been confirmed or was substantial. Nothing. We did not receive any form of notification.”
Nuñez told CNS that the short timeline puts restaurant workers without legal status at risk, even when they’re not on the job.
“The addresses (on I-9s) are probably pretty current, so that’s a way of identifying where they live, and then just going to pick them up. I doubt that people can move in three days,” he said.
Workers who may have provided false information on their I-9s face heightened legal risks, Nuñez added. In such cases, DHS could consider that probable cause for arrest and pursue additional charges like identity theft or falsifying federal documents — and the employers who knowingly hired them could also face steep fines.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser condemned the visits and said that the Metropolitan Police Department was not involved.
“I have heard those reports. I’ve been getting them all morning. I am disturbed by them,” she told reporters on May 6. “It appears as though ICE is at restaurants or even in neighborhoods — and it doesn’t look like they’re targeting criminals, and it does look like they’re disrupting.”
DHS’s actions in Washington are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to annually deport 1 million immigrants.
Although I-9 audits have occurred under previous administrations, Nuñez said that the unannounced DHS visits indicated a “clear attempt to intimidate owners” and marked a departure from standard practice.
“This is not a new thing. I-9 audits are embedded in the law. Biden did it. Obama did it,” Nuñez said. “But usually it’s a letter sent to you via mail telling (your business) that ICE will conduct a raid within a couple of weeks, so they give you time to prepare. They usually do not get delivered by hand.”
Neely said Pupatella is working to support staff across its locations and ensure they understand their rights in the event of future audits or raids.
Immigration advocates stressed that all workers, regardless of legal status, have the right to remain silent, speak to an attorney if detained and refuse to sign any documents.
“D.C. residents and D.C. workers have rights in this country, regardless of their immigration status,” UNITE HERE Local 25, a union representing hospitality workers in the Washington area, said in a statement to CNS. “The vilification and dehumanization of immigrants and erosion of rights, including due process…, is a direct threat to the rights of all working people.”
Nuñez warned that mass deportations among restaurant workers could have lasting, devastating effects on the greater Washington area.
“This will have ripple effects at an individual level, at a family level, but also at a city level,” he said. “We’re all integrated—when one of us doesn’t have the ability to work well, it impacts everybody else.”
