Activists say ‘dozens’ were detained by ICE during Zipps raids

“Several dozen” people were detained by federal agents as a result of Monday night’s raids on Zipps Sports Grill locations in the Valley, immigration activists said at a press event Tuesday afternoon.

“We don’t know how many,” Beth Strano, the executive director of Borderlands Resource Initiative, told Phoenix New Times. But, she added, “it’s safe to say that dozens” were detained.

Neither ICE nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona immediately returned messages seeking the number of arrests made during the raids. The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Monday afternoon that Homeland Security Investigations — a division of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security — was serving warrants “at 15 locations throughout the Phoenix area.” The warrants were served as “part of a months-long criminal investigation,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said, and were “executed as part of a criminal investigation into felony violations of federal law.”

The release did not mention Zipps nor specify the federal laws allegedly violated, but federal agents were seen raiding all 14 Zipps locations in the Valley. Some individuals were detained, and Phoenix’s network of rapid responders went out to each location to track activity and saw dozens of people arrested, Strano said.

Strano and other activists spoke Tuesday in front of the Zipps at Park Central in midtown Phoenix, where more than 200 protesters had gathered the night before to document and jeer at HSI agents raiding the restaurant. At the presser, longtime immigration activist and former state legislator Raquel Terán criticized immigration agents for going after hard-working immigrants.

“Workers should not be the target,” Terán said. “These are people who are providing for their families. Basic human thing, provide for your family. Work.” 

It is not yet clear if the raids were part of a general immigration sweep. Similar raids on other restaurants in the past year have resulted in federal charges for illegally employing and transporting undocumented workers.

That led activists to speculate that the raid on Zipps may be the result of a failed I-9 audit, a process that verifies employees’ legal authorization to work in the country. Immigration agents have used them recently to conduct raids on other restaurants in Arizona, including El Taco Loko, Taco Hiro and a sushi chain.

But Strano said the show of force, with masked and armed federal agents at each site, was over the top.

“I-9 audits are a normal part of business. We’ve had I-9 audits in our state for a long time,” Strano said. “They don’t usually look like this. This is overkill. It’s intentionally overkill.” 

Strano thinks the company’s failed I-9 audit is an “excuse” for federal immigration officers to get a judicial warrant, but the “collateral damage” is why they’re actually there. Immigration groups, such as Puente and Borderlands, said Zipps employees informed them that agents allowed more “white-looking” employees to leave the restaurant after it was raided “without a lot of asks or information,” Strano said. But “other folks were asked to stay,” and agents checked IDs, took photos and asked for employees’ social security numbers.

Strano said that Zipps employees who didn’t work Monday night called Puente and Borderlands to report that ICE agents are now showing up at their homes. Valley residents can report ICE sightings to Puente’s Migra Watch hotline by calling 480-506-7437. 

“We’re going to continue to respond for people who are being targeted by this administration,” Terán said. “The community came out and stood in solidarity.”

Though the Zipps raids appear to be more of a targeted operation compared to the general immigration sweeps conducted in other cities, they also resulted in the use of force against some protesters and observers who gathered to document them.

Dozens of people were pepper-sprayed at multiple Zipps locations; at the 32nd Street and Shea Boulevard location, an ICE agent maced protesters standing on the sidewalk as his vehicle drove away. Protesters at Zipps locations in Scottsdale and Tempe were also hit with pepper spray, according to activists. The Greenway location in Scottsdale, which was the last location targeted by agents, was hit the hardest. Terán was there and said three or four people were taken to the hospital, including one person who had a seizure.

Strano believes federal immigration agents’ show of force aimed to “make people feel powerless.” But it appeared to have the opposite effect. Hundreds of people showed up at Zipps locations across the Valley on Monday to oversee activity and protest federal immigration enforcement in their communities. She thinks that’ll only continue. 

“There were so many organic community responders last night that just heard this was happening,” she said, “and drove to their nearest Zipps and were like, ‘Not OK with me.’”

Terán and others decried “escalation of violent tactics” by federal agents, pointing also to the recent shooting deaths of legal observers Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, both of whom were U.S. citizens.

Democrat Rep. Yassamin Ansari, who was also among the crowd outside the Park Central Zipps location Monday night, criticized the administration for “trying to gaslight the American people from believing what they saw with their own eyes” and the “despicable” and “ongoing authoritarian takeover of the United States of America.” Organizers also called on Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs — both Democrats — to speak out against ICE’s presence in the Valley. Hobbs and Gallego have both criticized the Trump administration in the past, but neither has been as vociferous about it as, say, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.

“We are in the most violent of times being carried out by this administration,” said Alejandra Gomez, the executive director of Living United for Change in Arizona. “This is violence now on the American people.”