Dozens 'dine-in,' rally at immigrant-owned restaurants in northeast Minneapolis to protest ICE

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MPR Minnesota Public Radio, 3/1/26

Although there’s been a reduction in the number of ICE agents in Minnesota, community activists say the fear of ICE still prevails and restaurants continue to lose business.

That’s why dozens of people gathered to eat at several immigrant-owned restaurants along Central Avenue in northeast Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon. Some of the businesses included El Taco Riendo, Holy Land and The Golden Nuts.

Yates was one of about 10 people who were eating chicken and beef shawarmas inside of Holy Land, a Palestinian-owned restaurant serving Mediterranean food. They say it’s important to recognize communities are still being impacted by ICE.

. . .

“The raids are still happening,” said Yates. “Our political leaders haven't done enough to mitigate the effects of ‘Metro Surge.’”

Others found ways to support restaurants like Maya Cuisine that were closed for the day. Bre Krzyzanowski was among a handful of people standing outside the restaurant holding signs that said “ICE Out Now" and "We Love Our Immigrant Neighbors."

[calimary]

1. Good!

Reports like this encourage me. It’s a reminder that we’re not fighting this alone. We have help, comrades, and sympathizers.

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2. With its Latino customer base staying home, Mercado Central gets a lunchtime boost from retirement and church groups

This is a related story I posted a week ago here in the MN group

https://www.democraticunderground.com/105915887

“We seniors know about going out to lunch,” Nathanson said. “So we thought, let’s put our talents to good use.” The group plans to return weekly, branding the effort “Mercado Monday.”

[OldBaldy1701E]

3. I wish I could support these businesses.

But, since I have no money to give them and no way to get anywhere to do anything...

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4. Me too. I have no working car (by choice, admittedly) and all the ones mentioned

in all the stories like these I've seen so far are 2-bus trips.

Health reasons keep me from long trip times (more than say 3 hours), lack of time (piles of papers on floor need attending to and a long must-do list, admittedly if I seriously cut back on DU time, I'd make better progress on that),

finally, I rarely eat out (and never order prepared food) because of the extraordinarily high sodium and fat content.

But I do think of finding an immigrant restaurant within one-bus range for the rare times that I do eat out (a couple times a month).

To eat, it's pretty much all groceries that I walk about 55 minutes to Cub Foods for exercise, take the bus rest of way, then home on the bus with groceries (though still have a very exercise-worthy walk with a backpack full of groceries + 4 heavy bags of about 30 minutes) from the bus stop to home.

One bright spot is that as a senior, my bus fare is $1, and that covers the return trip too, because I do the "to" trip and the "from" trip within the 2.5 hour free transfer window.