Ice raids on the beloved bakery reverberate through Rio Grande Valley

In recent years, Los Fresnos has changed, just like the rest of the Rio Grande Valley. Several retail chains come to the city of about 8,400, mostly along the 100 highway – Calat Ocean Boulevard in the city. Suburbs extend from that road to Olmito or Bayview, the oldest neighborhoods being rural Colonias or collections of craft houses. Agricultural lands and railways that have stimulated the development of the city remain, but are the road companies that most people know – including, over the past 13 years, Abby’s Bakery.

Abby’s was a main stop for Conchas And donuts not only for the growing population of Los Fresnos locals, but also for those traveling to or from the coastal city of Port Isabel and South Padre Tourist Island. Now, Abby has become something else: a target of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans.

In Trump’s second inauguration, Imigration and Customs Application agents began to make extremely publicized arrests, including in Cameron – Home to Los Fresnos – where 8.5 percent of the population is undocumented.

Social livals showed real -time ice actions on the valley. On February 12, Video movies They circulated on Facebook, showing apparent arrests made by agents with internal security investigations (HSI), the ice wing obviously concentrated on transnational crime, in the parking lot of Abby. According to one Federal criminal complaint On two days later, at the South Court of Texas, eight immigrants without documents were caught that day at Abby’s, including two who were appointed as witnesses in an investigation into bakery owners, Leonardo Baez and Nora Avila-Guel, for “bringing and sheltering certain others and alienating”.

Six of the detainee workers held temporary visas that allowed them to travel to the United States but not to work as reported Texas Tribune.

Baez and Avila-Guel were not arrested that day and thought this was the end. Lack of employees, Abby’s bakery sold them all Pan sweet 2 for 1 after -Amia, trying to delete the inventory. The next day, a manually drawn sign on the front door said that the store is endlessly closed.

On February 17, the bakery reopened. “Muchas Gracias a todos por su espera,“Abby’s bakery Facebook page Read that day. The comments about the post varied from the expression of happiness to the reopening to the approval of the deported employees.

Section level DATA suggests that a thin majority of voters in Los Fresnos -favored on Trump in 2024, mirroring A flip of Cameron Cameron Cameron overwhelming Latin from blue to red.

Only two days would pass before HSI agents armed with rifles to match more for a war zone than for a local Panadería, He returned to Abby’s during a afternoon.

---

Before the second raid, things seemed almost normal. People have deposited and get out of the bakery, moving in the opposite direction to the clockwise to collect their sweet bread and coffee, to pay and leave.

Then the agents arrived in unmarked cars. Documented on A live -streamA client stuck to the officers while detaining the owners, Baez and Avila-Guel, outside the screen. “Dad”, a child is heard crying in the video.

“They didn’t do anything wrong,” said the person who was a Live -Stream. “They are hard -working people.” The agents then returned to their unmarked cars on the alley behind the bakery.

This video now has over 6 million views. Thousands of comments include residents in Los Fresnos and other RGV communities who decrypt raid, expressing an increasing fear in a region where documents are missing.

“People has scared to go out because they go out with their Kids, and they do Want to go to a place where (People are) Going to Show Up with Guns to Check Wheter A US Citizen or Not,” Rosa Muñoz Vallejo, a Lifelong Los Fresnos Resident and, at one time, candidate for Mayor Against Current Mayor Alejandro Flores, Told the Texas Observer. “This was very upsetting for a lot of people.”

Bakery owners were arrested on charges of crime to shelter with no document immigrants, with BONDS established at $ 100,000 each. According to the internal security agent Dillon Duke, who confessed as a witness In the hearing of the owners, the agents found a room in the same market as the bakery with six beds and two bathrooms, where the workers were living.

Reporter Krgv Stefan Rosales reported At the action of the couple, where they appeared dressed in orange and crowded overalls and they were told by the judge that they can reopen their business if they did this “legal”. If they are convicted, they both face up to 10 years in prison.

Baez and Avila-Guel were held in the custody of the American Marshal Service in the federal centers separated by detention For 5 days. A technical problem with the court payment system delayed the successful registration of the bail, extending its detention, according to Avila-Guel’s lawyer, Jaime Díez. Meanwhile, Abby’s bakery sat down dark and lifeless.

In accordance with accusations that submit charges for providing employees accommodation rareSaid Díez, that such cases are more frequently against human smugglers. “For starting, this usually requires a person to be crossed (over a border) and … they are offered a place, so that they can hide from detention,” said Díez. lead said The apparent dwellings from the bakery had cardboard covering the windows but Díez said This is not enough to prove hiding.

The arrests were the consequence of a tip that HSI obtained in December. Another raid It took place at a McALlen tortilleria a few days later, where HSI arrested 8 workers.

“What we witness is the deliberate abduction of individuals, because they are uprooted from their lives,” is shown in a statement from To Union del Pueblo Entero In response to RGV raids. “Trump’s deportation machine knows no limits, leaving a trace of devastation behind her.”

Díez resonated this. “It changes your life when you are arrested and you see everything you have ever had to leave because you are trying to give your life,” said Díez. “Many of these people offer work for people, because no one else wants to do the job.”

Viviana Ramirez, a resident from Los Fresnos, who works in healthcare, said because Observer: “Somehow this little city, Los Fresnos – has become a part of this huge conversation that I do not think really expected. Maybe this is a chance for people to really look at what’s going on. “

Los fresnos’ Supported Republican Mayor, Flores, POSTED On his official Facebook page, after the owners were arrested: “As this is a continuous problem, we cannot speculate at this time. I agree that this does not look good and, because Ice does not make any statement, we remain speculating. My prayers are with Mr. Leonardo Baez and his family during this difficult period. “

Some locals believe that the mayor should have taken a clearer position against ice raids. Isidro Ramirez, Viviana’s husband, Shared screenshots of an apparent exchange with the mayor of Facebook, in which Ramirez shared the live transmission of the attack.

“So what many people do not know is that they had beds in the back,” Flores wrote. “People lived there.”

Ramirez wrote back “disgrace to our community” in response, which his wife Observer He was meant to refer to RAID, with the exchange, then climbed to the mayor writing “dude fuck you”. Flores later and apologized In a public post about exchange. Flores did not go directly to the then attack, although he has made a post that celebrates Abby’s reopening. Through the secretary of the city, Flores refused to comment for this story.

While Flores seems to want to stay neutral, some local valley officials went even further in Trump’s direction. For example, the mayor of McLlen, former president of GOP county, Recently posted Ensuring that his city will help apply immigration.

“How can you be neutral when someone comes to your community … and I take 8 people who prove, 6 of them had a documented status and have a close business?” Jared Hockema, president of the Democratic Party of Cameron County, said for Observer to a protest against the attack held in front of Abby’s bakery. “How can you be neutral about it?”

Hockema, who organized the protest on February 24, was part of a dozen others who were outside the closed bakery, with critical signs for Flores.

---

In the first months of March, Abby’s bakery reopened again. Like the last day it was opened, the doors never seemed to open and close, clients depositing and leaving – expressing the employees’ gratitude because they are there and gave coffee.

Owners’ ordeal Calvary: Baez and Avila-Guel were now defendant on three charges in case of starting. Expect to appear in court on March 13. Under the conditions of their obligations, they cannot leave the valley or cannot go to Mexico. The two employees appointed as witnesses were sent to the US Marshals custody on February 20, Docket Federal shows. Many documents in case are sealed.

On Monday, however, it is as if the last two weeks have not happened. Drone from the 100th Highway remains the same, Pan sweetAlso, “and”Buenos Días ” and the hooks that panic from a bakery that offer again for the valley.

“I hope things will improve. I hope this will not happen here in our community,” Muñoz Vallejo said for Observer in front of the reopen bakery. “People are still scared to go out because of what happened here – and even if they are scared, they are here. Manifests itself. “