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    Conservatives Call for Boycott of Coffee Shop after It Refuses to Give First Responder Discount to ICE Agents Because of Barista Rebellion

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    Employees of White Rhino Coffee (WRC) were on a mandatory weekly district call on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when two things hit them like a sack of bricks, one of them leading to a worker walk-off later in the week. The first was that their employee discount was dropping from 50% to 30%, which is a real bummer, but not what offended their seemingly delicate sensibilities.

    White Rhino Coffee, based out of Dallas, Texas, was founded by Chris Parvin and now has over a dozen locations across the northern part of the Lone Star State. Parvin established the company with the mission in mind to create a space where everyone can feel welcome. Unless, of course, you’re an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. The company motto, featured on their website, says, “A cup of coffee won’t change the world, but how we share it might.”

    Margot Stacy had been working for WRC since June 2025. She was the manager of the Dallas location until she decided to quit on January 22. The reason? The coffee shop was including ICE agents in its discount for first responders and that ruffled her feathers. Stacy said she’d seen ICE in the location on several occasions. She recounted an officer coming in on the day of the shooting at the Dallas ICE facility.

    Stacy said the officer’s presence made her feel uneasy because many individuals on her staff are Hispanic, Black, queer, and trans, and her customers are often travelers who come from other countries, the Dallas Observer reported. “So we have a very diverse but also vulnerable labor force downtown when I was there,” Stacy told the outlet. “And so I’m just constantly aware of safety.”

    The manager then later asked a question in the manager chat about denying ICE officers service. “I was seeking clarification. Some sort of stance, what our general philosophy and the playbook is on this,” she says. “What do we do? … What is the core value here?” Before asking the question she decided to not extend the first-responder discount to the agents who visit her store.

    “We had autonomy to do things like that, and to me it was a no-brainer. They’re not first responders,” she said. The manager chat told Stacy she could not deny the ICE agents service. She responded by saying, “Given that we have a lot of Hispanic customers and staff and there’s a detention facility nearby, it makes me nervous.”

    Management then responded, “I understand our stance is to stay apolitical. We should not involve ourselves in any of that as a business. They should be treated like any other customers.” Eventually, things reached a fever pitch that resulted in an employee walk off. But that seems to only be the beginning of the problems for White Rhino Coffee.

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    After the story went viral, conservatives started vowing to boycott the company, spreading the word about the effort on social media platform X. Political pundit Chris Krok shared the story, writing, “I will NOT support White Rhino Coffee or any of their 12 locations. ICE agents ARE first responders, as Border Patrol are. Just ask folks in Uvalde. It was BORTAC (Border Patrol) who shot & killed the terrorist at that school. SHAME on White Rhino Coffee.”

    Another user shared the story and said, “Boycott White Rhino Coffee in Dallas. North Texas doesn’t need activist baristas, just ones that make good coffee. At the end of the day, American law says ICE is federal LE. Shame on the Dallas Observer for trying to make her a hero.” Others will be joining in to send a clear message to the folks at WRC to get them to reconsider ICE not being first responders.

    Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video