While agents working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have faced much hostility and angry pushback from the radical left and its agitators, they have also received a great deal of welcome and heartwarming support from the right, as shown by another restaurateur who has offered ICE agents free meals.
That restaurant owner is Jorge Rivas, an Arizona businessman and immigrant from El Salvador who owns a dining facility called Sammy’s Mexican Grill, which is located in Catalina, Arizona. As Arizona is a border state, it has seen steady raids and pressure from ICE, operations that Mr. Rivas, a legal immigrant, has welcomed.
So, speaking during an appearance on Newsmax2’s “Ike Wingate America”, Mr. Rivas explained that he is offering free food to law enforcement officers, including ICE agents, because “we feel the need to say thank you” for their service to the people of America. He has faced significant pressure from anti-ICE hacks for the policy.
Commenting on it, Mr. Rivas explained that he has been giving free food to law enforcement officers for half a decade, as leftist hostility to those brave agents has long been a major problem. “We’ve been doing it for about five years,” Mr. Rivas said. He continued, “Even back then, I noticed how many people were mistreating law enforcement.”
Continuing, he noted that Americans rely on law enforcement agents to come and be ready to face life-threatening danger in the blink of an eye for people they have never met, yet those who we expect to do that dangerous and necessary job often face not praise but hostility from the public, something he thinks needs to be corrected.
He said, making that point about the bravery of law enforcement agents and what horrid hostility from the left they face, “When we call 911, we expect a guy to come over, blazing, ready to defend you, ready to help you.” He added, “And nowadays, we see so many people out there interfering with their work… pushing them, kicking them.”
So, to do his part in supporting them as they do their hard work, Mr. Rivas said that agents and LEOs who eat at his restaurant are always treated with respect and given the option to eat for free. He said, “They can get a free meal, not because we think that they cannot afford it. It’s just because we feel the need to say thank you. We’re thankful, we’re grateful for who you are, what you do.”
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Adding to that, Mr. Rivas emphasized that whether Americans disagree with ICE and Trump on immigration enforcement policy, they should not treat the agents with disrespect, much less try to attack and hurt them. He said, “Some people might say, ‘well, what they’re doing is wrong.’ We can disagree on what is good and what is bad, or the laws need to be adjusted. That’s a whole different issue. But … that doesn’t give them the green light to be abusive and to try and hurt them.”
Further, he noted that, while he used to get negativity from the public over the policy, now the policy has drawn in patriots who want to support him, saying, “At the beginning, we had a lot of negativity. But in the last few days… a lot of great patriots coming over.” He concluded, “Some people are afraid to say what is right. But we’re not afraid.”