LIBERTY, MO – In a heartwarming display of civic engagement, approximately 30 community members, including teachers, school board members, and city council members, gathered at El Potro Mexican Cafe and Cantina on Friday to express their outrage—not at the fact that a business was reportedly employing a dozen undocumented workers, but at the audacity of federal agents enforcing immigration law.
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| Manny Abarca with former President Biden |
The restaurant, located at 116 Stewart Court, found itself in the national spotlight last week when agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)—a branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—entered the establishment, allegedly without a judicial warrant, and apprehended 12 employees. This shocking revelation that law enforcement agencies might still, in fact, enforce immigration laws left some in the community in tears, others in full activist mode, and at least a few Googling what a “Fourth Amendment” actually entails.
Among the first to jump in and rally the troops was Jackson County legislator Manny Abarca, who took a brief break from county business to organize a support event for the restaurant and the detained employees. Because, obviously, if someone is caught violating the law, the correct response is not to evaluate what went wrong or consider legal implications—it’s to coordinate a public relations event.
Abarca, whose jurisdiction doesn't extend into Clay County (just a minor detail), has been diligently sharing with the public that ICE agents are violating rights. How Abarca has such precise and exclusive knowledge of these activities, you may ask? It seems he’s become the go-to source for all things law enforcement on a county-by-county basis, regardless of which county is involved.
Abarca, a well-known Kansas City political climber, saw a golden opportunity in this fiasco. While community members were busy decrying ICE for the sin of doing its job, Abarca made sure the cameras captured him leading the charge. No doubt, this is all part of his bid to boost his profile for an eventual mayoral run against Justus B. Horn, the current darling of Kansas City’s progressive establishment.
But let’s be real—Abarca might want to rethink his strategy if he’s planning to capture the Northland vote. While he plays to the activist crowd south of the river, residents north of the river aren’t exactly lining up to elect a guy whose biggest public stand involves defending businesses that (allegedly) employ illegal labor. The Northland, notorious for being somewhat attached to the concept of legal immigration, might not be buying what he’s selling.
“It’s a harsh situation,” lamented general manager Yadira De La Torre, whose parents own the restaurant. “Feeling support from others feels really good to us.” One might assume that “harsh situation” refers to the potential legal and financial repercussions of hiring undocumented workers, but no—it's the inconvenience of immigration laws actually being applied that seems to be the real issue.
Of course, the real tragedy here isn’t that the restaurant might have knowingly employed undocumented workers, or that a manager seemingly had no idea that ICE agents are required to leave if asked to do so. No, the true injustice is that ICE agents dared to operate in public areas of the restaurant, apprehending individuals in the most heinous way possible—by following federal law.
Meanwhile, constitutional scholars and Facebook legal experts quickly sprang into action, debating the finer points of search warrants, public access areas, and whether employees in a public-facing restaurant actually had an expectation of privacy. The consensus? “We don’t like it” should be a valid enough legal defense.
Manny Abraca's antic aside, it must be pointed out that the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that all individuals physically present in the U.S., regardless of immigration status, are protected under the Constitution, including the Fourth Amendment’s safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures. ICE agents can only conduct searches in publicly accessible areas of private property unless asked to leave, and they need a judicial warrant (not just an administrative one) to conduct further searches. The Court has also ruled that the presence of undocumented individuals does not constitute an exigent circumstance that would override the warrant requirement.
In Friday’s incident in Liberty, the restaurant manager was unaware of her right to ask ICE agents to leave, potentially enabling the arrests. However, even if the owner had exercised that right, ICE could still lawfully detain undocumented individuals in the public areas of the restaurant, as they have no expectation of privacy there. If ICE had unlawfully searched the restaurant or arrested the owner without cause, he might have had legal recourse—but that does not appear to have happened. Instead, ICE made arrests in publicly accessible areas, likely within legal bounds. In short, the Manny's gang local protest movement is simply ignorant of legal requirements when they point out that ICE did not have a warrant.
As the legal process moves forward, the community continues to rally around the restaurant, ensuring that no lesson is learned and no accountability is taken. If anything, this incident proves one thing: when laws inconvenience the right people, the problem isn’t the lawbreakers—it’s the enforcers.
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