U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained the head chef of a Roanoke Valley restaurant this week.
The incident spotlights the restaurant industry's reliance on immigrant labor, and how it's shifted under stepped-up enforcement under the Trump administration.
Selvin Alfredo Ramos Perez, known as "Gato," worked as head chef at Evie's Bistro and Bakery, as well as at another restaurant. Last week, he was arrested by Roanoke County police and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Amelia Amman, the second-generation owner of Evie's, says Perez had worked there about four years and was well-loved.
"We'll never be able to replace him," Amman says.
The federal government has stepped-up immigration enforcement over the last year and a half, and it's hitting the restaurant industry here in Virginia.
Last year, another worker at Dino's Restaurant in Floyd was detained. And the industry in Northern Virginia was rattled after Department of Homeland Security agents swept through nearly 200 restaurants in the DC area.
Tommy Herbert, director of government affairs at Virginia Restaurant Lodging and Travel Association, says the hospitality business can be grueling, and employers can turn to immigrants when they can't find other workers.
"Our industry particularly the restaurant industry is one of the most labor-intensive industries out there," Herbet says. "We are like many other industries always looking for labor, and we think that immigrant labor is certainly something that we are open to. It's obviously something that happens in the restaurant industry, and we advise our members obviously to make sure that what you are doing is legal and responsible."
Amman says it's common knowledge that immigrants, and particularly Hispanic immigrants, just work harder.
"I'll be completely honest, and I don't think I'll be alone is saying this: Hispanic workers worker four times as hard as white people," Amman says.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a statement on Perez's detention, citing previous criminal offenses and saying he'd been removed from the U.S. twice previously, in 2011 and 2017.
