Posted on 04/06/2025 4:14:09 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
LOS FRESNOS, Texas — Leonardo Baez and Nora Avila-Guel’s bakery in the Texas community of Los Fresnos is a daily stop for many residents to share gossip over coffee and pick up cakes and pastries for birthdays, office parties or themselves.
When Homeland Security Investigations agents showed up at Abby’s Bakery in February and arrested the owners and eight employees, residents of Los Fresnos were shocked. Abby’s Bakery doesn’t employ violent criminals and Baez and Avila-Guel are not the people who border czar Tom Homan calls the “worst of the worst” and says are the priority for mass deportations.
“I was surprised because I know that they’re not taking advantage of the people,” Esteban Rodriguez, 43, said after pulling into the bakery’s parking lot to discover it was closed. “It was more like helping out people. They didn’t have nowhere to go, instead of them being on the streets.”
The reaction in the town of 8,500 residents may show the limits of support for President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in a majority Hispanic region dotted with fields of cotton, sugarcane and red grapefruit where Republicans made gains in last year’s elections.
Now, Baez and Avila-Guel, a Mexican couple who are legal U.S. permanent residents, could lose everything after being accused of concealing and harboring immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally. It’s a rare case in which business owners face criminal charges rather than just a fine.
Six of Abby’s eight employees were in the U.S. on visitor visas but none had work permits when Homeland Security Investigations agents came to the business Feb. 12. The owners acknowledged they knew that, according to a federal complaint.
Employees lived in a room with six beds and shared two bathrooms in the same building as the bakery, according to an agent’s affidavit.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
No one said it would be easy to save America. There will be hardship and situations without easy resolution. Nonetheless America needs to both get out the criminals and stop encouraging illegal inhabitants. People need to follow the rulles to be here. The condoning of illegals creates a climtae where other illegal activity operates with impunity.
They were knowingly harboring and employing illegal aliens. Adios, amigos.
Don’t care.
Arrest all lawbreakers.
Deport illegal aliens.
Every
Single
Time
Booey fricken hooey.
Sex trafficking? How many workers are women?
I’m shocked that AssPress only put ONE writer on this agenda driven innuendo ... er, sorry, “news report”.
Follow the law. No sympathy. Buy your cake at Piggly Wiggly.
Now they can hire American citizens and give THEM a job.
And the money will most likely stay in the country. A win/win.
These sob stories from the AP always ignore the very basic fact.
We are BROKE!
We can no longer be the planet’s safety net, and illegal aliens cost us tremendous resources that need to be spent for the benefit of CITIZENS.
Illegals and their enablers must be stopped.
Don’t come here illegally. Come here legally like my dad did.
Do the crime, do the time !!! They knew what they were doing was illegal....both the border-crossers and the employers !! Hard to feel sorry for them....now, if the donuts were REAL GOOD I’m sure the local cops continued to look the other way !!
“Employees lived in a room with six beds and shared two bathrooms in the same building as the bakery, according to an agent’s affidavit.”
Slave labor. I bet they had their housing, food, and expenses taken out of their pay.
The owner needs to be put in jail immediately.
AP is America’s enemy seeking to destroy our country.
Time to give up on the ancient Egyptian lesbian art studies degree and learn to be a baker😎
More money and less debt, but it will entail work🤔
I dunno. I’m conflicted over this one.
“It was more like helping out people.”
No, it wasn’t. With 10s of millions of employed illegals, they have brought the low-skill wage down to less than half it would be otherwise.
That’s taking dignity, health, homeownership, family formation, etc., from a good chunk of Americans.
Correct.
My thoughts exactly.
If they have to wait in line like everyone else, so be it.
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