Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO — Jose Luis Sanchez was a veteran cook at El Balazo, working at the popular Bay Area taqueria chain for eight years before a Friday immigration raid ended his career and left his family's future uncertain."My kids are sad," said the 32-year-old San Pablo resident, one of 63 illegal immigrants employed by the 11-restaurant chain who were arrested Friday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "They want to know if they're going to send me to Mexico."With an electronic surveillance bracelet attached indefinitely to his ankle, Sanchez contemplated his future Monday afternoon outside the Sansome Street high-rise building...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Friday stormed 11 El Balazo restaurants around the Bay Area, arresting 63 illegal immigrants - and drawing the outrage of immigration advocates who had marched the previous day to call for the legalization of undocumented workers. The raids began at 10:30 Friday morning in San Francisco, San Ramon, Lafayette, Concord, Pleasanton and Danville and involved 62 people from Mexico and one from Guatemala. Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for the immigration agency, called the arrests "a targeted enforcement action" that is part of a continuing criminal investigation she couldn't discuss further. Immigration officials photographed, fingerprinted...