After ICE raid, Liberty restaurant sees boost of customers, fundraising for 12 detained
One week after agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) – a branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – entered El Potro Mexican Cafe and Cantina in Liberty reportedly without a search warrant and apprehended 12 employees, the restaurant’s manager says community members have been showing up to support the restaurant, detainees and their families.
“It’s a harsh situation,” general manager Yadira De La Torre, whose parents own El Potro, said Friday. “Feeling support from others feels really good to us.”
About 30 community members, including teachers, school board members and Liberty City Council members, gathered at the restaurant at 116 Stewart Court Friday afternoon in support of the De La Torre family and detained employees. The event was coordinated by Jackson County legislator Manny Abarca.
“One common goal that we all have is to support the business, and not just the business but the community, the Latinos in general,” Helen Ortiz, a board member of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City, said Friday. “Regardless of legal status, immigrants or legal immigrants, we are all human beings.”
Along with the Consulate of Mexico in Kansas City, the Hispanic Chamber has been working with restaurant staff and impacted families to coordinate a response to the operation at El Potro. The De La Torre family, as well as every family affected by the immigration enforcement operation, has retained an attorney, Abarca said.
At least 12 federal agents entered the restaurant around 11:40 a.m. on Feb. 7, according to De La Torre. Agents told her father Chico that they were looking for one person accused of committing a crime, De La Torre previously said, though a language barrier between agents and her father complicated the exchange.
In a statement to The Star Friday, an ICE spokesperson said that agents had conducted a “worksite enforcement action” at the restaurant, attributing agents’ presence to “information or allegations received by ICE Homeland Security Investigations” for the purpose of ensuring “compliance with federal employment eligibility requirements.”
The spokesperson confirmed that those arrested at El Potro are in ICE custody and could be “subject to removal from the United States” pending the required legal process.
De La Torre said Friday that along with apprehending 12 employees, agents from HSI/ICE confiscated two boxes of employment documents from the restaurant.
The boxes contained I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification forms submitted by past and present employees, De La Torre said. At no point did HSI/ICE agents give any advance notice that they would be confiscating employment documents from the restaurant, she said.
“What did we do [that was] so bad?” De La Torre said Friday. “We were working. We’re just here to work. It’s making it harder to do it now.”
Employees in ICE custody
As of Friday morning, most of the detained employees were being held in Chase County, Kansas, about three hours from Liberty, Abarca said. Representatives from the Consulate of Mexico visited the facility Monday and were able to speak with detainees, Ortiz said.
One woman, a 60-year-old grandmother, has been transferred to a detention facility in Indiana, Ortiz said. She said the woman has high blood pressure conditions and has been without her medication since Feb. 7. The Mexican consulate in Indiana is involved in a coordinated effort to get the woman access to her prescriptions, Ortiz said.
Several of the detained employees were the sole breadwinners for their families, Abarca said.
“You’ve probably got … children who are participating with your children or grandchildren now in schools, who have no breadwinner,” Abarca said, addressing Liberty residents. “Who have to pay bills, who have to pay rent, who have to figure out how to survive.”
El Potro operates multiple locations, several of which were affected by the events of Feb. 7, De La Torre previously said. While the Liberty location is now short-staffed, the Lee’s Summit location temporarily closed after the raid, also citing staffing shortages.
However, De La Torre said Friday that she does not expect any location of El Potro to close in the aftermath of the raid. Residents have been keeping the restaurant full as a show of solidarity, she said.
“We’ve been getting a lot of support from Liberty,” De La Torre said Friday. “A lot of new customers are coming in.”
The staff of El Potro is collecting cash donations at the restaurant’s front register, supporting the detained employees and their families. A GoFundMe fundraiser for legal costs for the detained employees, who some community members are calling the Liberty 12, has raised about $1,650 as of Friday evening.
This story was originally published February 14, 2025 at 7:46 PM.
