Los Fresnos, Texas – Leonardo Baez and Nora Avila-Guel’s Baker in the Texas community in Los Fresyos are a daily station for many population to share gossip on coffee and pick up cakes and pastries for birthdays and offices or themselves.
When investigative agents appeared in the internal security in the Abe bakery in February and arrested their owners and eight employees, the residents of Los Fresyos were shocked. Abe’s bakery does not employ violent criminals, Bees and Afila-Joel are not the people who limit Tsar Tam Tom Human calling him the “worst worst” and they say they are a priority for collective deportation.
“I was surprised because I know they did not benefit from people,” said Esteban Rodriguez, 43, after the car parking was withdrawn to discover that he was closed. “It was more like helping people. They had no place they went to, instead of being on the streets.”
The reaction in the town of 8,500 of the population may appear the limits of support to suppress the migration of President Donald Trump in an area of Spanish origin, dotted with fields of cotton, sugar sugar and grapefruit red, as Republicans have achieved gains in elections last year. Cameron’s province voted for the president of the Republican Party for the first time since 2004. For the neighboring Star County, this was the first time since 1896.
Now, Baez and Avila-Guel, a Mexican couple of legal residents of the United States, can lose everything after being accused of hiding the immigrants who were illegally in the United States. It is a rare case in which business owners face criminal charges instead of just a fine.
Los Fresnos, 90 % Latin, translated the educational area as the largest employer, about half an hour drive from the borders of the United States of Mexican. Hundreds of school bus drivers, painters and retirees, most notably from the nearby Catholic Church, come to the Abe bakery every day. Customers with silver trays and shots choose pastries from glass doors.
The owners had green cards, but the employees did not do so
Six of the eight ABBY employees in the United States were visiting visas, but none of them had work permits when internal security investigation agents came to work on February 12. Malcon admitted that they know this, according to a federal complaint.
The employees lived in a room with six beds and participated in two bathrooms in the same building, as the bakery, according to the agent’s testimony.
Customers visit the Abby bakery in Los Fressan, Texas, after the owners reopened their doors, on March 4, 2025, after they were arrested on charges of securing unauthorized workers.
AP Photo/Valerie Gonzalez)
Paes, 55, and Avila Joel, 46, acknowledged that he was not guilty. They referred questions to their lawyer, who indicated that the workers were not detained against their will and there was no attempt to hide their existence, as the smuggler does.
As green cards holders, the couple can be deported if they are convicted. They have five children of American citizens.
The bakery was closed for several days after his arrest, as he drew about 20 people to protest on an unusual cold evening.
Monsignor Pedro Pransino often visited the Church of St. Cecilia before the Mass early in the morning for Campechaana, a crunchy pastry dough with caramel sugar. Routine was boycotted when immigration agents from Solomon reached unlimited vehicles.
“A woman came here crying.” The father, father, take my brother. “
The deportation support has limits
There is a tremendous support from the two parties to deport the people in the United States illegally and convicted of a violent crime, with 82 % in favor of, according to survey of research research research in the Associated Press in January. Support is largely supported by illegal deportation of all people in the country, with 43 % in favor and 37 % opposition.
Trump and the highest assistants repeatedly emphasize that they are deporting criminals. However, Human often says, others in the country will be legalized illegally and who are there when criminals who are arrested from the officers are also deported, which is a departure from Biden administration practices.
To date, Trump has avoided the factory and offices raids on a wide range of his first term and Republican President George W. Bush. The reports of the smallest operations of the last 37 people in the Northern Washington State company in the state of Washington.
Ice says that 32,809 arrests in the first 50 days of Trump in the office, or on a daily average of 656, which compared to a daily average of 311 during the 12 -month period ending on September 30.
People with deep relationships in their societies tend and there are no criminal records to generate more sympathy.
The bakery is an essential element in Los Fressanus
Abe was reopened after their owners were released to Bond.
Chile and Alicia Vega, two sisters in the sixties of them retired from the educational zone and have known bakery owners for years, were among the customers who fill the trays with pastries. Chille Vega said that the couple took two weeks of work to lead them to San Luis Potosi in Mexico after their sister’s death. When a hurricane was hit, Leonardo Paes cut their damaged trees without charge.
For Terri Shepherd, 61 years old, shopping in Abby’s is now a political statement. “With everything is happening now in our country, we need to find ways to protest,” she said.
Mark W. Milom, Director of Los Fressin, said that ABBY’s is an important company that contributes to property and sales tax revenue to an annual municipal budget of $ 13 million.
Some customers love products.
“Other bakeries, appear, right?” Ruth Zamora, 65, said. “But when you go there, this is not the same.”
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