Texas county that swung to Trump grapples with immigration crackdown after bakery is targeted

By VALERIE GONZALEZ, Associated Press

LOS FRESNOS, Texas (AP) — 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.

But the bakery’s owners, 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.

“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. Cameron County voted for a GOP president for the first time since 2004. For neighboring Starr County, it was the first time since 1896.

Los Fresnos, which is 90% Latino and counts the school district as its largest employer, is about a half-hour drive from the U.S.-Mexico border. Hundreds of school bus drivers, painters, retirees and parishioners from the nearby Catholic church come into Abby’s Bakery each day. Customers with silver trays and tongs select pastries from glass-door cabinets.

The owners had green cards but employees did not

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.

Baez, 55, and Avila-Guel, 46, have pleaded not guilty. They referred questions to their attorneys, who noted the workers were not held against their will and there was no attempt to hide their presence, as a smuggler would.

As green card holders, the couple could be deported if they are convicted. They have five children who are U.S. citizens.

The bakery closed for several days after their arrest, drawing about 20 people to protest on an uncharacteristically chilly evening.

Monsignor Pedro Briseño of St. Cecilia Church often visited before early morning Mass for the campechana, a flaky, crunchy pastry dough layered with caramelized sugar. His routine was interrupted when plainclothes immigration agents arrived in unmarked vehicles.

“A woman came here crying. She said, ‘Father, Father, they’re taking my brother,’” Briseño said. The priest walked over and saw agents use zip ties to bind employees’ hands.

Support for deportations has limits

There is overwhelming bipartisan support to deport people who are in the U.S. illegally and have been convicted of a violent crime, with 82% in favor, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in January. Support softens considerably for deportations of all people in the country illegally, with 43% in favor and 37% opposed.

Trump and top aides repeatedly emphasize they are deporting criminals. But, as border czar Tom Homan often says, others in the country illegally who are there when officers arrest criminals also will be deported, a departure from the Biden administration’s practices.

So far, Trump has avoided the large-scale factory and office raids that characterized his first term and that of Republican President George W. Bush. Scattered reports of smaller operations included the recent arrests of 37 people at a roofing business in northern Washington state.

ICE says it made 32,809 arrests in Trump’s first 50 days in office, or a daily average of 656, which compared with a daily average of 311 during a 12-month period ending Sept. 30. ICE said nearly half (14,111) were convicted criminals and nearly one-third (9,980) had pending criminal charges but did not specify the charges.

People with deep ties in their communities and no criminal records tend to generate more sympathy.

The bakery is a Los Fresnos staple

Abby’s reopened after the owners were released on bond.

Chela and Alicia Vega, two sisters in their 60s who retired from the school district and have known the bakery owners for years, were among the customers filling trays with pastries. Chela Vega said the couple once took a week off from work to drive them to San Luis Potosi in Mexico after their sister died. When a hurricane struck, Leonardo Baez cut down their damaged trees without charge.

For Terri Sponsler, 61, shopping at Abby’s is now a political statement. “With everything going on right now in our country, we need to find ways to protest,” she said.

Mark W. Milum, the city manager, said Abby’s is an important business that contributes property and sales tax revenue to the $13 million annual municipal budget.

Some customers just love the products.

“Other bakeries, they pop up, right?” said Ruth Zamora, 65. “But when you go there, it’s not the same.”