A Pro Trump Town Is Up In Arms Over A Beloved Restaurant Manager Being Detained By ICE


Getty Image

Robert Southey opened his poem The Curse of Kehama with a foreboding sentence. “Curses are like young chickens: they always come home to roost.” The meaning: Your actions have consequence which are unavoidable. This lesson is being learned at the expense of one hard-working migrant in southern Illinois. The citizens of West Frankfort and the surrounding county voted 70 percent in favor of Donald Trump. And now the Trump administration’s ICE raids have taken one of their most beloved denizens, torn a family apart, and shaken a community to the core.

Juan Carlos Hernandez Pacheco came to the USA in the late 1990s, illegally. He eventually settled in West Frankfort and found work at the local Tex-Mex joint. Over the years, he became an upstanding member of the small community. For the last ten years he’d been managing that Tex-Mex joint and started a family. He raised money for medical equipment. He gave away free food to fire fighters while they were fighting fires. He supported the local police force at every turn. He was a true local.

On February 9th, the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) police entered West Frankfort to round up some “bad hombres” and Hernandez Pacheco ended up being one of them. Hernandez Pacheco was arrested by the ICE because of two DUIs he received in 2007 (incidents that led to Hernandez Pacheco quitting alcohol all together). This — coupled with his lack of paperwork — and Hernandez Pacheco was sent to a detention facility outside of St. Louis, Missouri. He left behind his wife and three children (the youngest is two).

Hernandez Pacheco was in the process of obtaining a legal status as an immigrant, but was seemingly delayed multiple times either by bureaucracy or his own schedule. His wife and children are already US citizens. Due to the aforementioned depth of Hernandez Pacheco’s involvement in West Frankfort’s small community, town leaders and citizens have rushed to Hernandez Pacheco’s defense to get him back home. It’s creating a bit of an identity crisis for the small Pro-Trump town.

Lori Barron, a local business owner, was interviewed by the New York Times and put it this way, “I think people need to do things the right way, follow the rules and obey the laws, and I firmly believe in that.” Barron continued, “but in the case of Carlos, I think he may have done more for the people here than this place has ever given him. I think it’s absolutely terrible that he could be taken away.”

Tim Grigsby considers himself one of Pacheco’s closest friends and is spearheading the letter writing campaign to get him released and his immigration paperwork moving again. Grigsby told the local news team that “there would be a huge hole if he doesn’t come back here. It would be a very detrimental thing for our community.” And, yet, he freely admits that he’d still vote for Trump again, even though he doesn’t agree with “everything” he does. The town cites the death of coal-mining and Trump’s “promise” to bring it back for their support.

But here’s the rub. Trump’s own plan, which is free for anyone to read on his website, doesn’t make provisos about whether Hernandez Pacheco is a good guy or not. The increase in ICE Police is mandatory so raids like this are going to only amp up (and so are these stories, by the way). Also Trump’s mandate specifically lists a DUI as a reason to immediately deport any illegal immigrant. “ICE officers should be required to issue Notices to Appear to all illegal aliens with criminal convictions, DUI convictions, or a gang affiliation.”

Getty Image

This is the same plan that hopes to end citizenship by birthright and allow ICE Police to deport migrants without a judge’s approval. It is consistent with the platform Trump ran on — also freely available online from Trump and the Department of Homeland Security. Right now, Hernandez Pacheco is being held in a detention facility awaiting his fate.

The situation hints at another poem, by a German Pastor who lived through governmental mass deportations. “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”

(Via The New York Times & WPSD Local6)

×