On Thursday, January 15, 2026, four ICE agents in Minnesota went to have lunch at a small Mexican restaurant, named El Tapatio, in Willmar. According to The Minnesota Star Tribune, the agents went back to the restaurant at night around 8:30 pm to arrest the staff members.
Per the witnesses, the staff was ready to close the restaurant when the officials returned to make arrests. “Staff at the restaurant were frightened,” one witness told the publication.
So far, there isn’t much information about the arrest. It’s unclear if the owner of the restaurant was arrested or just the employees. However, ICE has been causing chaos in Minnesota in its immigrant crackdown.
There are no words. ICE agents ate lunch at a small local Mexican restaurant in Minnesota, enjoyed their meal, then came back later that night as the restaurant was closing down and arrested the people who had served them. pic.twitter.com/AiCzp49d8d
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) January 16, 2026
The Mexican restaurant is close to a middle school and a church. As a result, many people gathered around the scene, trying to see what happened.
The public were also blowing whistles and condemning the ICE agents. One person even commented, “Would your mama be proud of you right now?”
The onlookers also described the ICE agents as diabolical and depraved in their actions, criticizing them for trying to arrest the restaurant staff after eating their food.
More and more people have been joining anti-ICE protests this year, especially after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. There has been major uproar against ICE agents’ tactics to arrest people.
Citing the restaurant incident, one user on X wrote, “Funny how I told someone at work yesterday that ICE thugs are choosing Mexican restaurants as their lunch spots to stake out their operations. This doesn’t surprise me. Locals need to stop letting these snakes in. It is a setup.”
ICE agents eat at small-town Mexican restaurant — then arrest workers
Federal agents detained three workers from a family-owned Mexican restaurant in Willmar yesterday, hours after four agents ate lunch there. @StarTribune pic.twitter.com/hDLHSURIgM
— Andrew Revkin 🌎 ✍🏼 🪕 ☮️ (@Revkin) January 16, 2026
Another one commented, “Disgusting. Eating the food cooked and served by the very people you plan to arrest hours later? That’s not “enforcement”—that’s cowardice and cruelty, straight from the Trump playbook. Shameful.”
The third one was posted. “Restaurants should just ban them like they did unmasked people 5 years ago.” There have been several instances where restaurants have denied serving ICE agents.
Earlier, an independent Hilton Hotel in Minneapolis cancelled ICE bookings. However, later on, they were dropped by Hilton for showing discriminatory policies.
