People gathered outside Buona Forchetta Saturday to protest an immigration enforcement operation by federal authorities that took place at a pair of restaurants Friday in the city’s South Park neighborhood.
Armed federal immigration agents on Friday afternoon went to the Buona Forchetta and Enoteca Buona Forchetta restaurants on Beech Street and arrested an unknown number of employees.
Buona Forchetta Manager Renato Ametrano winds up the awnings to open the restaurant Saturday. (JW August/Times of San Diego)The restaurant’s manager, Renato Ametrano, described what happened, saying the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers showed “up with no explanation.” He said there were about 20-25 officers who “surrounded the building and then came inside” pushing him against the wall and handcuffing him.
They frightened the workers, many of them students, Ametrano said, describing ICE personnel as “very aggressive” while handcuffing other members of the staff.
He said the officers were looking at a computer and at employees. They eventually took two employees, said Ametrano, because “they didn’t have a physical ID.”
A chaotic scene followed, during which a crowd gathered around ICE vehicles, with two flash bangs going off at one point.
The trauma led Ametrano to shut the restaurant down for the night, but he was back Saturday winding up the awnings to open.
Protesters gathered in solidarity with Buona Forchetta in South Park Saturday. (JW August/Times of San Diego)Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, a spokeswoman for ICE, confirmed the work site operations Saturday and added, “As this is an ongoing investigation, we have no further releasable information at this time.”
San Diego City Councilman Steven Whitburn, whose district includes South Park, posted on X that he was “deeply troubled” by what took place.
“People have the right to due process,” Whitburn posted. “Our neighbors who are immigrants are vital to the fabric of our city, and they deserve to live without fear or intimidation. San Diego must remain a city where fairness, humanity, and the rule of law prevail.”
Rep. Scott Peters, a San Diego Democrat who represents the 50th District, said his office “will be investigating the incident to ensure law enforcement is using its resources on public safety threats and meeting the highest standards.”
In a statement, Peters said, “How does scaring restaurant patrons and arresting people busing tables and washing dishes make us safer? It doesn’t. It wastes our limited law enforcement resources. It proves that the promise to deport only dangerous criminals was a fraud. And it abuses hardworking people and the neighbors they work among — there’s your waste, fraud and abuse.”
How does scaring restaurant patrons and arresting people bussing tables and washing dishes make us safer?It doesn’t. It wastes our limited law enforcement resources. It proves that the promise to deport only dangerous criminals was a fraud. And it abuses hardworking people and…
— Rep. Scott Peters (@RepScottPeters) May 31, 2025County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer said in a statement that what happened in South Park “was a disturbing escalation of the same tactics we saw in our courthouses earlier this week: intimidation over public safety, fear over fairness.”
Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre — a candidate for the vacant District 1 supervisors seat in the July 1 runoff — said in a statement that the arrests were an “over-the-top, militarized show of force that doesn’t belong in a residential neighborhood.”
“Flash bangs and assault rifles aimed at restaurant workers and community members is not enforcement — it’s intimidation,” said Aguirre.
“I’m a mayor who works closely with police and I know we can have common-sense enforcement without losing our minds or our morals. I oppose in the strongest terms possible ICE raids on schools, churches and restaurants, and believe we should never be separating children from their families,” she added.
Aguirre’s opponent in the July 1 runoff, Chula Vista Mayor John McCann, could not immediately be reached for comment.
City News Service contributed to this article.
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