ICE agents visit Brooklyn Park coffee shop, arrest cook after ruse to get him outside

An Ecuadorian man was arrested Friday at a coffee shop in Brooklyn Park after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents summoned him to the parking lot in a ruse to get him outside.

The man was a cook at Crumbs & Coffee on Zane Avenue N.; his employer didn’t want to reveal his name.

Crumbs & Coffee co-owner Charles Spies said the man was arrested Friday morning between 10 and 11 a.m. after ICE agents visited the coffee shop, pretended to be customers and hung out for an hour.

After another agent arrived, they claimed to have hit a car in the parking lot and summoned the workers outside. The man was suddenly handcuffed and taken away.

The agents didn’t identify themselves until the employee was outside, Spies said. Everything that happened seemed like it was taken straight out of a movie, he added.

“I never imagined that in my life,” said Spies, himself an immigrant from Brazil who has a green card.

Such a scene has become commonplace in recent weeks as ICE agents have swarmed a business or home, leaving with one or more people in custody. This time, however, instead of happening in Minneapolis or St. Paul, the incident occurred in the suburbs.

On Saturday, ICE agents descended on a Chanhassen construction site, leading to a standoff with protesters and workers in subzero temperatures.

One worker was taken to the hospital after suffering exposure. The other waited out the siege and was whisked away to safety after the agents left.

The Brooklyn Park arrest caught the attention of DFL state Sen. John Hoffman.

“A small business. Taxpayers. People who invested in our community, created jobs and served their neighbors every day,” Hoffman wrote on Facebook. “Since when are they considered the ‘worst of the worst’? This isn’t right. And it’s not who we should be targeting if we care about safe, strong communities.”

The cook was part of the Crumbs & Coffee work family, said Spies, who was saddened by what happened.

“We check everything before hiring someone,” Spies said, and he knew him from another job.

Spies said the coffee shop closed abruptly Friday after the ICE agents’ visit. The agents told another employee to go home.

Crumbs & Coffee was closed Saturday because there weren’t enough employees to staff it, Spies said. He had been busy all day taking phone calls about what had happened.

Hoffman went to the coffee shop Saturday and was alarmed to find the door open and the place deserted: “Money sat on the counter,” he wrote on Facebook. “Coats were still draped over booths.”

Spies said that was likely a delivery person not locking the door and unrelated to the ICE incident.