Perris residents back mayor’s suggestion to stay home to avoid ICE
Perris residents back mayor’s suggestion to stay home to avoid ICE
A day after Perris’ mayor urged residents in the largely Latino city to stay home after a reported immigration operation, business owners and others supported his stance.
“It’s a good thing what he did,” Monica Trinidad, owner of Monica’s Beauty Salon on D Street, said Thursday, July 10.
RELATED: Perris mayor tells residents to stay inside after reports of ICE activity
After reported activity by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the city on Wednesday, July 9, her shop saw lots of cancellations and rescheduling. They got no walk-ins.
Businesses up and down the downtown Perris street closed early that day, Trinidad said.
When Monica’s shut at 5 p.m. — an hour earlier than usual — Trinidad said her son, who works as a stylist at the salon, said: “It looks like a haunted city” outside.
On Wednesday, Mayor Michael Vargas posted a video to the city’s Instagram and Facebook pages suggesting that residents “remain calm, stay indoors when possible, and know your rights. Do not go out unless necessary and do not open the door to strangers.”
ICE has not responded to a request for comment about operations in Perris, a Riverside County city that is about 78% Latino.
On Thursday, residents and business owners in downtown said they’ve seen the impacts of recent ICE enforcement across Southern California the past couple of days and earlier. And they are worried and upset.
Trinidad, who uses social media to keep track of ICE’s movements, said she’s concerned about what future ICE activity might mean for her business.
At Los Cortez Barber Shop on D Street, owner Rodolfo Cortez had harsh words about ICE’s presence.
“I don’t mind getting all the bad guys,” Cortez said. “But leave the good guys alone.”
He said ICE’s presence is “a bunch of (nonsense)” and questioned why agents are targeting people who pay taxes, buy homes and don’t cause trouble.
If immigration officers visited his business, Cortez said he’d tell agents to “get the (expletive) out of my shop.”
At La Playita, a bakery and meat market on D Street, Lake Elsinore resident Maribel Gonzalez shopped for her parents, who are Perris residents and U.S. citizens but fear being accosted by ICE if they left their home.
“The way people are being treated, it’s inhumane,” said Gonzalez, a first-grade teacher who said she also saw the impact of ICE’s presence on her students.
Gonzalez’s said her 8- and 11-year-old daughters have friends whose parents didn’t attend promotion or graduation ceremonies out of fear that they would be arrested.
“(Children) are growing up remembering how this feels,” she said.
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