Immigration and Customs Enforcement restaurant raid splits a small town in Trump country

Mt. Vernon townspeople remain divided over
the ICE raid at Pancho's Tacos.

After ICE raided a favorite Mexican food spot in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and hauled off several of its employees, a heated town debate erupted over the incident. The small community of 17,400 people in "deep-red Trump country" is still grappling with the fallout, report Cameron McWhirter and Ruth Simon of The Wall Street Journal.

While the raid at Pancho's Tacos was over in roughly 30 minutes, arguments over the justification or lack thereof for raiding a small-town restaurant and arresting five of its allegedly illegal workers have raged on.

Some Mt. Vernon residents "fully support how the operation took place," McWhirter writes. But other residents voiced concern that ICE tactics aren't the way immigration enforcement ought to work -- especially not in small-town America.

Once word of the raid spread through rumor and social media, online comments on all sides of the incident began pouring in. One commentator wrote, "'I used to remember how people loved one another and accepted one another despite their differences,'" the Journal reports. "But another wrote: 'This is EXACLTY (sic) what we voted for. Send all illegals home.'"

Beyond the spiraling debate, the raid was especially worrisome for area dairy farmers, who rely on an immigrant workforce to do the hard labor required in dairy farming. Noel Alden, a Mount Vernon lawyer, told the Journal, "Neighbors, friends, people who serve them are being whisked away. . . .They haven’t even started on farms yet.”