[Updated] A protest in support of 13 immigrant workers laid off from Minneapolis-based restaurant developer and management company D’Amico & Partners ended Tuesday after a dust-up with a couple of delivery trucks and some police officers.

About 20 demonstrators were marching with signs in front of Uptown’s D’Amico Restaurant while a handful of protesters had gathered behind the building near the loading dock, blocking vehicle access to the parking lot, according to some people who were involved in the protest. While several incoming delivery trucks were turned away, one truck allegedly struck a protester who identified himself only as Daniel. The driver kept going even when Daniel motioned for him to stop, pushing Daniel (instead of him) to the wayside; the driver later fled, Daniel said.

Continued: Click “Read more” Minneapolis Police Department spokesman Sgt. William Palmer said an accident report for the incident was filed after the arrival of police officers who were responding to a bystander’s 9-1-1 call; later a police officer pulled some demonstrators out of the picket line to let another truck enter the restaurant’s parking lot. While some of the demonstrators argue that the officer’s intervention violated local protest rules, Palmer cited the city’s public nuisance ordinance (609.74), which enables police officers to remove someone who “interferes with, obstructs, or renders dangerous for passage, any public highway or right-of-way” (not conditional to protests).

However, added Palmer, the Police Department tries to take a hands-off approach when it comes to immigration issues. “We want immigrants to trust us to call us,” Palmer said, adding that this was a case in which the ground rules hadn’t been set. 

The early-morning protest was the third of several at the restaurant since last Friday, with some of the protesters coming from local advocacy organizations such as the Workers Interfaith Network (WIN). Some activists say that D’Amico violated a federal law when it terminated the workers on Monday.

After receiving no-matches for the former employees from the Social Security Administration between 2004-06, D’Amico gave the workers until Monday to submit documentation indicating they were dealing with the issue. None of the workers had done that by the end of the day, according to company spokeswoman Amy Rotenberg. It is unknown whether or not the workers are illegal immigrants, she said, adding that the company wouldn’t speculate on their status.

The workers, all of whom are Latino, filed discrimination charges against D’Amico with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission on Friday, according to WIN representatives. 

When asked to clarify the former employees’ status, WIN executive director Matt Gladue said, “We don’t have any evidence to the contrary.”

“D’Amico determined [the former employees] had proper work documents years ago. There’s no evidence they can’t work in the U.S. The only additional evidence is the race of the workers,” he said. “If it were white employees, this probably wouldn’t be happening.”

Additionally, Gladue said it’s common for employees to write to the Social Security Administration stating that he or she is working to clarify a no-match. D’Amico received copies of those letters which were sent to a Baltimore office. At first, the company had accepted that solution, but later they backed out, he said. “I’ve never heard of a company going to the extremes that D’Amico is,” he said.

Here’s the D’Amico side of the story: The employees don’t need to resolve the problem entirely, according to Rotenberg. They need to go to the local Social Security office, showing up with ID and get a receipt, she said. “A no-match letter can be deemed constructive of undocumented workers. We have to act. We’re not drawing any conclusions…these employees don’t want to take care of it, or they would have.”

About the correspondence to the Baltimore Social Security office, “We found out that wasn’t the process. We became very concerned that WIN was trying to game us,” she said. “I called that Baltimore office and asked them what they do with it. They said they send it back. It was an office that churns out checks.”

Currently a federal court is contemplating a “no-match” rule that would require employers to fire workers who don’t resolve mismatched Social Security numbers within 90 days. A federal judge stopped an earlier draft of the no-match rule in October 2007, citing the burden on businesses and employees, according to the New York Times.

Danielle Pryor, a WIN community organizer, said D’Amico is “abusing the confusion around the law to terminate the employees,” adding, “Employees are supposed to respond to no-matches, not employers.”


To read more,  check out this Minnesota Monitor story.