Supporters show up for restaurant manager
Popular Palm Beach restaurant manager facing deportation.
Francisco Javier Gonzalez, the manager of Pizza Al Fresco restaurant who is facing deportation to Mexico, shakes hands Monday with his supporters who showed up during lunch at the restaurant in Palm Beach. Longtime patron of the restaurant Bruce McAllister (right) said, “He’s an institution.”
PALM BEACH — They stood in the line snaking past the concrete walls, not far from the pink trout and prosciutto on the customers’ plates.
Vanina Schreiber, a waitress at Pizza Al Fresco in Palm Beach, took one glance at the mob waiting for a table and hurriedly grabbed three more chairs from the back of the dining room.
She would need more. More than 100 people came to the Italian restaurant on Worth Avenue for lunch on Monday, the busiest it had been in more than three months, waiting to see Francisco Javier Gonzalez, the restaurant manager facing deportation.
Women sat in chairs, talking immigration laws. A man with an American flag draped around his shoulders walked among the tables. Chants broke out: “Javier must stay! Javier must stay!”
Then Gonzalez arrived at the restaurant, and the crowd cheered and applauded. As his three young daughters watched, he circled Pizza Al Fresco’s courtyard, hugging everyone.
“It’s overwhelming,” he said.
The rally was organized in part by Richard Hujber, Gonzalez’s lawyer, who said he filed a petition Monday requesting that a federal court prevent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from taking Gonzalez into custody. ICE has told Gonzalez it plans to deport him by July 3.
The deportation stems from a removal order that Gonzalez, 37, was issued when he entered the United States as a teenager about 20 years ago. At the time, Gonzalez thought his visa was valid, but immigration officials detained him at a Houston airport, deported him and issued him a fiveyear ban from returning to the United States.
Hujber said immigration officials failed to ensure that Gonzalez understood the order, and Gonzalez re-entered United States before the five years were up.
Since then, Gonzalez has lived in Palm Beach County, worked, paid taxes, received a valid driver’s license and Social Security number, married his U.S.-born wife and had three American daughters, ages 11, 8 and 6.
As Gonzalez greeted customers, Palm Beach resident Carole Koeppel sat at a table and turned to her friend.
“How do you make America great again,” she said, “when you take the great people out of America?”
Many of the people who came to the restaurant knew Gonzalez from their frequent trips to the gardenside Italian pizzeria. Christopher Bickford, from West Palm Beach, said he has known Gonzalez for 10 years.
“I believe in immigration laws,” Bickford said. “But I don’t want to see Javier leave. He’s a great person. He belongs here.”
Bruce Helander, a Palm Beach artist, sat at a table with friends. He said he often comes to Pizza Al Fresco, a hidden eatery on a Worth Avenue side street with the “best pizza. Palm Beach’s off-season secret.” He said he wanted to show his support for Gonzalez.
“Every single person here came from immigrants,” Helander said. “It’s a shame he’s being dragged away.”
In the courtyard, friends Gisele Weisman and Judy Cooper stood in the shade. Weisman, a West Palm Beach resident, said she and her parents immigrated to the United States from Germany. Cooper, from Palm Beach, said her mother came from Russia. They both could relate to Gonzalez.
“He’s working, he’s like a citizen, he’s been here most of his life,” Weisman said. “Can’t they spend time on criminals?”
“It’s a waste of time,” Cooper said. “He should be allowed to stay.”