Restaurant owner in Lake Street raid spent weeks in ICE detention

The primary owner of two Twin Cities Mexican restaurants was held in ICE custody for weeks after federal officers served search warrants at his business, and is now charged federally with re-entering the country illegally after having been removed.

Federal officials have said the June 3 raids at a total of eight commercial and residential locations were part of an investigation into a “transnational criminal organization” suspected of drug and human trafficking, money laundering, and other crimes.

Francisco Estrada de Haro, who owns Las Cuatro Milpas restaurants in Minneapolis and Bloomington, had been held in the Freeborn County Jail since June 3, a corrections officer at the jail confirmed by phone last week. The jail officer added that he was being held for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in an “immigration” case.

On Friday, the jail said he was no longer on its roster. An employee at St. Paul’s ICE field office said that Estrada de Haro was still in custody, but not for an immigration case. The office did not say where he was moved. While Estrada de Haro hadn’t appeared on the daily jail log rosters for Freeborn County previously, jail officials had confirmed that someone with the same name was there.

He was charged in federal court Wednesday with illegally re-entering the country in September 2020 after having been previously deported. According to court records, the official spelling of his last name is “Estrada-Deltaro.” That name is followed by a second line in court records that says he is also known as “Francisco Estrada De Haro.” According to court records, he was ordered put under custody of the United States Marshal prior to a federal court hearing set for Wednesday.

Confirming his custody status has been difficult because he also used a distinctly different name in most advertisements, news articles and business documents: “Hector Hernandez,” or with the last name “Hernandez Solis.”

In reports by the Minnesota Star Tribune, WCCO, and others he went by “Hernandez.” That name was also used on his initial business license.

James Barger, whose company J&B Holdings LLC owns the properties where Las Cuatro Milpas operates, said in a phone interview that Francisco Estrada de Haro is the man’s real name. He said that Hector Hernandez was the name he often used in public settings. Those with personal connections knew him as Estrada de Haro, Barger said, who added that Hector Hernandez was the name of the business owner’s stepfather.

The raids followed the discovery of 900 pounds of meth at a storage unit in Burnsville. A spokeswoman for the city of Minneapolis said Friday that no arrests were made at Las Cuatros Milpas on Lake Street on the day of the raid. Estrada de Haro was taken into custody at his home.

Calls to Estrada de Haro’s attorney, Elvis Abanonu, were not returned. But in a June 9 interview, Abanonu said that his client was in the Freeborn County Jail for an “immigration issue.”

The attorney denied during that call that his client had committed any wrongdoing.

Two of the eight properties investigated were the Las Cuatro Milpas restaurants. One of the restaurants is on Lake Street in south Minneapolis, while the other is in Bloomington.

Barger said he owned several of the other facilities that were raided, including the storage facility where the 900 pounds of meth was discovered. But he denied having any prior knowledge of the drugs that were discovered.

Barger said that he had a contractor friend put up ads online to find a renter for the storage unit, and that someone was lined up. Two weeks after the renter moved in, Barger said, the officers searched and found the drugs.

In the phone call, Barger denied that he or Las Cuatro Milpas was involved with any criminal organization, drug trafficking or money laundering. “Everybody has a past, but that’s not part of my past or Cuatro Milpas’ past,” he said.

Following the raids, Barger said, he heard directly from Estrada de Haro about being in ICE custody. He said they last spoke about two weeks ago while he was in the Freeborn County jail.

Although Barger is the property owner, he said he’s been more of a business partner with Estrada de Haro because they had an 80%-20% split ownership of the business, with Barger holding 20%. Both men are listed as the “registered agents” for Las Cuatro Milpas in the database for the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office.

Barger said he had to sign on as the partial owner to receive Small Business Administration loans.

Estrada de Haro is a native of the Mexican state of Zacatecas, and settled in Minnesota in 2000, according to a profile by the Twin Cities magazine Heavy Table. He gained media attention for his pro-immigrant stance by putting up signs and murals inside and on the awning of his Minneapolis restaurant that read, “Make tacos, not walls.”

The Department of Homeland Security provided a statement to the Minnesota Star Tribune on Friday, attributed to an unnamed official, which said “this operation is part of a larger multiagency operation. Details will be released as they are available.”

Almost 20 years ago, Barger was federally convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and sentenced to nearly three years in prison, court records show. The charges alleged that Barger worked with others who brought cocaine to Minnesota from California.

Barger described Estrada de Haro as a good friend. Estrada de Haro was working as a mechanic when they first met about a decade ago, Barger said.

Barger said his home in Northfield was also raided, that the experience traumatized his daughter and that the raids caused tens of thousands of dollars of damage to his properties.

“They raided my personal house in Northfield, took my office, traumatized my daughter where she wouldn’t even want to get in a truck with me the next day,” Barger said.

The government’s allegations of a criminal organization, and the locations of the search warrants, were included in the federal indictment for a protester, Isabel Lopez, who was arrested a few days later.

A motion this week for detention from federal prosecutors shows that Estrada de Haro, under the surname Estrada-Deltaro, has an extensive criminal history, including a conviction for felony-level “threats of violence” in 2022, another for fleeing officers more than 20 years ago, and multiple driving-related offenses.

State court records also show Estrada de Haro has an ongoing drunken driving case from October 2024. Police say officers found him after he drove over several shrubs and onto someone’s deck in Long Prairie.

Estrada de Haro failed to make a remote court appearance in Todd County on Tuesday for that case, court records show. During that arrest, responding officers found a New Mexico driver’s license under Estrada de Haro’s name and a car with Minnesota plates.

The charges include misdemeanor driving while impaired, possession of an open alcohol bottle, no proof of insurance, careless driving and refusal to test for alcohol.

Eva Herscowitz of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this report.