Immigration agents and state police officers arrested more than 300 people in Palm Beach County earlier this month, part of a slew of operations that saw a Lake Worth Beach bakery owner detained and a community outraged.
Multiple federal agencies, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Border Patrol led the operations, while state agencies, like Florida Highway Patrol and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, “coordinated” the efforts from July 6-10, across the county.
The State Board of Immigration Enforcement announced the results in an undated press release on its website. In total, 309 people were arrested over five days, some of whom had criminal records. All were arrested for violating immigration law.
State law enforcement, especially FHP, has focused heavily on Palm Beach County, as WLRN previously reported. That’s despite larger foreign-born and immigrant populations further south of the county.
The second-to-last day of the Palm Beach operations is when dozens of ICE, FHP and PBSO officers surrounded a Guatemalan bakery called El Quetzal Panaderia y Cafeteria on Lucerne Avenue to arrest its owner, Jacob Zapeta-Castro. Roughly 50 community members protested the large show of force.
According to ICE, Zapeta-Castro fled agents in Lake Worth on July 9 and locked himself inside his business to hide. His family and local advocates contradict that narrative, stating that he never fled agents and locked himself in the bakery to protect his undocumented coworkers.
The standoff lasted hours in the sweltering heat. Enraged community members yelled at officers.
Some of Zapeta-Castro’s family members watched in horror, as agents threatened to break down the bakery door if he didn’t come out.
“I want you to go home and think about all these little kids crying for their father,” one protestor shouted.
Some troopers were visibly frustrated by the encounter’s duration and the pushback from community members.
“He can do the right thing and come out, or when we come in there, now we come in contact with people that are potentially harboring a fugitive and everyone will be identified,” said one officer, who identified himself only as Trooper Baez.
Over the course of the standoff, FHP Capt. Ryan Martina — commander of the statewide immigration enforcement team — left the swarm of officers to speak with advocates to negotiate Zapeta-Castro’s exit from the shop.
While outside, a WLRN reporter asked Martina if FHP’s involvement was part of a larger immigration operation. “No, sir,” he told the reporter. He said FHP was simply assisting with an ICE traffic stop.
WLRN reached out to FHP for comment Thursday about the discrepancy between Martina’s statement and the press release. The agency did not respond. Its spokesperson did not respond to an email and voicemail.
Zapeta-Castro charged
The press release lists out 11 people arrested who had criminal histories. It did not include information on how many of the total had criminal records versus not.
One was likely Zapeta-Casto, whose history includes re-entering the country after being deported twice and a 2013 state conviction for leaving the scene of a crash and driving under the influence, federal court records say.
Five days after the standoff, agents charged him in the U.S. Southern District of Florida with re-entering the country after deportation. He was taken to ICE detention in Stuart, the documents say.
Zapeta-Castro, a Guatemalan national, is also a father with children living in Lake Worth. He applied for asylum in June 2024. He also filed a withholding of removal petition — which seeks protection from deportation because of a reasonable fear of persecution in one’s home country.
Before the Trump administration’s deportation mandate last year, federal immigration authorities used to permit asylum seekers with pending claims to live in the U.S. while building their asylum case before bringing them to an immigration judge, according to NBC News.
Zapeta-Castro’s family also said he had a Social Security number, a valid work permit and a driver’s license at the time of his arrest.
