Pennsylvania Coffee Shop Latest to Close Following ICE Detention

It is the latest in a series of ICE enforcement actions that have disrupted independent small coffee businesses across the country over the past year. City Watch Coffee, which has two locations in the Lebanon Valley, confirmed in a Facebook post that co-owner Ratha San has been detained by ICE. An ICE detainee search indicates that San is being held at the Moshannon Valley ICE Processing Center.

San’s wife wrote in a Facebook post that San came to the United States legally through family sponsorship as a baby, having been born in a refugee camp in Thailand after his family fled Cambodia. “He was not smuggled in, nor did he sneak across the border. His family came to the United States legally through family sponsorship many years ago,” the post stated.

Instead, we will focus on building a new life for ourselves, our newborn, and our three-year-old daughter as we plan to relocate to Cambodia so that we can be together as a family.” City Watch joins a growing number of independent coffee-focused businesses whose operations have been disrupted by ICE detentions involving owners, workforce or their family members over the past 12 months. Per to The records, she was subsequently transferred to ICE custody.

Artessence Coffee Shop temporarily closed in August 2025 while a co-owner attempted to locate his wife and business partner after she was transferred to ICE custody. The woman had been arrested Aug. 2 during what her family described as a mental-health crisis.

A Department of Homeland Security filing subsequently asserted that there was probable cause to consider her removable from the United States, going to local coverage of her case. The owners then divested the business to Jacksonville residents Soner and Gina Acar in September 2025, according to the Jacksonville Business Journal. The development of a permanent shop for Sands Coffee Roasters was interrupted in February 2026 when founder Assim Alkhawaja was detained while working as a rideshare driver to help finance the rollout.

Alkhawaja was dropping passengers at Camp Pendleton when he was detained on Feb. 16, according to NBC 7 San Diego. He was placed in removal proceedings and required to wear a GPS monitor, per to a subsequent Guardian report based on interviews with Alkhawaja and his attorney. Beyond owner-operators, coffee businesses all over the U.S. have been affected by the detention of staff and holding workforce.

In Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, Crumbs & Coffee shut down after ICE detained cook Jorge Leonardo Vergara Rubio in December 2025. Going to Co-owner Marcio Luis De Morais, plainclothes agents entered the cafe as shoppers before another agent entered and maintained that there was a vehicle collision outside in order to draw Rubio into the parking lot.

The Minnesota Daily later set out that the cafe closed permanently after the loss of its cook, a 60% takings drop and two months of missed rent payments. Per to In Oregon, the owner of Elka Bee’s Coffee, immigration authorities detained two employees in October 2025 despite the workforce having permits to work in the United States.

ICE agents in addition affected coffee production during the 2025 harvest on Hawaii’s Big Island. Going to Community members, more than 100 coffee estate staff along the island’s southern coast had been arrested and removed, though ICE did not provide the outlet with arrest totals.