Leonor’s Eatery is a cozy, welcoming place with rich woodwork warmed by natural light and a fireplace for when the days turn cold and gray. It’s open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, offering a wide variety of Mexican and standard American fare at reasonable prices.
The Moscow restaurant and banquet hall is the kind of family-owned business that drives local economies and feeds a sense of community among customers. It’s the kind of place where the owners eagerly engage with patrons and take pride and pleasure in satisfying guests who appreciate having an inviting, inexpensive space to break bread together.
Neither owner was in when I dropped by Monday morning. Mayte Vargas was expected to arrive by late afternoon. Nasario Damian Contreras, her business partner, boyfriend and father of her infant son, was locked up at the Pike County Correctional Facility.
It was only a matter of time until Trump’s cruel, clumsy crackdown on undocumented immigrants snatched up a Northeast Pennsylvania neighbor. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Contreras, known to locals as “Damian,” on July 15 outside Isabella’s Eatery in Jefferson Twp. Contreras and Vargas also co-own Isabella’s and Damian’s Eatery in Clifton Twp.
Now, the warm, generous “pillar of the community” is caught up in a “gray area” between Trump’s campaign rhetoric about “rounding up criminals” and the cold reality of the “American Dream” suddenly shifting to a wide-awake nightmare. When a stranger is netted by ICE somewhere else, it’s easy to look the other way. When it’s a neighbor, not so much.
I’m playing catch-up on the story. When news of Damian’s arrest broke on antisocial media, Chrissy and I were camping on Lake Ontario in upstate New York. Our site was 31 miles from Mexico. I’m not making that up.
Mexico, N.Y., was formed in 1792 from parts of the Town of Whitestown. I am also not making that up. It was founded by invading immigrants, which back then were known as “white settlers.” Immigrants built this country – after taking it from Native Americans.
The Great Lakes Region is a nature lover’s paradise and a pillar of New York tourism. Much of it looks like the North Pocono region where Damian built a new life in hospitality. Businesses near the border fly hybrid flags that sport the stars and stripes and the Canadian maple leaf. Canadians crossing the border to shop, stay or day-trip are crucial to border town economies. During our visit, local newspapers were chock-full of stories about a massive drop-off in trade and travel since our Oaf of Office stupidly and gratuitously insulted our loyal neighbors up north.
Canadians are famously forgiving, but also allergic to hassle. No one is in a hurry to spend money where they’ve been discounted as a people, hybrid flags notwithstanding.
On the last day of our trip, Chrissy and I decided to try out our passports in this new, suddenly dicey era of international travel. We breezed into Canada like beans through a migrating goose. Coming back was easy, too. We’re white, middle-aged and had nothing to declare but a box of maple cookies and a bag of caramel popcorn.
Chrissy worried the ICE agents might want to search our cellphones. The idea made me mad enough to wish they would. There’s a Lake Ontario-sized archive of hilarious anti-Trump stuff on mine.
Damian, 45, was born in Mexico (the one still not paying for Trump’s imaginary border wall). He learned to cook and found his calling in New York, according to past Times-Tribune articles and the reporting of Times-Tribune Staff Writer Jeff Horvath and Borys Krawczeniuk of WVIA News.
Damian and Mayte Vargas opened Leonor’s in September 2019, and built thriving businesses in communities that overwhelmingly voted for Trump. They picked risky soil to plant their flag in, considering ICE had already notified Damian that he was in the country illegally. A DUI arrest by Scranton police in October 2022 doesn’t help Damian’s case, either. The charge apparently evaporated when blood test results failed to materialize, but it still counts as a strike against Damian in his ICE file.
How did the blood test results disappear? I’m working on it. Damian’s family is working with a new lawyer. They blamed past counsel for failing to stay on top of Damian’s immigration status. Maybe those lawyers dropped the ball, but ultimately, it was Damian’s job to play defense.
The legalities will play out over time, hopefully in Damian’s favor. If he is deported, however, Damian’s failure to closely monitor his status and proactively protect it will be partly to blame. Newton was right about actions triggering equal and opposite reactions. Inaction often carries similarly unwelcome consequences.
Whatever Damian did or didn’t do in regard to his immigration status, his accomplishments and contributions to his community and country of choice should matter more. He may be here illegally, but he’s no criminal. Anyone who thinks removing this hard-working, taxpaying, neighbor-employing man from his family, businesses and community makes America safer, fairer or greater is to be pitied. Their puny hearts are as dark as their poisoned minds.
It’s possible one or more such MAGA “patriots” “dropped a dime” on Damian to ICE. If so, I trust karma to settle their accounts. What we put out into the world comes back to us tenfold, at least.
Trump easily won Mexico, N.Y., and its home county of Oswego. He won by huge margins in the three North Pocono communities where Damian owns restaurants. Suddenly, the bills are coming due, and the collateral damage is somehow a surprise to those who co-signed it.
Some of Damian’s supporters no doubt voted for Trump. They voted for his cruel, clumsy ICE crackdown, too. So did anyone who voted for a ridiculous third-party candidate or chose to sit out the most important presidential election of our lifetimes.
Now, a pillar of their community, a committed boyfriend, father, business owner, employer, taxpayer and philanthropist is locked up like a common criminal in a “gray area” his neighbors helped create.
That’s the cold reality, in black and white.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, would gladly take one Damian over a dozen Donald Trumps. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook.