Immigrant Food restaurant DC right wing lobbyists
HONDURAS, LOBBYING, NON-PROFIT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEXJanuary 30, 2020
Anti-Trump-themed Immigrant Food restaurant owned by lobbyists for
right-wing Latin American coup leaders who fueled migration crisis
The shocking story of how wealthy Latin American regime-change hitmen
exploited immigrant rights, international food, and a pliant DC media to
rebrand as social justice heroes in the age of Trump.
By Alex Rubinstein
Immigrant Food, a new restaurant located just blocks from the White House,
has been the recipient of glowing media coverage that celebrates it as a
defiantly pro-immigrant statement of resistance against President Donald
Trump. Left unmentioned in all the puffery has been the uncomfortable fact
that the restaurants co-owner, Peter Schechter, earned a fortune as a
registered lobbyist for right-wing Latin American politicians including the
Honduran junta that is responsible for fueling one of the worst migration
crises in modern times.
Schechters former lobbying firm is now representing another brutally
repressive right-wing junta, this time in Bolivia, where a coup in November
2019 forced the countrys elected president, Evo Morales, into exile.
His business partner at the restaurant Immigrant Food, Ezequiel Vasquez-Ger,
is also a regime-change operative who has dedicated much of his career to
undermining socialist movements in Latin America on behalf of multinational
corporate clients.
Whats more, Schechter has owned a winery in Israel located directly atop a
historically Palestinian village ethnically cleansed by the Israeli army in
1948. The residents of the former village were displaced and turned into
refugees.
The Immigrant Food PR campaign
Following its launch in November 2019, reporters popped in and out of
Immigrant Food to peruse the gleaming new establishment. The restaurant was
a uniquely conceived fast-casual downtown DC eatery catering to the
lunchtime crowd of transplants hoping to rise through the ranks in the
nations capital.
The glowing coverage has not abated. The Washington Post has published three
pieces on the restaurant, and Now This promoted it as well, racking up more
than 100,000 views in several days with a viral video hit.
Immigrant Food is co-owned by celebrated Venezuelan chef Enrique Limardo,
Argentine entrepreneur Ezequiel Vázquez-Ger, and a powerful public relations
baron named Peter Schechter, who lists himself as a a long-time investor in
[celebrity chef] Jose Andres restaurant group.
Restaurant critics and local reporters have hailed Immigrant Food for its
cause-casual approach to cuisine and the feel-food advocacy behind it. The
establishment describes itself as a for-profit social enterprise that is
working closely with five NGOs that support local immigrants. As the DCist
reported after speaking with the owners, They envision their lunch spot as
a place for advocacy and community partnerships with immigration NGOs as
well as dishes that crisscross cultures.
According to the Washington Post, the restaurants owners reject such
labels as an anti-Trump organization and deny accusations that the launch
is a one-time initiative to take advantage of the political moment.
But it is hard to conceive of a restaurant more deliberately tailored to the
sensibility of the so-called resistance that mobilized after the election
of President Donald Trump. The establishment has it all, from multicultural
fare and aesthetics, to a special loft where young NGO workers can meet, to
progressive messaging advocating safe spaces for immigrants and those that
support them.
But much like the Democratic Party and resistance it spawned, Immigrant
Foods has a seamy side lurking behind the rainbow veneer of social justice
concern. Its co-owner, Peter Schechter, has earned a fortune as a lobbyist
for repressive right-wing Latin American leaders who have partnered with
Washington to ravage their countries most vulnerable populations and
transform millions of them into migrants thus fueling the crisis that
Immigrant Food has capitalized on.
The true story of Immigrant Food is anything but the fuzzy feel-good
narrative spun out in corporate media. In reality, it is the tale of a pair
of wealthy regime-change hitmen manipulating pliant reporters to rebrand
themselves as social justice heroes in the age of Trump, while untold
millions of Latin Americans bear the brunt of their clients neoliberal
rule.
Inside an exhibition of gastro-advocacy
When this reporter visited Immigrant Food in November 2019, Schechter, the
self-proclaimed intellectual author and financier behind its brand, was
not present. Nor was his business partner, Vazquez-Ger.
A panel on the overhead menu above the counter was dedicated to NGOs,
offering to help facilitate donations and direct potential volunteers to
their offices. This section was dubbed the engagement menu. On its
website, Immigrant Food describes its partnership with immigrant rights
NGOs as gastroadvocacy.
Immigrant Food DC activism volunteer
Every level of the dining experience was intentional, aimed at reinforcing
the importance of immigrants to US society. Schechter told the DCist that
options for seating that are meant to mirror how a variety of cultures
traditionally eat
low tables for sitting cross-legged, high-top tables,
benches for more communal meals.
The menu contains fusion dishes with ingredients from across the world. A
wall-size map offers new customers the perfect background for an Instagram
selfie. The restaurant even offers visitors a chance to have their selfies
custom-framed with a message that reads, Were all immigrants.
One thing the menu did not appear designed for, however, are working-class
immigrants in the District, who often work multiple jobs in order to send
remittances home. The two cheapest meals on the menu were $12.
Immigrant Food DC menu
During a visit to the restaurant on November 22, the cashier told this
reporter that the place has been busy since it opened on the November 12 to
media, family, and friends. She said it was doing well, and alluded to the
peak hour lunchtime crowds as a major source of revenue.
Schechters success in restaurant investments was the subject of a 2003 New
York Times article entitled, How to spot a hot investment: Putting your
money where your mouth is. Schechter had struck gold with future celebrity
chef Jose Andres and a restaurant called Jaleo. The Times noted that his
investment in the new hot spot generated payments add[ing] up to an annual
rate of return of close to 40 percent something almost unheard of in the
restaurant industry.
Alongside two other investors at the time, Schechter was at the core of the
soon-to-be television personalitys inner circle. He invested $100,000 in
another one of Andres ventures in DC, helping make the chef a household
name among upscale denizens of the nations capital.
Andres burnished his celebrity status when he pulled out of a contract with
the Trump Organization in protest of the then-candidate Donald Trumps
comments about murderers and rapists coming into the United States from
Mexico. These days, when hes not innovating at the ThinkFoodLab in DC or
minding one of his restaurants, the celebrity chef can be found on Twitter
racking up retweets for calling out Trump.
When a DC ballot initiative threatened Andres bottom line, however, he
lined up with a consultancy firm that worked for Donald Trump to kill it.
The proposal would have incrementally raised the minimum wage for tipped
workers in the District to $15 by the year 2025, prompting outrage by
restaurant owners who feared paying their workers more would cut into their
profits. Andres and ThinkFoodGroup repeatedly spoke out against the living
wage initiative.
Earlier this year, Andres was sued for wage theft at a restaurant in New
York. The chef announced on Twitter that a software glitch was responsible
for the systematic issue of employees failing to receive a minimum wage,
and promised to pay them back.
However, one former employee of a ThinkFoodGroup restaurant told The
Grayzone that they personally witnessed wage theft while working there,
among other problems endemic to the restaurant industry such as poor
communication, persistent cuts to hours, false promises of a promotion, and
management sleeping with low-level staff.
While Schechters support for Andres earns ink in the nations most
influential papers, he has managed to keep his business with right-wing coup
leaders south of the border almost entirely below the medias radar.
Peter Schechter Immigrant Food gastroadvocacy
Corporate regime-change hitmen rebrand as social justice activists
In local lifestyle publications DCist and the Washingtonian, Immigrant Food
co-owner Peter Schechter was referred to merely as a global affairs
specialist. According to CNN, he is a seasoned political consultant and
veteran of Washingtons think tank scene.
These outlets and many others gave Schechter uncritical leeway to bloviate
about immigrants and his view of American values. The Washington Post didnt
bother saying anything about his professional background until the bottom of
the story, where it characterizes his career as almost read[ing] like a
prelude to Immigrant Food.
At this moment, in which immigration is such a controversial and divisive
issue in our country, I keep thinking of my parents, he told DCist. They
walked off the boat with nothing. We believe celebrating immigration is
something that is profoundly American.
If this seems like a slick operation, thats probably because the person
telling Immigrant Foods story has spent his professional life spinning the
media. The glaring omission by reporters of Schechters lobbying for
right-wing Latin American politicians is, in fact, a testament to his public
relations skills, as well as US medias subservience to power.
Immigrant Food co-owner Ezequiel Vázquez-Ger has earned a living in the same
field as Schechter. His bio on LinkedIn boasts that, Until 2017, Ezequiel
lead his own Public Affairs firm, focusing in Latin America. He represented
a wide range of clients from the U.S. and Latin America. Clients ranged from
big media conglomerates to human rights defenders.
In 2013, The Grayzone editor-in-chief Max Blumenthal exposed Vazquez-Ger as
a regime-change hitman determined to topple the leftist government of
Ecuadors elected President Rafael Correa.
At the time, Vazquez-Ger worked for the lobbying firm of Otto Reich, a Cuban
exile Iran-Contra figure who also served as the assistant secretary of state
for western hemisphere affairs under the second Bush administration.
Together, they represented corporate clients like Lockheed Martin, Exxon
Mobil, and Bacardi International, the rum company whose lawyers drafted much
of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act restricting vital medicines to Cuba. (We
should rejoice, Reich declared after learning of the successful military
coup in Honduras in 2009.)
Before he was hired by Reich, Vazquez-Ger was a Latin American fellow at the
Atlas Economic Research Foundation, a corporate-funded libertarian think
tank that promotes climate change denialism and sweeping deregulation
policies.
Foreign Policy Otto Reich Ezequiel Vazquez Ger Ecuador immigration
One of the many hit jobs Ezequiel Vasquez-Ger churned out in the service of
right-wing clients in Latin America
Vazquez-Gers bio is no less disturbing than that of his business partner,
Schechter.
In 1993, Schechter helped found the PR firm Chlopak, Leondard, Schechter &
Associates, which has since rebranded as CLS Strategies. Quickly, the firm
became among the top influence brokers in Washington.
While Schechter is no longer with CLS, the firm continues to conduct work on
behalf of repressive clients. On December 11, CLS filed a FARA form with the
Department of Justice stating its intention to work for the unelected coup
government of Bolivia, which has granted impunity to the armed forces as it
cracks down on the countrys indigenous majority.
For a total of $90,000, CLS agreed to provide strategic communications
counsel to the far-right unelected government of Jeanine Anez on electoral
and other matters. This includes creating and distributing communications
materials, interfacing with the media, and providing communications
services, the filing states.
CLS Strategies Bolivia coup lobbying
CLS Strategies contract with Bolivias unelected coup government
While at CLS, Schechter counseled international financial institutions such
as the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, and corporate clients
like Hunt Oil, whom CLS Strategies has helped assist with its Camisea gas
project in Peru, a controversial and notoriously leaky oil project fought
tooth-and-nail by indigenous communities.
Schechter has also worked with a dizzying array of US-aligned governments,
including those of Peru, Colombia, Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Kenya, Spain,
Georgia, Portugal, Brazil, and Serbia.
At least six Latin American presidents have also worked with Schechter,
including Mexicos notorious former President Enrique Peña Nieto. Peña Nieto
was a neoliberal pet project who moved to privatize the state oil company,
attempted to privatize his countrys schools, presided over a cover-up of
the notorious Ayotzinapa massacre of 43 students in rural Guerrero state,
and was even accused of taking a $100 million bribe from drug kingpin El
Chapo.
Schecter also represented the right-wing Colombian demagogue Alvaro Uribe.
As The Grayzone reported, Uribe was placed on a 1991 US Drug Enforcement
Agency list of important Colombian narco-traffickers, in part due to his
role in helping drug lord Pablo Escobars obtain licenses for landing strips
in the country. As president, Uribe ordered sprayed by military forces of
toxic chemicals across the Colombian countryside, poisoning the crops of
impoverished farmers and displacing millions.
Uribes military also engaged in systematic massacres of his leftist
adversaries, culminating the so-called false positives scandal in 2008.
The incident began when army officers lured 22 rural laborers to a far-away
location, massacred them, and then dressed them in uniforms of the leftist
FARC guerrillas.
In 2009, Schechter snapped up a contract with the Honduran former interim
Roberto Micheletti, just a few months after a US-backed coup detat ousted
the countrys elected president, Manuel Zelaya, amid a process of reform,
including the establishment of a minimum wage.
Chlopak Leonard Schechter CLS Strategies Honduras coup
CLS Strategies contract with the unelected Honduran coup government of
Roberto Micheletti
When pro-immigrant means legitimizing conditions that force people to
become them
In the poverty-stricken Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, the destructive
legacy of Micheletti and the coup he presided over is still present.
Graffiti calling out police brutality against anti-coup protesters is
visible on walls around the city. And the skyrocketing poverty that has
swept the country as a direct result of the staggering corruption and
neoliberal policies of successive right-wing governments is everywhere to
see.
Today, Honduras is controlled by an heir to Michelettis coup named Juan
Orlando Hernandez. For over a year, Hernandez, or JOH as he is popularly
known, has fought to contain a nationwide rebellion that has seen citizens
set fire to the US embassy while demanding his ouster.
The Honduran presidents brother, Tony Hernandez, was arrested in Miami and
convicted in a federal US court for conspiring to import cocaine into the
United States. In his indictment, President Hernandez was named as a
co-conspirator. In the past weeks, key witnesses who helped secure the
conviction of Tony Hernandez have been brutally murdered.
These conditions have made life unbearable for the ranks of the poor across
Honduras. Some have stayed to fight, but many more traveled north in a
tragic mass exodus that has included highly publicized caravans of desperate
migrants marching to the US-Mexico border.
Honduras Solidarity
@hondurassol
The second & largest group of the #migrantcaravan left this morning on foot.
Some say the 2020 caravan bigger than the first caravan, involving over
10,000 people but hard to get an estimate. #Honduras
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8:44 AM - Jan 15, 2020
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Schechter, according to a document filed with the Department of Justice in
accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act, was contracted by
Micheletti for the purpose of Rendering the Services in the Field of Public
Relations specializing in Management of Political Crisis. The filing is
dated September 18. This was just 10 days prior to Michelettis public
request for forgiveness from the Honduran people after his security forces
cracked down on protests and shut down media outlets.
The objective of the contract was implementing a strategic communications
plan to achieve a better positioning of the Government before the
international public opinion, pursuing, at all times, higher levels of
coordination and dissemination of objective messages about the activity of
the Government headed by the President Roberto Micheletti.
It also outlined strategic goals including the training of government
spokespeople, media outreach and analysis, and a persuasion campaign
effective at an international level, but also targeting both bodies of the
US Congress, the UN, and the Central American Integration System.
For these kinds of services, Schechters firm was paid more than $292,000 by
the interim government, according to the DOJ filing.
Schechter has also worked with Venezuelan presidential hopeful and
businessman Henrique Capriles, an opposition figure hailing from Venezuelas
right-wing oligarchy. Capriles got his start in politics alongside the
countrys most famous coup leader, Leopold Lopez, joining an
ultra-nationalist group called Tradition, Family, and Property. In an
interview with The Nation, Venezuelan writer Luis Britto García recalled how
the group used to stand out on street corners of urban neighborhoods with
large Superman-style red capes, berets, things like that.
Capriles and Lopez would go on to form the right-wing Primero Justicia party
together. In 2002, they were at the forefront of the coup that briefly
ousted Venezuelas popular President Hugo Chavez, and have participated in a
long string of destabilization activities since, climaxing with Lopezs
badly bungled coup attempt in April 2019.
Schechters ties to Venezuela dont end there. Besides spending some of his
youth in the country, he was a founding director of the Atlantic Councils
Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and listed as senior vice president for
strategic initiatives at the think tank.
With funding from Western governments, NATO, Gulf monarchies, the arms
industry and major petrochemical companies, the Atlantic Council offers an
array of pay-for-play arrangements that marry policy prescriptions with the
priorities of big donors. Naturally, this think tank functioned as major
platform for marketing last years US-backed coup attempt in Venezuela to
official Washington and the media.
Peter Schechter (L) at a 2017 Atlantic Council forum with Inter-American
Development Bank President Luis Albert Moreno and Ben Powell (R), founder
and CEO of Agora Partnerships
Schechter publishes neocon pulp novel and grows wine in Israel
Besides working on behalf of some of the most corrupt, repressive
politicians in recent Latin American history, Peter Schechter is the author
of a 2006 pulp fiction novel that appears to hype up the same xenophobic
hysteria that Trump and other nativists have exploited.
Entitled Point of Entry, Schechters book weaves a paranoid narrative
about drug cartels smuggling materials for weapons of mass destruction into
the United States through Mexico on behalf of the Syrian government.
The fantastical plot is described as follows by the Washington Post:
The United States is still bogged down in Iraq, but the new menace is
Syria, which harbors terrorists and seeks nuclear weapons. [President]
Stockman is considering military action; the Syrians, learning this, plan to
smuggle 30 pounds of enriched uranium into the United States, where it can
be used to discourage further American mischief in the Middle East
The
Syrian terrorists, facing the challenge of smuggling 30 pounds of uranium
into the United States at a time of heightened border security, devise a
fiendish scheme: They will call on Colombian drug lords who smuggle huge
amounts of contraband in every day.
It is a tale that seems perfectly designed to titillate Never Trump
neoconservatives and pro-Trump nativists alike.
Schechters interest in the Middle East was not limited to Syria
scaremongering. He has also been the co-proprietor of a boutique winery in
Israel located on a cooperative farm. The winery is called Agur, named for
the farm and village on which it was founded in 1999. Its co-founder, Shuki
Yashuv, has touted the product he sells as Zionism in a bottle.
Back on July 23, 1948, a military assault by the Israeli army drove most of
the Palestinian inhabitants of Ajjur off their ancestral land. By October,
the Israeli army had totally occupied the town. It was ultimately razed, its
residents were driven into exile, and was renamed Agur. Jewish colonists
from Turkey and Yemen were soon trucked in to the village and settled there
to prevent the Palestinian refugees from returning.
Institute for Palestine Studies
@PalStudies
· Apr 16, 2018
Replying to @PalStudies
Dayr Yasin was the site of the bloodiest atrocity of the #Nakba. On 9 April
1948, Zionist militias, namely the Irgun and Stern Gang, aided by the
Zionist High Command, carried out the massacre of 107 villagers.
Institute for Palestine Studies
@PalStudies
This village house, photographed in June 1987, is one of three houses that
remained in the village of Ajjur after it was occupied and depopulated by
Zionist forces in 1948. 'Ajjur was one of 16 villages that were depopulated
in the District of #Hebron.
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1:51 PM - Apr 30, 2018
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Contacted by The Grayzone for comment on Shechter and Vazquez-Gers sordid
history of lobbying for right-wing putchists and repressive leaders,
Immigrant Food replied by email with a piece of corporate boilerplate signed
by a company spokesperson calling themself Tea. It read:
Over centuries, immigrants have come to America for varied reasons, and
they bring cultural diversity and a strong work ethic. Immigrant Food
celebrates the contributions of Americas immigrants through the fusion of
immigrant gastronomies. At a time of deep national division, when somehow
its become normal to disparage immigrants, Immigrant Foods mission reminds
all Americans of the centuries of contributions and vibrancy immigrants have
brought and will continue to bring to this country.
For a couple of upper-class regime-change hitmen who have spent decades
shilling for corporate clients and coup leaders, Immigrant Food is the
perfect greenwashing tool. Behind its rainbow veneer, they are serving up
bowls of fusion fare to hard-working yuppies and loads of corporate spin to
reporters.
Alex Rubinstein
Alexander Rubinstein
