Famed Chef Jose Andres pledged to close every single one of his restaurants in solidarity with the, “A nation without immigrants” protest, but he left most of them open.

Jaleo and Oyamel are the only D.C.-area restaurants that were closed. His busiest restaurants, China Chilcano in Chinatown, as well as the newest restaurant, “Fish,” located in the MGM Casino, remained open. Every location of Beefsteak, Barmini and Minibar were open when contacted by The Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday afternoon.

Although Andres kept the majority of his restaurants open, he pledged to keep his restaurants closed to make a statement about the importance of immigrants in an NPR report Wednesday.

“It was a very easy decision,” Andrés told NPR’s Robert Siegel. “When you have employees that have been with you almost 25 years, and they come to you in an organized way and they tell you, ‘Don’t get upset but Thursday we are not coming to work,’ [the] next thing you ask is, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening?’ So I decided to join them and support them — that’s what we’re doing.”

“We have over 11 million undocumented immigrants in America,” Andrés says. “They are part of the American DNA. They are taking care of our farms, our golf clubs, our wineries, our fishing boats. We need to be giving those 11 million undocumented in America the right to finally belong.”

Andres asserts that he was approached by his workers about not coming into work, and he fully supported the move. Workers at the closed restaurants would be able to work at China Chilcano, a restaurant that was always supposed to remain open, according to the report.

The hostess who answered the phone at China Chilcano reported that several workers took Andres up on the offer, and added that they were doing a great job.

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