Bay Area restaurant owners are joining the national debate about immigration policy.

President Trump’s hard-line stance on the issue has sparked the Sanctuary Restaurants Movement, which began in early January and now counts hundreds of restaurants across the country. The Bay Area is home to about two dozen participating restaurants, including Alfred’s Steakhouse in San Francisco, Cancun Sabor Mexicano in Berkeley and Flea Street Cafe in Menlo Park.

Largely symbolic in nature, the collaboration is led by the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a worker advocacy group. It promotes safe, tolerant spaces for restaurant workers, employers and customers. While the sanctuary restaurant label doesn’t protect immigrants from law enforcement, the classification does spur business owners to educate themselves and their staff about how to handle federal officials during possible raids.

Another national protest — dubbed “A Day Without Immigrants” — took place Thursday, when foreign-born workers and students stayed home to demonstrate their importance to the country’s workforce and way of life; several dozen Bay Area restaurants closed for the day in solidarity.

Nationally, the restaurant industry relies heavily on immigrant labor. Restaurants employed 2.3 million foreign-born workers, more than 8 percent of the foreign-born workers in the country, according to 2015 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Of foreign-born workers, 7.1 percent have jobs as food preparers or servers, compared with 5.1 percent of U.S.-born workers, according to data from the 2015 census. The data also show that 27 percent of California’s entire population was foreign born — twice the national percentage.

“On an emotional level, it disturbs me that we’ve gotten to a place where we have to actually put signs up letting people know that everyone is welcome,” said Preeti Mistry, chef-owner of Oakland’s Juhu Beach Club. “There was a time when this was just understood.”

The sanctuary restaurant movement gained momentum across the country as Trump’s controversial immigration ban was enacted (and then halted by a federal appeals court). More recently, reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids have put the restaurant industry on high alert.

Mistry, a first-generation immigrant, was one of the first chefs in Oakland to register her business as a place with zero-tolerance policies toward racism, sexism and xenophobia. In her Telegraph Avenue restaurant is a sign that reads “Welcome all: shapes, sizes, colors, sexes, languages, cultures, beliefs, ages, preferences, statuses, faiths. You are home.”

As of Feb. 21, 300 restaurants across the country were signed up to be sanctuary restaurants, according to Tim Rusch of Restaurant Opportunities Center United.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security expanded the scope of its deportation efforts against people in the country illegally. Newly issued department memos call for federal agents to deport people who have been convicted of any criminal offense (the Obama administration had mostly focused on serious offenses).

Back to Gallery Bay Area restaurants register as sanctuary businesses 8 1 of 8 Photo: Mason Trinca, Special to The Chronicle 2 of 8 Photo: Mason Trinca, Special to The Chronicle 3 of 8 Photo: Mason Trinca, Special to The Chronicle 4 of 8 Photo: Mason Trinca, Special to The Chronicle 5 of 8 Photo: Mason Trinca, Special to The Chronicle 6 of 8 Photo: Mason Trinca, Special to The Chronicle 7 of 8 Photo: Mason Trinca, Special to The Chronicle 8 of 8 Photo: Mason Trinca, Special to The Chronicle















The department also plans to hire 5,000 new Border Patrol agents and 500 air and marine officers.

“We were worried about the treatment of immigrants, and already a few weeks into the administration we see what’s happening. I have no doubt it could get worse,” Amy Brown, co-owner of San Francisco’s Marla Bakery, said last week. Brown was one of San Francisco’s early registrants, along with chef Daniel Patterson, whose name is tied to seven businesses on the sanctuary status list.

Bicycle Banh Mi is a Vietnamese American, LGBT and women-owned small business near Levi’s Plaza in San Francisco. Owner Jess Nguyen said she registered the restaurant as a sanctuary on Jan. 29 because she is “fighting for progress in areas which Trump is targeting.”

“Reading the news about Trump’s immigration policies and executive order was a big catalyst,” Nguyen said. “It hit close to home.

“I thought about my parents, who escaped Vietnam for the chance of a better life here. I thought about the food and restaurant community, our shared kitchen and our staff members. We’ve all exchanged stories of what our families had to sacrifice in order to be living in America.”

Berkeley’s 1951 Coffee isn’t on the official sanctuary restaurant list, but the month-old cafe operates like one, employing a staff of refugees, asylum seekers and special immigration visa holders. It works to teach its multicultural staff, all of whom are new to the country, how to create successful lives for themselves.

Co-founder Doug Hewitt said he is glad to see so many restaurants pushing for social change.

“Restaurants, and in our case, cafes, occupy an important place in society,” Hewitt said. “They are one of the few places in which our public and personal lives merge together. We gather with business partners or friends. We dine with family or teammates. But all too often the workers are a backdrop to the food and beverage.”

While the number of sanctuary restaurants in the Bay Area continues to grow, Mistry said she noticed that some businesses avoid the political fray.

“Not everyone is going to have the same political views. I get that,” Mistry said.

Ultimately, signing up for the movement, no matter how symbolic it might be, is a stance she believes in, she said: “It’s all about showing up and making your voice heard.”

Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JustMrPhillips