As thousands of demonstrators gathered at airports to protest Donald Trump’s travel ban, chefs across America gathered in their kitchens and dining rooms, alone and with staff, to strategize about what they could do to fight it.

For many chefs and restaurant owners, the executive order is simply the latest in a sustained attack against their workforce and livelihood. It began in earnest with Trump’s assertion, last June, that Mexicans were drug dealers and rapists – although he did add that “some were good people”.

But in the restaurant industry, immigrants aren’t just good people. They are necessary people. According to Saru Jayaraman, director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-director of ROC United, an advocacy group for restaurant workers, the industry is the largest employer of immigrants in the country and the second-largest private sector employer overall. And it runs on immigrant labor, both documented and undocumented.

Furious Trump says judge who defied him has put US 'in peril' Read more

Of the 12 million employed in the restaurant industry, about 70% are foreign-born – this was based on a survey of restaurants in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles – and 1.3m are undocumented immigrants. They are dishwashers, line cooks, servers, bussers, chefs, sous chefs, bartenders, porters. Outside of the restaurants themselves, immigrants are farmers and truck drivers and field workers.

Immigrants, too, are parents and grandparents to chefs, the hands that made the food that fed an incipient passion. “My restaurant was inspired by an immigrant and made possible by another,” says Francis Cretarola of Philadelphia’s Le Virtu, whose grandfather emigrated from Italy and inspired his Abruzzo-focused menu and whose Chinese mother-in-law provided the capital to open it. Cretarola’s story is common.

Of Bon Appetit’s top 10 restaurants in the United States, at least five are either owned or co-owned by first-generation immigrants. Eight serve hyphenated cuisine, from Anglo-American to Italian-American to Filipino-American and one, South Philly Barbacoa, is co-owned and run by Cristina Martinez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, and her husband, Ben Miller. Without immigrants, not only would our larders would be impoverished, but our culinary imagination would be stale.

So when Trump assumed office and yanked the national wheel hard to the right, chefs acted quickly. “The first thing I did after the election,” says Cretarola, “was to gather our staff – who are mostly from Puebla, Mexico – and let them know we are a family, that we have their backs.” Then he got to work. When the ban was announced, Cretarola began planning a dinner to raise money for a charity called the Popular Alliance for Undocumented Workers Rights (PAUWR), an organization founded by South Philly Barbacoa’s Martinez and Miller, through a series of dinners called Sanctuary Suppers. The next one, on 15 March, features the Italian-American food from Le Virtu with Pueblan dishes prepared by its sous chef, Poli Sanchez. Martinez and Miller, for their part, are rolling out their #Right2Work dinners across the country.

In Indianapolis, when news of the ban hit, Martha Hoover, who runs 11 popular restaurants, made a large contribution to the Immigrant Welcome Center. In many ways, unlike her colleagues on the more blue coasts, Hoover is a battle-hardened veteran. WhenMike Pence was governor of the state, he attempted the passage of various anti-LGBT legislation with the alternative-fact title the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Hoover and her peers stood up then, using their restaurants for sit-ins and hosting fundraising dinners, and they are standing up now. “Here’s the thing about restaurants,” she explains. “We have a lot of people as employees who might live in the margins of society, whether they’re immigrants or making below minimum wage. It’s our opportunity to show by our actions to show we are a welcoming and inviting place for all.”

Chefs, says Katherine Miller, president of the Chef Action Network, are uniquely suited to make a difference. “Restaurants have always been gathering spaces for the community,” she said, “so chefs have the ability to make a space at the table for everyone.” That’s the idea behind a new initiative called Sanctuary Restaurants, organized by ROC United and Presente.com.

“It’s not a legal designation,” explains Jayaraman, “but it makes the statement that the restaurant is a safe space for all vulnerable populations.” (ROC United offers legal rapid-response assistance through another program.) Of the 200 restaurants participating in the program, many are in New York City, itself an avowed sanctuary city. The response, says Ken Friedman, whose restaurants such as the Breslin, the Spotted Pig and Salvation Taco display the “Sanctuary City” placards prominently, has been overwhelmingly positive.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ben Hall, owner of the Russell Street Deli, says ‘it’s been a shitshow’ since he was featured in an Associated Press story. Photograph: Paul Sancya/AP

But elsewhere, in the heartland that is the America that voted for Trump, averring that the US is richer for its immigrants has real business consequences. Ben Hall runs Detroit’s Russell Street Deli. An early participant in the Sanctuary Restaurant program, he has spent the better part of two weeks responding to intensely negative blowback on Yelp and other fora. After being featured in an early Associated Press story, Hall says, “It’s been a shitshow.” Yet he’s never wavered in his commitment. “I grew up Catholic,” he said, “where ‘harboring the harborless’ is an act of corporal mercy. This isn’t a business decision. It’s a moral and ethical one.” Though Hall admits it is difficult to discuss these issues in the media or online, he says: “It has forced me and really allowed me to engage with our customers in a one-to-one way on the issue.”

The day I became an American: 'Proud, grateful and hopeful' Read more

Other chefs are still figuring out how to respond. Tom Colicchio, for instance, who is known both as the host of Bravo’s Top Chef and as the restaurateur behind Craft, says he keeps politics out of the workplace. “I’m responding to this as a citizen first,” he says, “not as a chef.” Though he is very active on Twitter, and behind-the-scenes with the Food Policy Action not-for-profit group, you won’t find any pièces de résistance on his menus. “It doesn’t have to be everywhere,” he says, of oft-divisive issues.

On the other hand, David Chang, another celebrity chef, of Momofuku fame, is considering adding Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni and Iranian items to his menus. “I am frustrated and furious about what is happening,” he says, “and I’m frustrated with myself that I didn’t know about these cuisines either.” But he speaks for many chefs – especially celebrity chefs – when he says he doesn’t want to be seen as self-serving or somehow profiting from the activism. “I’m usually the loudest person in the room,” he says, “but I’m trying to be respectful because this is so serious an issue.”