The owner of a chain of restaurants called Trump Burger is now facing removal from the US.
Roland Mehrez Beainy supported Donald Trump’s MAGA movement and even donated profits from his politically branded diners towards the president’s election campaign.
But he has now found himself a victim of Trump’s flagship scheme to deport thousands of illegal immigrants.
The 28-year-old was arrested by the president’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on May 16.
Authorities say Beainy has overstayed his visa, having entered the US from Lebanon as a ‘non immigrant visitor’ in 2019 and was supposed to have left the country by February 2024.
A spokesperson for Ice said that it is committed to ‘restoring integrity’ to the immigration system, the rules of which it said applied to all, regardless of’what restaurant you own or political beliefs you might have’.
But Beaizy insists that the allegations about his immigration status are false.
’90 percent of the sh__ they’re saying is not true’, he told the Houston Chronicle.
The entrepreneur launched his first Trump Burger restaurant in Bellville, Texas in 2020 – the same year Trump lost his re-election bid to Joe Biden.
The group has since expanded to locations in Houston and Bay City.
Restaurants boast Trump memorabilia as well as spoofs of the president’s signature quotes such as ‘make burgers great again’.
On the menu are Trump-themed diner items, including Trump Tower burgers, The Big Swiss Deal and Melania Crispy Chicken in a nod to the First Lady.
Beainy expressed hope in 2022 that Trump himself would pay the restaurants a visit, while also revealing he had faced threats that they would be burnt down.
‘We’re hoping that he sees the place’, he told the Houston Chronicle.
A provisional date for Beainy’s immigration hearing has been set for November 18.
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