Washington
Immigration conversations start at the table at this Washington restaurant
Alba Galdamez knows her way around the kitchen. She is the chef at Immigrant Food’s location near the White House and an immigrant from El Salvador. She moved to the U.S. about 20 years ago and has worked many jobs. But cooking won her heart.
“Out of all the jobs I’ve had, the one that fascinated me the most was cooking,” Galdamez said.
Galdamez says that through its menu, Immigrant Food highlights the tapestry of immigrant cultures that make up the United States. Each dish tells a story. And whether Galdamez is cooking flavors from Venezuela or India, she wants everyone to feel welcome.
“When you come here, you’re basically coming home,” she said. “This restaurant is the fusion of all countries in the world.”
At its three Washington locations, the first of which opened in 2019, Immigrant Food advocates for immigrant-related issues, including comprehensive immigration reform.
Immigration is one of the top issues in this U.S. presidential election, according to a Gallup poll released in April.
Republicans are more likely than Democrats and independents to consider immigration the most important issue. In the latest poll, 48% of Republicans, 8% of Democrats, and 25% of independents say immigration is the most important problem facing the country. This is a decrease for Republicans from 57% in February.
A place that feels like home is what Immigrant Food founders Téa Ivanovic and Peter Schechter had in mind while advocating for mostly immigrant-related issues. The restaurant often partners with local nonprofits to provide access to resources such as free legal representation for immigrants.
They also host voter registration drives for new citizens and participate in local community events. They call it “gastroadvocacy.”
“I just thought it was an incredible, such an innovative way to include a social mission into a business model in ways that we had not seen done before,” Ivanovic said.
Ivanovic moved to the U.S. from Belgium as an international student. She played tennis for Virginia Tech and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in international studies. She also worked as a Washington correspondent for Oslobodjenje, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s oldest newspaper in the Western Balkans.
“I wasn’t in the restaurant industry at all. I was a journalist. I worked at a think tank. I worked in financial public relations. And when I met my co-founder, Peter, we started talking about this idea of having a restaurant that has a mission,” she said.
And with a significant number of migrants from around the world coming to seek asylum in the United States, Schechter says the story of immigrants today is not so different from when his family moved to the U.S.
Schechter was born in Rome, Italy. His parents are from Austria and Germany.
“Then I moved to Latin America for about almost 10 years, first to La Paz, Bolivia, and then to Caracas, Venezuela. … I came here to do my last few years of high school. In my family we spoke German, Italian and English mixed up,” Schechter said.
Schechter says it should be easy to combine border security and legal immigration while having a humanitarian vision.
“And we need to come to find a way to renew and modernize our immigration laws, so that we can have the security that America needs as a country. Every country needs security and borders and people to control them, but at the same time, we need to have a humanitarian, efficient immigration law,” he noted.
For Katrin Garcia, Immigrant Food’s assistant general manager at the White House location, the restaurant’s partnerships with local nonprofits gave her access to information that is helping her through the U.S. immigration process. Garcia is originally from Venezuela.
“I came to the U.S. three years ago,” she said.
Between coordinating deliveries, welcoming customers, and taking reservations over the phone, Garcia told VOA that despite her degree in marketing she was making $20 a month in Venezuela. It wasn’t enough to live on.
“So, I take my visa, I take my passport, and I come in here,” Garcia said.
Within six months of her arrival in the U.S., she got a job at Immigrant Food. She considers herself fortunate when she thinks about those who cross the Darién Gap, a treacherous stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama, on their perilous journey to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I’m lucky. I have a good story,” Garcia added.
For now, Garcia is focusing on getting through her immigration process and other “big dreams.”
“Lawyers for asylum are very expensive. So, I need to work hard. … My big dream is working in events. That’s what I want,” she said.
Galdamez, Garcia, Schechter and Ivanovic are all immigrants with different stories, but they say that together at Immigrant Food, they’re creating a new life for themselves, their families, and those around them.
“I mean, it’s fundamentally about coming to seek a better life, coming to seek a better education for your children, greater opportunities, and sometimes it’s also about escaping prosecution and harassment, persecution in their home countries,” Schechter said.
ASHBURN, Va. – The Washington Commanders have released their 2026 Training Camp schedule, with eleven open practices between August 1 and August 19, including five open to all fans and six reserved for season ticket members.
For the fifth straight year, training camp will take place at the team’s football operations headquarters in Ashburn, Virginia.
Open practices for all fans are scheduled for August 1, August 7, August 8, August 18 and August 19.
Season ticket member practices will be held August 3, 4, 5, 10, 11 and 12.
All sessions begin at 8:30 a.m., with gates opening at 7:30 a.m.
Fans can claim free tickets beginning June 23 at 10 a.m. General admission fans may request up to six tickets and one parking pass for a single day of camp. Season ticket members can claim tickets for two member‑exclusive days in addition to one general admission day. All parking will be on site at the BigBear.ai Performance Center and requires a parking pass.
The team plans several themed events throughout camp, including Back Together Weekend on August 1, Military Appreciation Day on August 7 and Kids Day on August 8. Local youth football and community groups will also be hosted throughout the summer.
For more information visit the Washington Commanders online.
The Source: Information in this article comes from the Washington Commanders.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Washington’s National Mall is set to be drained again for repairs after algae and peeling paint appeared just weeks after a US$14.7 million renovation, while President Donald Trump threatened prison time for anyone caught damaging the pool.
The DC Water authority issued a permit to drain the 609-metre rectangular pool, it said on Monday, while the repair company said it would fix the pool as part of its warranty.
Peeling paint and algae growth have been visible in the pool since soon after Trump declared the renovation project complete on June 6. Critics have raised concerns about the no-bid contract to recoat the pool before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations next month, as well as for the ducks that use its water. Workers from the National Park Service earlier this week poured hydrogen peroxide into the pool to combat the algae.
Trump, without evidence, has blamed vandals for the state of the landmark. On Monday, he echoed a weekend threat by US Attorney Jeanine Pirro to prosecute people accused of attempting to destroy the pool.
“Please remember that there is a 10-year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things – Which will be fully enforced!” Trump earlier wrote in a social media post. Destruction of federal property can carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
It was not immediately apparent what criminal or civil violation someone might commit reaching into the pool.
Half a year can be an eternity in the NBA.
Seven months ago, as Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks headed toward a divorce, Young’s value within the league had never been lower.
On Monday, Young and the Washington Wizards agreed to a new four-year, maximum-salary contract worth approximately $212.9 million, according to a league source. The fourth year of the contract will be a player option.
Young’s first-year salary is estimated to be $49.5 million, which amounts to 30 percent of the projected 2026-27 salary cap of $165 million. During the 2029-30 season, the final year of the contract, Young will earn $56.9 million if he accepts his player option.
Wizards officials would love it, of course, if Young can return to the form that made him an All-NBA Third Team player during the 2021-22 season. But at the very least, they place significant value on knowing that their team’s offense will start with him on most occasions, and that he will be around to shoulder a large portion of the scoring load while the team’s young players, who comprise the team’s long-term nucleus, continue to improve.
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That Young will receive such large annual salaries no doubt will come as a shock to many observers, especially after Young’s reputation took a beating toward the end of his Hawks tenure. The NBA rumor mill, which is often inaccurate, predicted months ago that any new deal between Young and the Wizards would average no more than $40 million annually.
But in recent weeks, Wizards decision-makers became convinced that, with the NBA’s new anti-tanking measures compelling more teams to compete, Young was going to command maximum-salary contract offers from other franchises through either a straight free-agent signing or a sign-and-trade proposal.
Because the Wizards hold Young’s Bird rights, the Wizards had the latitude to offer Young up to a five-year contract with 8 percent annual raises. But Young’s new four-year deal instead features 5 percent year-over-year raises, the maximum year-over-year raise that any other team could have offered Young as a non-Bird free agent. For Washington, the difference between signing Young to 5 percent raises instead of 8 percent raises will amount to a total savings of $8.9 million over four years.
Wizards officials are not concerned that Young’s new contract will age poorly and prevent them from making future moves to improve their roster. Anthony Davis, who is due to earn $58.5 million in 2026-27, and Young are now Washington’s highest-paid players on its young roster, but the person with the third-largest salary is big man Alex Sarr, who will be paid the relatively small sum of $12.3 million this season. At the earliest, the Wizards do not expect to approach the dreaded first apron until the 2028-29 season, when any new rookie-scale contract extensions for Sarr and Kyshawn George would go into effect.
Plus, Wizards officials reason that Young, who will turn 28 years old in September, will remain in his prime years through the end of his contract. The onerous large contracts that age the worst — potentially Jimmy Butler’s current deal with the Golden State Warriors and Paul George’s current deal with the Philadelphia 76ers, for example — tend to be contracts in which players already are past their primes at the start of their contracts.
Young is by no means a perfect player. Undersized at 6 feet 1, and undeniably more focused on the offensive end of the floor, he tended to be a significant defensive liability throughout his Hawks tenure. That trend could worsen if he begins to lose a step (or two) over the next several years.
At the same time, though, Wizards officials have always known that their lineups would have to feature enough positional size and enough defensive-oriented players to compensate for Young’s shortcomings — in the same way that the defensive liabilities of LaMelo Ball, Jalen Brunson, Luka Dončić, Kyrie Irving and Donovan Mitchell (and others) are compensated for by their respective teams.
The Wizards’ decision-makers believe Davis and youngsters Bilal Coulibaly, Davis, George, Sarr and whomever they pick first overall in Tuesday night’s draft will develop into strong enough defenders to help Young.
Young appeared in only five games for Washington last season after his trade from Atlanta for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert. That was a large enough sample size to demonstrate how his gravity and his passing skill could create open shots for his new teammates. George, Tre Johnson and others should receive more wide-open 3-point looks when Young directs the offense, and Sarr and Davis should feast on lobs from Young in pick-and-rolls.
Only 16 players in NBA history have averaged at least 20 points and 10 assists per game in the same season, according to Basketball Reference. Young is one of those players, and he has done it three times, during the 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. The only other players who have had at least three seasons of at least 20 points and 10 assists per game are James Harden (four times), Kevin Johnson (three times), Magic Johnson (three times), Oscar Robertson (five times), Isiah Thomas (four times) and Russell Westbrook (five times).
The franchise expects Young to make Washington’s offense more efficient and, because opponents will have to take the ball out of their net more often, give Washington’s defense more opportunities to set itself.
July 6 is the first day when new free-agent contracts may be signed and made official.
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