LA woman recorded calling a taco vendor a “stinky old woman” and threatening to call ICE faces backlash

A Santa Clarita woman who was recorded insulting taco vendors and threatening to call immigration authorities says the backlash has now damaged the business she spent a decade building, while another man says he became an unexpected target after she redirected her business phone number to his.

FOX 11 Los Angeles reporter Gina Silva covered the fallout involving Francesca Ortega, who was captured on video confronting street vendors and saying in Spanish, “Stinky old woman, I’m going to call ICE.”

Silva reported that the argument began over Ortega’s complaints about taco stands operating in the area, but the exchange quickly became more personal and hostile.

Confrontation Goes Viral

In the video, Ortega complained that street vendors were hurting other businesses in the community and referred to the stand as cheap and not appropriate for the area.

She also called the vendors criminals and threatened to contact ICE.

FOX 11 reported that Ortega later said she did not want Santa Clarita to “turn into Mexico.”

“The Valley didn’t used to look like this 20, 30 years ago,” Ortega told Silva. “Look at how LA looks, look at Santa Monica, it’s been getting worse and worse because nobody does anything.”

Those remarks, combined with the recorded confrontation, spread quickly online and drew criticism from people far beyond Southern California.

The moment became larger than a neighborhood dispute almost immediately. Once the video reached social media, Ortega was no longer arguing with a few vendors on one street; she was suddenly facing thousands of strangers responding to what they had seen and heard.

Ortega Says Her Business Was Ruined

Ortega later posted her own video describing the effect the backlash was having on her house-cleaning company, Excellence Cleaning Pros.

She said she had spent roughly 10 years building the business and had previously received strong reviews.

“Now all of my livelihood is ruined, the business that I worked so hard to build for 10 years,” Ortega said.

She added that the business had been flooded with negative reviews and angry messages, describing some of the people targeting her as “insane, horrible Latino people.”

Silva reported that Ortega was receiving calls and messages from people around the country after the original video went viral.

It is not unusual for a viral confrontation to spill into someone’s workplace or business reviews, but this case took an even stranger turn because the calls did not stay with Ortega for long.

Man Says His Number Was Put On Her Business Page

Ricardo Morales told FOX 11 that he had sent Ortega a critical message after seeing the video.

About 40 minutes later, he said, angry phone calls and text messages suddenly began arriving on his phone.

Morales soon learned why.

Ortega confirmed to FOX 11 that she had changed the phone number on her Google business listing to Morales’ number.

When Silva asked why she had done that, Ortega said she was trying to escape the flood of calls directed at her.

“Because they were harassing me,” Ortega said. “They wouldn’t stop calling.”

The result was that Morales began receiving the calls and messages that people thought they were sending to Ortega’s business.

Silva said she discovered the situation herself after calling the number listed on the company’s Google page and reaching Morales instead.

She then arranged to meet him for an interview, and while they spoke, his phone continued ringing and receiving hostile messages.

That detail makes the situation especially unusual. A viral backlash that had already become chaotic was effectively transferred to someone else, turning a man who had sent one critical message into the public contact point for a controversy he did not create.

Morales Says The Calls Kept Coming

Morales told Silva that he was receiving calls from across the United States.

“I’m getting calls from all around the United States,” he said.

He described Ortega’s decision as vindictive and said she should take responsibility for her own actions.

“It’s crazy to think about that somebody can be that extremely vindictive and not want to own up to their actions,” Morales said.

He also criticized the original confrontation itself.

“There’s no reason to be harassing people on the street,” he said.

Some of the callers apparently believed Morales was Ortega, and the messages directed at him included personal criticism and insults.

Silva noted that the phone continued going off throughout their interview, reinforcing how intense the reaction had become.

Ortega Says She Never Intended To Threaten Anyone

Despite threatening to call ICE during the confrontation, Ortega later told FOX 11 that she never intended to threaten or harm the vendors.

She said she became upset after one of the vendors photographed her license plate.

“I didn’t mean to hurt them or anything,” Ortega said. “It was just a confrontation. People say ugly things when they’re upset.”

She also asked for help recovering from the damage to her livelihood.

That explanation adds another layer to the story, because the recorded comments and the later apology sit uneasily beside each other. Ortega described her remarks as something said in anger, while critics have focused on the specific language she chose and the decision to threaten immigration enforcement during the argument.

The video does not show a quiet disagreement that simply got misunderstood online. The words themselves are what drove much of the response.

Permit Question Remains Unclear

Silva also noted that Santa Clarita requires sidewalk vendors to have permits.

FOX 11 had not confirmed whether the specific taco stand involved in the confrontation had the required permit.

By the time of the station’s report, the vendors were no longer operating at the same location that evening.

That unanswered question does not change what was captured on video, but it was part of the original dispute Ortega raised when complaining about street vendors and their effect on nearby businesses.

The larger story, however, quickly moved well beyond permits.

A confrontation over a taco stand turned into a nationwide online backlash, then into a business-review campaign, and finally into a bizarre dispute over a phone number that left another man fielding angry calls meant for Ortega.

Silva’s report showed how quickly a few recorded minutes can reshape a private argument into a public controversy, with consequences that spread far beyond the people who were standing on the sidewalk when it began.