I thought pop rivets too. The common ones are 1/8" diameter in both steel and aluminum plus 3/16" aluminum. There are other sizes. I believe some snow machine treads involve 3/16" steel but that could be outdated information. The man who told me about those said that it took a hydraulically operated tool to set those because of the force needed to crimp the steel.
Perhaps pop rivet the catch through a larger plate that was thicker than the fridge's metal and then also riveted in a couple other places. Say the catch has two holes and two holes are stripped out of the fridge. Make a plate big enough to have four or six holes. Two go through the catch, the plate, and the fridge. The other two or four go through only plate and fridge.
The pop rivets come in different "grip lengths" for thicknesses to be connected.
