How Trump’s immigration policy is destroying businesses: “People are not stepping outside”

President Donald Trump has made a big deal of cracking down on undocumented immigrants. He and his administration claim that they are an economic burden on the United States but Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids across the nation are showing how much they support local economies.

The presence of ICE agents on streets in cities has had a chilling effect not only on traffic at businesses, but also employees showing up to work, as people stay off the streets to avoid encounters with agents. “It’s killing business,” Mike Moreno, the owner of Moreno’s liquor store and speakeasy bar in Chicago’s Little Village, told CNN.

“People are not stepping outside”

The community where Moreno operates his business is the Windy City’s second busiest commercial corridor and 81% of its population is Hispanic. Business owners told CNN that since “Operation Midway Blitz” kicked off on 8 September, sales have tanked, and they’ve had to temporarily close their stores at times as workers are too scared to come out with ICE agents roaming streets.

“They’re going up and down the streets around in loops to scare us. I never thought in a million years I’d see something like this,” Moreno shared with the news outlet. He says his sales are down 60% since September.

Franchise operator of Los Mangos, Marcela Rodriguez, has also seen sales plummet at her ice cream store, calling the situation “unbelievable,” adding “people are not stepping outside. Kids are not going to school.” She says that sales go up and down depending on how visible ICE agents are in the neighborhood.

While Trump and his administration have said that they would be going after criminals, ordinary men, women, and children just going about their daily business are being swept up in ICE raids across the nation.

Even US citizens have been detained, including almost 20 children. One Alabama man is now suing ICE after he was detained on two separate occasions by immigration agents despite showing them his REAL ID.

Undocumented immigrants are US consumers and taxpayers too

As US consumers, undocumented immigrants spent around $300 billion on goods and services in 2023 reports CNN. Additionally, they put over $90 billion into federal, state and local coffers through the taxes that they paid.

Their reduced spending and contribution to tax revenues not only affects the local economies in which they live but it also has a knock-on effect further afield. It may result in store closures, reduced orders from businesses and could be felt in the real estate market according to Teresa Córdova, the director of the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago.

A study that looked at the effects of the Secure Communities immigration enforcement policy between 2008 and 2014 found that mass deportations also had a knock-on effect of decreased employment and wages of US citizens.

Last year, the American Immigration Council estimated that Trump’s promised immigration policies could shrink US GDP between $1.1 trillion and $1.7 trillion.

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