Trump Immigration Crackdown Leaves Restaurants Emptier, Workers Scared

LOS ANGELES — Anxiety over the threat of deportations since President Donald Trump took office last month is making for emptier restaurant dining rooms as well as worried workers and employers, the Los Angeles Times recently reported.

Teddy Vazquez of Teddy’s Red Tacos told the newspaper he saw sales drop steeply across his 10 restaurants in Los Angeles and Orange counties after Trump announced actions to crack down on deportations.

“People are afraid to go out,” Vazquez told the Times. “People don’t want to go out because they don’t know what is going to happen with this administration.”

Immigration lawyer Kim Luu-Ng told the newspaper that restaurants make for “super easy targets” and that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are able to enter them legally because they are public businesses.

The restaurant industry employs about 1 million workers without legal status, according to the Times, citing the Center for Migration Studies.

Among those workers is Reyna, a Santa Ana line cook who is unable to legalize her status under current immigration laws, the Times reported, adding that in recent weeks she has stopped going to church or the grocery store.

“I only go to work and come back home,” she told the newspaper.

Read more from the Los Angeles Times.