Chairs sitting empty on a usually busy Friday at a Latina-owned beauty salon. Produce wilting at Mexican supermarkets because customers are afraid to shop for groceries.
Foot traffic disappearing at taco stands and Somali bakeries. Employees afraid to come to work.
Since Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, businesses up and down Lake Street in Minneapolis say they’ve felt a chill, with traffic down as much as 60% in some cases.
“This is like a pandemic nightmare,” said Daniel Hernandez, owner of the Colonial Market chain of grocery stories, including one on East Lake. “But instead of being the whole community, like the whole United States, it’s been just focused on the minority communities.”
Trump’s promise of massive deportations, and the flood of rumors that followed, have hurt businesses across the Twin Cities that largely serve immigrants, and had a spillover effect on Midtown Global Market, Karmel Mall and other shopping centers.
Immigrant workers make up as much as 13% of the labor force in the Twin Cities metro area, according to an analysis by the Vera Institute of 2021 federal data. That’s close to 270,000 workers.
Many spend their money at immigrant-owned establishments, including the mercados, Somali restaurants and food trucks along Lake Street, which supports more than 2,000 small businesses, according to the Lake Street Council.
Many Lake Street businesses are still recovering from the pandemic and the civil unrest following George Floyd’s murder, the council’s director, Allison Sharkey, said.
Minneapolis Council Member Jason Chavez said the issue is hitting the local Latino community hard, but it’s affecting others in his diverse Ninth Ward, which includes sections of Lake Street.
“They feel targeted. And they have been telling me that their business has dropped a lot,” he said.
Workers are staying home
More than 8,700 people have been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since Trump’s return to office, according to Department of Homeland Security figures posted on X.
The agency also reported more than 5,600 deportations from Jan. 20 to Feb. 3.
Hernandez said there hasn’t been a lot of foot traffic in his stores since inauguration.
“The first couple of weeks it was empty. I mean, literally, we have food that got rotten because people did not come over to shop,” he said.
His store near Lake and Hiawatha is a hub for the Latino community. But he said he’s had to cut staff hours to avoid layoffs. Those cuts have a ripple effect, he says.
“They’re consumers, so them not being out is affecting Latino businesses,” Hernandez said. “A lot of restaurants right now are on the verge of closing for good. Even my business, we went down [in sales] 40%.”
Hernandez has posted videos and gone live on Facebook to try to tamp down the rumors. In one of his livestreams, he hosted an immigration attorney to answer community questions. Colonial Market has also begun offering grocery delivery to boost sales.
Valentin Guzman, owner of El Carnalito Car Accessories, has a stall down the street from La Colonial on Lake Street’s Plaza Mexico, a shopping mall featuring dozens of Latino businesses.
Guzman has been in business for 15 years and said he’s never seen the community so scared to leave home. He said he also knows people who have stopped showing up for their jobs.
“It’s not just that it affects us [business owners], people due to fear aren’t going to work, obviously they’re not generating an income, no income means they don’t come out to spend money,” Guzman said.
Guzman is hoping tax season will help boost business, as it has in past years.
Ana Andrade, owner of Eclipse Beauty Salon on Lake Street, said her heart sinks when she walks into the salon and sees stylists sitting in their chairs, waiting for customers, as they were last Friday afternoon.
Andrade said Fridays and weekends are usually the busiest times for her stylists as people finish up the workweek and come in for haircuts and treatments.
Andrade said business has been down 60% since Trump’s inauguration, the biggest decline she’s seen since she opened the shop in 2020.
“Every month we have rent and bills to pay, we might not even have enough for the rent,” Andrade said. “If many of us [businesses] continue like this we might have to close.”
Community fears are the main cause of the decline in business, she said, adding that she’s heard of children scared to go to school for fear of being separated from their parents.
There hasn’t been a confirmed sighting of ICE on Lake Street, but there have been false reports, some including photos of local law enforcement, according to Third Precinct Inspector Jose Gomez, who visited Colonial Market last week to address community concerns.
Gomez said he’s fielded dozens of questions from community members claiming to have spotted ICE in Minneapolis, including photos of his own Black SUV parked outside businesses on Lake Street.
Gomez is the U.S.-born son of immigrants from Jalisco, Mexico. He said he understands the community’s anxiety even as he works to tamp down misinformation.
“I remember when I was a kid, a mailman would come to deliver mail and we’d hide because he had a uniform on,” Gomez said. “I know the fear and I know it’s real and I just want to say here in the city of Minneapolis we don’t collaborate with ICE.”
Other immigrant businesses also affected
Some Somali businesses owners on Lake Street said the rumors of ICE raids are also affecting their traffic.
Nuur Hadi Ahmed, owner of Durdur Bakery and Grocery, said he’s seen a 25% drop in business and some of his employees with work permits have been hesitant to show up.
“They are worried that maybe ICE will come into town and take them forcefully,” Nuur said. “We’ve seen some decline customerwise and employee[s] both.”
“We’re not a threat to anybody,” Nuur said. “We’re only here to survive and chase the American dream.”
Social media rumors of ICE raids have also affected traffic at Karmel Mall, home to more than 100 businesses that serve the East African community.
Farhan Hussein works at a shop selling men’s clothing on the fourth floor of the mall. He said the decline in business has been small but noticeable.
Newer East African arrivals fear their asylum cases may not be processed, Farhan said.
He said he’s gotten calls and texts from concerned community members trying to verify rumors that ICE agents were at the mall.
“I never seen them [ICE], but they are not trusting me,” Farhan said. “They still fear that they may be caught.”
Farhan said for some immigrants, the journey to the United States is long and hard. He said some Somali immigrants had to borrow money to get here and are paying for their immigration cases on top of debts back home.
“The problem is the business is a little bit declining, [and it will continue declining] as long as some of our clients are immigrants,” he said.
A Day Without Immigrants
Latino businesses across the Twin Cities closed for a “Day Without Immigrants” on Feb. 3.
Some, like El Burrito Mercado in West St. Paul opened for limited hours to allow customers to purchase essentials while giving staff some hours.
Hernandez opened his Lake Street Colonial Market to allow undocumented parents to fill out Delegations of Parental Authority, which allow a guardian to care for a child if the parent is arrested or deported.
He is planning a “Day with Latino Businesses” on Feb. 22 to support businesses affected by Trump’s immigration policies. Hernandez said the call is for members outside of the Latino community to show up and help their neighbors.
Sharkey, of the Lake Street Council, echoed that plea.
“If you care about the Lake Street community, please support it by keeping your dollars local. Shopping and dining at small businesses is a powerful way to vote with your dollar,” she said.
