This article has been published jointly with , A non -profit organization dedicated to information, organization and financing of quality news and informative rigor focused on the border between the United States and Mexico.
In the Hector’s Mariscos restaurant, in this city with a huge Latin and immigrant population, Mexican seafood sales have lowered. The seven tables would be normally full, but this Tuesday afternoon there are only diners in two of them. “I had not seen it that way since the time of the Covid,” says the manager, Lorena Marín in Spanish, while Sounds Cumbia’s music by the speakers. Marin, an American citizen, even sends text messages to the clients with whom she keeps friendship, encouraging them to come.
“I stay at home,” replies a client. “He is very screwed out there with all those immigration agents.”
The increase in those has begun to hit the economy and pockets of immigrant families, and not only. In some cases, immigrants with legal status and even US citizens have been involved in the raids of President Trump.
The 2004 fantasy film One day without Mexicans “That I narrated what would happen to California if Mexican immigrants disappeared,” they are becoming the real life in a matter of weeks. The consequences are serious for many, both economic and personal.
“We are seeing a great change in the application of the law in workplaces,” says Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute. “It does not focus on people with a criminal record, but on people who are deeply integrated into the.”
In California, the proportion of in certain sectors is greater than in the whole country. Here, those born abroad represent 62% of agricultural labor and 42% of construction workers, according to the American Immigration Council. 85% of the clothing factories sewing operators are foreigners. 40% of entrepreneurs are foreigners.
At the national level, about a quarter of agriculture and construction workers are born outside the United States, according to the American Immigration Council. Like more than half of the workers who work with plaster, plaster and stucco. In the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (the so -called Stem), almost a quarter of workers are foreigners, according to the same data.
The current tendency to apply the law, says Selee, “will lead to a strategy that will have great economic repercussions if they continue to chase people who are in the active population instead of those who have a criminal record.” In both California and in an entire nation that ages, about half of those born abroad are naturalized American citizens, a crucial defense in immigrants.
Selee says that the current strategy was launched when “the Trump administration realized that they were not obtaining large numbers with traditional approaches to persecute people who are priority deportation objectives.” Now, threats are felt in distant communities from each other, from Dallas to El Paso, through rural areas of Wisconsin, affecting immigrants and, in some cases, the entrepreneurs who hire them.
In the small town of Waumandee, in Wisconsin, the dairy producer John Rosenow claims that he does not find American citizens who can support the rigors of work in their sector. “If you want to eat dairy products or drink milk, you will need immigrant workers,” he says.
“Yes, we want to get rid of bad people,” adds Rosenow. “But the people I know, who work on dairy farms, are simply working people who do tasks that Americans don’t want to do.”
In San Joaquin Valley, in California, Joe del Bosque, a livestock and melon cultivator, has heard that US agents chase workers in strawberry fields south of their exploitation. The place, known as the world’s pantry, depends largely on foreign workers, especially at the time of the harvest, says Del Bosque. Right now they work for him 100 people, a figure that will double in the coming weeks, when he harvests it.
“They will disturb the harvest and the food chain. This will harm the US consumer.” Says the forest. “These people are very hardworking. They come to work, especially if they have family here or in Mexico.”
The raids, or their threat, are also emotionally affecting families and have generated in Chicago, Seattle, Spokane, New York, San Antonio, Dallas and other parts of the country, which are expected even greater this Saturday.
In the passage, the protesters waved above all the flags of the United States shouts of “if there is no justice, there is no peace. Shame of the ICE.” Among the protesters were Alejandra, an American citizen and third year student at the University of Texas, in El Paso, who requested partial anonymity for fear of reprisals against her family of mixed status.
Alejandra took to the streets of this border city to honor the sacrifice of her grandparents, which emigrated from Ciudad Juárez. “All you have to do is see who took that first step to give your life you currently have.”
In the Dallas area, a Guatemalan citizen tells that he has been absent from the works for days. “There is too much fear, too much to risk,” says Gustavo, 34, who asked that his last name be revealed because it is. “I’m afraid tomorrow, tonight. They can deport me and who loses? My family in Guatemala.”
The strict application of immigration laws is the issue that has given Trump the most popularity. But this support may be decreasing. A survey published this week by the Quinnipiac University showed that Trump had a 43% immigration approval and 54% disapproval. The survey was conducted between June 5 and 9, after several days of protests.
Meanwhile, in Santa Ana, a city of about 316,000 inhabitants in southern California, the owner of the Vibes Boutique store, Alexa Vargas, states that and that sales have declined 30% in recent days. Indeed, a recent Tuesday there was no one looking at the jeans or the bright t -shirts. The street parking spaces, usually crowded, were free. And the fruit seller and snow cones that Vargas usually frequents has been missing for days.
“Everything should not be so dead at this time,” says the 26 -year -old woman. “People are too afraid to go out. Even if you are a citizen but you look certain. There are people who don’t want to risk.”
Reyna, who works as a cook in a restaurant, recently told her boss who did not feel safe going to work after learning of immigrants’ arrests at home depot stores in the city. This 40 -year -old woman, who is in the United States without papers, and neither the laws nor the current immigration policies offer a way to obtain a legal status despite being living in the country for more than 20 years. “I need to work, but, honestly, I’m dead fear of leaving home,” he says.
For now, his life is in suspense. He has canceled his son’s graduation party and no longer takes his young children to the summer school. He even stopped attending the therapy sessions for his seven -year -old autistic son. Reyna says she can’t sleep and suffers from headaches daily.
On Tuesday morning, he says, immigration agents in an unidentified vehicle arrested her husband’s nephew, a 20 -year -old boy of Mexican nationality without papers, in front of her house.
His autistic son, born in the United States, has begged him to let him play in the front garden swing.
“No, love. We can’t leave,” Reyna says.
“Why not?”
“The police are taking people. They are taking people who have not been born here,” he explains.
Cindy Carcamo She is a veteran and awarded journalist who has been informing about immigration for more than 20 years, mainly as a editor in Los Angeles Times. In autumn he will join Harvard University as Nieman Fellow 2026. @Thecindycarcamo
Dianne Solis He is a freelance journalist. She has worked as a editor for The Dallas Morning News and The Wall Street Journal. His work has been issued on the public radio Kera and Texas Standard. It has been informing about immigration for decades. He graduated from Northwestern and California State University and was Nieman Fellow at Harvard.
Alfredo Corchado He is an executive editor of Puente News Collaborative and former correspondent in Mexico and the border of The Dallas Morning News. He is the author of “Midnight in Mexico” and “Homelands.” In 2009 it was Nieman Fellow in Harvard. .
Aaron Montes, KTEP reporter, contributed to this report from the passage.
