DEPORTATIONS
community: the arrest of Paul Dama, manager of Suya Joint, an African restaurant near Boston. Dama, a Nigerian asylum seeker, fled to the US after being kidnapped and tortured by the jihadist group Boko Haram. Despite his pending asylum application, ICE arrested him for overstaying his visa while he was on his way to church. During his detention, Dama’s sister, the owner of Suya Joint, struggled to keep the business running without his help. He was eventually released, and his asylum request was approved. For Chang, who was born
in the US of Taiwanese and Chinese descent, cases like Dama’s have deepened the sense of vulnerability: “It certainly makes any person of color feel unsafe in everyday places and actions, like going to the store. It feels like our government is attacking us,” she says. Scott Bierman, vice
president of government affairs at the Georgia Restaurant Association, describes a similar anxiety among operators across the state: “While we don’t have any direct reports of ICE raids
happening to our members, just hearing about it in the news keeps them up at night. It’s the uncertainty – not knowing if people are going to show up to work today, or show up for the interview process, or for their start date.”
BUSINESS IMPACT AND INDUSTRY RESPONSE
Te current climate is hurting sales too. “Te effect on community members can be felt in everyday places like local restaurants and coffee shops,” says Chang. “I think if you look at those businesses, everyone is overall down double digits.” Chang is experiencing the
drop first-hand. “We’re seeing a decrease in international students. We used to have weekly groups in the fall. Now they come maybe once every few weeks. And when they do, they bring up concerns about budgets that have been trimmed, since government funding to universities has also been a challenge. It compels us to look for revenue elsewhere.” As concerns mounted
“We don't have any reports of raids happening to our members, but it is the uncertainty – not knowing if people are going to show up to work today or show up for the interview process or their start date”
over arrests and deportations affecting restaurants, hotels, and farms, the industry attempted to influence policy, but with limited results. On 1 July, the National Restaurant Association sent an open letter to Trump highlighting the struggles of a sector that generates $1.4trn in annual economic activity: 77% of restaurants can’t hire or retain enough staff, leaving over one million jobs unfilled. Te letter urged the administration to focus enforcement on individuals who pose security threats, while considering relief for long-serving undocumented workers who pay taxes and have clean records.
Te letter came after Trump
had issued a directive in June to largely pause ICE raids on food and hospitality businesses – a directive that was reversed just days later. Around the same time, the Department of Labor established a temporary Office of Immigration Policy tasked with, among other things, helping businesses find legal immigrant workers. Whether this measure – the most tangible response to industry
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