As Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Looms, Restaurants’ Undocumented Workers Fear the Worst

As the Trump administration rolls out its changes to the immigration system, fear is surging in the food-service industry as it braces itself for a promised crackdown on unauthorized workers.

Immigrant labor, both authorized and unauthorized, is integral to the staffing and running of restaurants in the United States. In a 2024 data brief, the National Restaurant Association reported that 21 percent of restaurant workers in the United States were immigrants. That figure does not include unauthorized workers, however; the Center for Migration Studies has estimated they number an additional one million employees.

Under the new administration, proprietors and workers are preparing for the worst.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweep at the Ocean Seafood Depot in Newark on Thursday deepened the anxiety (though it is unclear whether the action, which resulted in three arrests, was part of the Trump administration’s plan). And many restaurant owners around the country were reluctant to be interviewed, saying they worried that their businesses and workers would be targeted. Several declined to comment at all.

Chicago and its restaurant industry have been anticipating actions by ICE since plans for post-inauguration immigration actions were leaked to the news media last week, with Chicago slated to be the first location.

Even well-known Chicago chefs and restaurateurs who have been vocal about political issues in the past, including immigration, were hesitant to speak publicly about the threat of immigration arrests, so as not to put “a target” on their businesses and employees as numerous owners told The New York Times.

A photo provided to The Times shows a handwritten sign in the kitchen of a prominent Chicago restaurant that reads: “Don’t let ICE in the building! And no snitching!” (The person who provided the photo asked that the restaurant not be named for fear of it being targeted.) And scripts have been passed around to employees at the restaurant, with recommended phrases to use in the event that they’re confronted by ICE agents.

One veteran Chicago chef and restaurateur, who asked not to be named for fear that his restaurant would be targeted by ICE, said that since Monday he had been keeping a binder at the host’s stand that advises employees what to do in case of an ICE visit.

The chef said employees who speak openly about the fear of ICE are those he knows stand no risk of actually being deported. “If you are one of the people who is legitimately worried about your immigration status,” he said, “you are going to be pretty quiet about it where you work.”

Andres Reyes said the threat of an immigration crackdown has been a topic of conversation among employees and customers at both locations of his Chicago restaurant, Birrierias Ocotlan. His father, Ramon, opened the original restaurant in 1973 in South Chicago, one of the city’s oldest Mexican immigrant neighborhoods.

“We have people who have been here for 40 years who are still working on getting their papers — and they are not criminals,” he said, referring to community members, not his employees. “They are working and they are contributing members of society. It’s unfortunate that they could be caught in the middle.”

According to the Migration Policy Institute, 53 percent of the unauthorized immigrants in Illinois have lived in the United States for more than 15 years, and 37 percent have at least one child who is a U.S. citizen.

Mr. Reyes attributed reduced business and slower-than-normal street traffic in the neighborhood in part to fear of the sweeps. “A lot of the unauthorized immigrants are now not spending money, because they are afraid of deportation or a setback,” he said.

Another of Chicago’s well-known Mexican American chefs, who requested anonymity, said misinformation was making an already stressful situation worse. The chef’s restaurant went on high alert on three occasions recently, after employees got word that nearby restaurants were being raided by immigration agents — only to learn that the rumors were false.

In Los Angeles, where longstanding fears of immigration enforcement had subsided in recent years, anxieties were running high among food-service professionals.

California is the state with the largest number of unauthorized immigrants — 1.8 million, according to the Pew Research Center. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 950,000 of those people live in Los Angeles County. (More than half of those have lived in the United States for more than 15 years, and 17 percent are homeowners.)

One Los Angeles chef and restaurant owner, a U.S. citizen who grew up in Mexico, was preparing Friday for a meeting to address the fear of ICE visits with his entire staff and go over their plan, which included instructions on where to safely shelter in the building. ICE agents can legally visit public-facing areas of a business, like a dining room, but need either a warrant or permission from the staff to enter private spaces.

“Tensions are high, and this is something we should prepare for, like any emergency,” said the chef, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We should have a plan in place.”

A chef in San Francisco, who requested anonymity, said he hoped preparation would temper the angst among restaurant workers.

The chef, an unauthorized immigrant himself, was fielding questions from a jumpy staff. “When you’re scared, you’re scared of anyone in a uniform,” he said. “You see cops and wonder if they’re going to come inside — you don’t know what kind of power they have.”

He handed all of his employees fliers and cards made by an immigration lawyer with basic information about their rights. The chef plans to attend a seminar next week with local restaurateurs and lawyers to gather more information and legal advice.

He also had a conversation with his family about what to do if he were detained — whom to call first and where to go. “All we can do right now is get prepared, instead of feeling scared, which is easier said than done.”

In Washington, D.C., Erik Bruner-Yang, the chef and owner of Maketto, is awaiting guidance from the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington.

“I think right now everyone’s waiting to see what’s really going to happen with immigration,” he said. “R.A.M.W. has been really good about providing resources, and they were during the first Trump administration. To be fair, the Obama and the Biden administration weren’t that great, either, when it came to deportations.”

Téa Ivanovic, a founder and the chief operating officer of Immigrant Food, which has a location a block from the White House, said the unintended consequences of mass deportations could extend far beyond the fate of individual workers.

“I think as any business owner, especially in the food industry, where we’re completely dependent on immigrant labor and it’s a trillion-dollar industry,” she said. “I think it’s very concerning when they’re talking about workplace raids.”

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