'Worse than the pandemic': Red state restaurants now suffering from Trump's ICE crackdown

A coalition of business groups, restaurateurs, and lawmakers in Texas has been formed to push back against the anti-immigrant policies of Donald Trump’s administration as sales collapse and companies struggle to find employees.

According to a report from the New York Times, there is tension in the deeply conservative state, as the economic impact on restaurants, in particular, is no longer tenable, with owners considering closing up shop.

According to the Times’ Jesus Jiménez, the owner of the Revolver Taco Lounge in Dallas, Regino Rojas, claimed day-to-day business reminded him of the year COVID shut the country down — but worse.

“I think this, right now, is worse than the pandemic,” he lamented.

About 50 percent of Texas restaurants reported that they were not profitable last year, up from 38 percent in 2024, according to the Texas Restaurant Association.

The Times is reporting, some of that has been the result of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration: In Texas, where by some estimates nearly 10 percent of the work force is undocumented — compared with about 4.5 percent of the U.S. work force — restaurant owners have said that the crackdown has created a chilling effect among their workers, regardless of their immigration status.

Feeling the strain, the Texas Restaurant Association and business leaders have started a coalition called Seat the Table, pressing Congress and the White House to create work permits for “long-term, law-abiding immigrants playing critical roles from farms to restaurants.”

In backing the coalition, the Texas Restaurant Association, in a state with strong conservative roots, made clear that it was not calling for "amnesty," nor was it asking for a pathway to citizenship for immigrants.

“I think the vast majority of Americans recognize that there is a large group of undocumented immigrants who have been literally keeping food on our tables,” said Kelsey Erickson Streufert of the Texas trade group, according to the Times. “And if we remove those people, it is going to hurt everyone in terms of higher prices.”

Adam Orman, who owns the restaurants L’Oca d’Oro and Bambino in Austin, said some immigrants in the area feared coming to work because of anxiety around arrests.

“Do I think that work permits would help? Yes,” Mr. Orman claimed. “But we also need to change the enforcement tactics, so that people aren’t afraid to go to work, people aren’t afraid to go spend money.”

The strain on labor has extended to Texas’s agriculture industry. Sam Lash, a co-founder of Farm to Table, a wholesale company based in Texas that connects local farmers with chefs, said farms across the state were struggling to find workers, according to the report.

“There’s been a really symbiotic relationship between Texas farmers, Texas restaurant owners and immigrant labor for many generations,” Lash said. “I’ve been doing this for 18 years, there has never been a time where it is more difficult to access consistent, reliable, skilled labor from immigrants.”