Hernán was in the Latin American restaurant, which he owned last week with his brother Northwest Washington DC, when his staff began to call and report immigration and customs control (ICE) control points in the neighborhood. Employees, scared that they could be directed and racially profiled, asked if they could return home.
Hernán had to close the door in a few hours and the restaurant has not been opened since.
“Literally after President Trump brought the national guard DC, everything stopped,” Hernán said, who asked his name to be used for fear of ice. “Everything is gone because bike delivery guys, they are afraid. They are not on the streets at the moment. My people, most of my chefs are Spanish[-speaking] And they don’t want to go to DC now. ‘
Hernán, who also owns a restaurant in Maryland, said he expected to open again in a few weeks if Trump’s administration took over the DC police and the arrest of immigration is less frequent. But the future is unclear to him and many restaurant owners in the US capital.
Related: When Immigration appears in the day care institution: Coping with DC scares families and employees
It is already suffering from fewer customers due to almost three weeks of handling the administration. Restaurants also have to deal with the lack of employees, as many immigrants, both document -based and non -documentation, fear of accessing DC and being on the streets, and some have been detained by ICE.
Trump tried to claim that the coping was useful for restaurants. “Half of the restaurants were closed because no one could go because he was afraid to go outside,” he told reporters about Washington against his intervention on Monday. “Those restaurants are now opening and opening new restaurants.”
There is true in the whole city. Some restaurants, such as Hernán, had to close the door. However, there was more to do with fewer employees, fewer delivery drivers and fewer customers.
“Restaurants will close because you have a military with weapons and federal agents harassing people … Forced people to be afraid to go out,” said José Andrés, a well-known Washington restaurant owner.
According to Migrant Insider, immigrants make up 253,000 employees, or 36% of the labor force, DC restaurants, hotels and related sectors. This total of 42,000 self -employed immigrant entrepreneurs are included in the local food and service business.
On Monday, the Laytto, Asian Restaurant and North -Market DC, announced on Monday that its immigrants were affected.
“Last week, two of our beloved team members were detained simply by going home from work,” the restaurant wrote. “They remain detained and our hearts are with them and their families.” The restaurant did not respond to the request to comment.
Hernán said the business pause was extremely heavy for a small, family -owned business, especially after a slow summer months. He is looking for people who live in DC, speak Spanish and English, and want to start working to renew. “But I don’t know if we can find people,” he said.
About a mile, near the Colombian Highlands neighborhood, the Spanish brand on Elizabeth Pupusería & Deli last week hung.
Elizabeth Rodriguez, Salvador Immigrant, who owns a restaurant and has been living in Washington for about 20 years, told The Guardian that the restaurant is carrying out some orders to previous customers, but its doors were not open to the public.
“It’s a very ugly thing because nerves, nerves grow,” Rodriguez said in Spanish about DC. “Customers do not come for the same reason. Our business relied on builders because they are large groups that came to submit a variety of orders to all their colleagues. And they did not work for a whole month.”
She said she had paid about $ 500 a day for employees, and after a brief coping on August 11th. It brought only $ 300 a day. She could not pay any of her employees in the last two weeks-she and her daughter are coming.
“We see what we can do to definitely not close,” she said. “I know it is thought to be just one month, but suddenly it is very difficult because rent, account, you have to pay them the same.
“We ask God to change that, because if we did not do so, we cannot pay many months of rent,” she added.
The restaurant usually does not allow to deliver, but Rodriguez thinks that it will open again because so many people do not want to leave their home. But even it’s hard, she said.
“Today I said, ‘Today is the right time to add a presentation’, so I called Doordash and he told me he had no workers because most of them were taken and others are afraid to leave.”
Ice reportedly directs delivery drivers on mopeds and worsened the restaurant crisis.
Several videos of the ice -holding delivery drivers have spread throughout the social media, and The Washington Post reported, quoting anonymous police sources that the ice is accompanied by officers with the DC Metropolitan Police Department to carry out moped drivers to check their immigration status.
“You don’t want to go outside,” Yonatan Colmenarez told The Post, a asylum seeker who came from Venezuelas two years ago and drove around DC. “It gives you a kind of emotional harm; you are not sure what they can be.”