Small businesses across Minneapolis are struggling amid Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Fear of being swept up in mass deportation raids has caused employees and customers across the city to stay home.
MS NOW reporter Nnamdi Egwuonwu spoke to local officials and business owners on the ground in Minneapolis and shared their experiences with Stephanie Ruhle on Thursday’s “The 11th Hour.”
“So many business owners I’ve talked to over the last several months being here say they barely are [staying afloat],” Egwuonwu told Ruhle. “There’s a widespread struggle taking place in the Twin City.”
Egwuonwu said that a fear — among both immigrants and U.S. citizens — of encountering Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has resulted in less foot traffic across the city. “There’s concern among employees, particularly Somali employees, Hispanic employees, that if they try to go to work, they may find themselves caught up in the crosshairs,” he said.
Although immigrant-run businesses have been hit the hardest, Egwuonwu said,“it’s also impacting non-immigrant-run businesses.”
Data from the city of St. Paul showed that business across the board was down between 60 % and 70%. In Minneapolis, a survey of 500 businesses by the city’s tourism board found 80% said they were suffering from reduced sales.
Community members were particularly concerned about how the ongoing federal presence could affect the health care sector, Egwuonwu told Ruhle.
“The biggest sort of economic, catastrophic effect of all this is in health care, where we see an over-sampling of minorities in jobs, like nurses, support staff at these hospitals,” he said.
“There’s this widespread concern that if immigrants stop coming to this state because of everything that’s going on, there could be a collapse of that industry,” Egwuonwu said. “There’s already a ton of vacancies within the health care sector.”
In response, residents have stepped in to help the struggling businesses. “The community has really tried to come together in recent weeks to show that support, whether it’s to community aid funds, whether it’s through gift card drives to help keep some of these businesses afloat,” Egwuonwu said.
You can watch the full report in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”