ICE fears looming on New York restaurants

Many workers in New York state's bustling service industry are living in fear of raids or detention by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which will pose threat to local economy, experts said.

The reports of widespread ICE raids that have swept across the country focusing on big cities such as Minneapolis in Minnesota have hit New York in smaller waves.

According to a joint report from the Fiscal Policy Institute, or FPI, and the Immigration Research Initiative, or IRI, the New York state has an estimated 42,300 undocumented employees.

Edward J. Cuccia, a New York lawyer based near Chinatown in Lower Manhattan, has personally seen a large rise in the number of ICE-related cases on his books.

"Every day we're getting phone calls. People are detained constantly," Cuccia told China Daily. "The rules say that if someone, for example, has a deportation order … if ICE wants to detain that person, that person must be provided with notice, and ICE generally does not provide people with notice."

But the threat of removal has not only rattled undocumented workers — around 60 percent of all restaurant and food service workers in New York are foreign-born, the Office of New York City Comptroller found — but also threatened to shrink the economy, an economist said.

Emily Eisner, acting executive director and chief economist at the FPI and coauthor of the report, told China Daily: "The ICE raids are not only a human rights violation and a violent attack on people's lives and families, but also have a very significant impact on the economy because they reduce the size of the labor force in very essential services like the food industry."

In the "city that never sleeps", the restaurant sector contributes $93.3 billion in direct economic output to the state's economy, the National Restaurant Association found in 2025.

The local food and drink industry relies on an army of workers ranging from restaurant owners, chefs, servers and takeout delivery drivers for the 24/7 food culture.

Harming the vulnerable

But the FPI and IRI report said that "among the people who are undocumented, some of the most vulnerable to deportation and detention are an estimated 7,000 chefs, 17,000 cooks, 9,100 food prep workers and 9,200 waiters in New York state".

It further states that "New York's economy depends on immigrants, including those without documentation. Deportation of these workers would dramatically decrease affordability and availability of food, homes and care, all basic needs for New Yorkers".

David Dyssegaard Kallick is director of the IRI, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. He is also coauthor of the report and an expert on the economic, social and cultural inclusion of immigrants in the US. He agrees with Eisner.

"The central issue is that a widespread campaign to deport immigrants will shrink the economy," Kallick told China Daily. "It reduces the number of workers, the number of consumers and the number of entrepreneurs."

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy warned that New York stands to lose money amid mass deportations as working migrants contributed $3.1 billion in state and local taxes in 2022.

If just one in 10 of those employees were deported, it would "result in a loss of $319 million in state and local tax revenue", FPI estimated.

Shaina Torres, director of communications and strategic initiatives at the New York Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, said they are "doing a lot" to help immigrants navigate the new normal in New York City.

Torres cited their work to help immigrants "know their rights; find legal support centers that provide free legal immigration assistance to immigrant New Yorkers and an immigration legal hotline for additional support".

New York state, home to 4.5 million immigrants, has 1.8 million noncitizens and 670,000 people who are undocumented, FPI found. Around 13 percent are Asian American and Pacific Islanders, the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs said.

In an effort to help protect all undocumented New York food service workers from ICE raids, over 100 restaurants joined together in June to create the "Solidarity Restaurants" coalition with backing from nonprofit organizations.

It comes as the FPI and IRI report found that if the large-scale removals continue at that pace, the "loss of large numbers of workers from the New York state labor force would mean an increase in the cost of living for New Yorkers who will pay more for restaurants … and more."

Mingmei Li in New York contributed to this story.