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Trump’s Mass Deportation Drive Killing Local Businesses

  • Writer: By The Financial District
    By The Financial District
  • 6 hours ago
  • 1 min read

In Chicago’s Little Village, the Trump administration’s sweeping deportation push has paralyzed the local economy.


“It’s killing business,” said Mike Moreno, owner of Moreno’s Liquor Store and Speakeasy Bar. (Photo: Oslito's Tap Facebook)
“It’s killing business,” said Mike Moreno, owner of Moreno’s Liquor Store and Speakeasy Bar. (Photo: Oslito's Tap Facebook)
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Business owners in Little Village—which is 81% Hispanic—say customers are too frightened to walk the streets of Chicago’s second-busiest commercial corridor, Nathaniel Meyersohn reported for CNN.


Sales have plunged, employees are staying home, and stores have temporarily closed since the administration’s deportation push in Chicago began on September 8.


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More than 1,000 people have been arrested in the Department of Homeland Security’s “Operation Midway Blitz.”


The economic fallout from deportations is typically discussed in terms of industries with large unauthorized immigrant workforces, such as construction and agriculture.


But undocumented immigrants are also consumers. They spent roughly $300 billion in 2023, buying goods and services that power the economy.


“It’s killing business,” said Mike Moreno, owner of Moreno’s Liquor Store and Speakeasy Bar.


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Moreno said his father opened the store in Little Village in the 1970s—it was the first Latino-owned liquor store in Illinois. He said sales have dropped 60% since September.


Local residents and longtime business owners alike have been traumatized by immigration agents roaming the neighborhood, arresting both unauthorized immigrants and U.S. citizens.


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“They’re going up and down the streets around in loops to scare us,” Moreno said. “I never thought in a million years I’d see something like this.”


Marcela Rodriguez, a franchise operator of Los Mangos, a small Mexican-style ice cream chain, said, “People are not stepping outside. Kids are not going to school. It’s unbelievable.”



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