\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump\u2019s immigration policies are having a chilling effect on the hospitality industry, where nearly a third of workers are immigrants, according to the largest hospitality union in the US.<\/p>\n
The number of employed hospitality workers dropped by 98,000 from December 2024 to December 2025, according to a report from Unite Here, which represents 300,000 workers across the hospitality, food and tourism industries in the US and Canada.<\/p>\n
Union leaders say the Trump administration\u2019s brutal immigration crackdown has not only scared workers but has also discouraged international tourism. The US saw a decline of $1.2bn, or a 5.5% drop, in tourism revenue from September 2024 to September 2025, according to the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need immigrant workers. They\u2019re an important part of our workforce. They\u2019re my members, they\u2019re my neighbors, and the way they\u2019ve been treated in this time is really abhorrent,\u201d said Wade L\u00fcneburg, political director for Unite Here Local 17 in Minneapolis, which represents 6,000 workers in Minnesota, including workers at the Minneapolis-St Paul international airport.<\/p>\n
Because of the federal government\u2019s immigration crackdown, \u201cmany of our members have been afraid to go to work,\u201d L\u00fcneburg said. Sixteen airport workers were detained by immigration enforcement earlier this year, L\u00fcneburg said. \u201cThese are workers that are authorized to work and passed TSA background checks,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the White House did not comment on these members being taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).<\/p>\n
Even as Minnesota seeks to recover from Operation Metro Surge, Trump\u2019s immigration policies \u2013 from cancelling temporary protected status, expanding travel visa bans, to having tourists detained \u2013 have driven a slump in tourism across the US.<\/p>\n
International visitors to the US declined by 2.5 million in 2025, even as international tourism increased around the world, according to Unite Here\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
L\u00fcneburg said regional declines of Canadian tourism to Minnesota drove a 15% decline in overall international air travelers to Minnesota in 2025 and a recent plunge in Canadians attending the World Junior Hockey championships. Small businesses in Minneapolis reportedly lost up to $81m in revenue in January 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe economic ramifications of what is happening are much further-reaching than just to immigrants and their families, as horrific as that is,\u201d said Gwen Mills, president of Unite Here, during a panel introducing the report last week. \u201cThe scenes of violence on the streets in our major cities, the anti-immigrant rhetoric, the fearmongering, it\u2019s discouraging domestic travel, it\u2019s discouraging foreign visitors from coming to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
The slowdown is being felt in other cities. In 2025, a record number of restaurants closed in Washington DC while restaurant openings slowed by 30%. Meanwhile, tourism in Las Vegas dropped 7.5% in 2025.<\/p>\n
Shaleah Taylor, a guest room attendant in Las Vegas, said in the report that \u201cyou can feel that business has slowed down.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are spending less, and some of my co-workers who depend on tips are seeing a real drop,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
Moana Molly, a hotel housekeeper in Atlantic City, New Jersey, said during the panel that several co-workers left due to the immigration crackdown, increasing the workload for herself and the remaining workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have the staffing that we need and nobody\u2019s applying,\u201d said Molly.<\/p>\n
A July 2025 report by the Economic Policy Institute found Trump\u2019s deportation goals of 4 million people would result in job losses of 3.3 million for immigrants and 2.6 million for US-born workers.<\/p>\n
But the policies are creating fear among US citizens, too. Greg Barney, a line cook at St Anselm in Washington DC, said there was a significant drop-off in visitors to the restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t afraid about being scooped up myself, but a lot of my close friends were, and everyone, all my co-workers, regardless of whether they were born here or not, could feel that fear and that tension, and it was hard on all of us,\u201d Barney said during the panel.<\/p>\n
Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, told the Guardian that \u201cif there was any correlation between rampant illegal immigration and a good economy, Biden would have had a booming economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cRemoving these criminals from the streets makes communities safer and more welcoming for business owners, customers, and for tourists,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
In an email to the Guardian, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, cited an article that pointed to a 8.9% youth unemployment rate in 2024, saying \u201cthere is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump\u2019s immigration policies are having a chilling effect on the hospitality industry, where nearly a third of workers are immigrants, according to the largest hospitality union in the US. The number of employed hospitality workers dropped by 98,000 from December 2024 to December 2025, according to a report from Unite Here, which represents 300,000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[303,15524,2081,1545,10467,12219,71,1438],"class_list":{"0":"post-44779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-hospitality","10":"tag-immigration","11":"tag-industry","12":"tag-rattling","13":"tag-siege","14":"tag-trumps","15":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}