In Pittsburgh, a surge in ICE arrests last year is reshaping the local business landscape for immigrants.
As federal enforcement intensifies year-over-year, entrepreneurs and local experts say the crackdown is slashing sales, reducing staff and discouraging foreign-born residents from starting new businesses.
“Businesses tell me about how painful it is right now. Sales are down big time.”
Brent Rondon, the University of Pittsburgh’s Small Business Development Center
One local restaurateur has even stopped paying herself a salary. Her restaurant, which sells cuisine from a specific region of South America and primarily serves the Hispanic community, has seen a steady drop in sales since January 2025, she said.
“We have several regular clients that are coming less often,” said the restaurateur, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “They were coming every week before. Now they’re coming once a month.”
In-store sales previously earned about $30,000 per month, she said, but now it brings in closer to $20,000. To manage, she not only stopped drawing a salary, but also started to put business expenses on credit cards.
The effects of intensified Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity aren’t just financial, she said, they’re also taking a psychological toll.
“Last year, when this new president started, I remember I made a police report because we had phone calls of people calling us, saying, ‘Go back to Mexico. We’re going to call ICE on you,’” the restaurateur said. “I’ve been in business 19 years,” she added, “but I never struggle this much.”
Immigrants open businesses at much higher rates than the US population overall, generating billions in economic activity and driving job growth. Arrests and deportations can create fear and uncertainty that ripples far beyond those just taken into custody.
Business disruptions on both sides of the counter
The disruptions are falling hardest on immigrant-owned businesses whose customer base is also largely immigrants, says Brent Rondon, a senior consultant for international trade at the University of Pittsburgh’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC).
“Businesses tell me about how painful it is right now,” Rondon told Technical.ly. “Sales are down big time. I ask what percentage of the sales are down, the number goes from 40% to 50%.”
Immigrants make up one-third of the entrepreneurs in the accommodations and food service sector, according to the American Immigration Council. Because immigrant entrepreneurs disproportionately run service businesses, Rondon said, their revenue relies on foot traffic from communities now avoiding public spaces out of fear of enforcement.
The SBDC offers small business assistance and resources to all entrepreneurs, including new Americans. A year ago, about 30% of people who attended the business classes in Spanish at Pitt’s center would go on to file applications with the office to start a new business, Rondon said.
Now, it’s closer to 10%.
Workers are also being affected right now, according to the local restaurateur. Her restaurant’s dishwasher recently left the country voluntarily, and she’s had to cut employee hours to save on expenses. She now works 80 to 85 hours per week to fill the gap.
“My employees, even though they have a work permit, even though they’re all completely legal, they’re so afraid to just come to work,” she said, “because they think the color of their face, their race, they think they’re going to be stopped.”
Pittsburgh officials seek to curb ICE collaboration
Pittsburgh-area political leaders have expressed opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
ICE arrests in the Pittsburgh area jumped during the summer of 2025, according to government data obtained by the Deportation Data Project. At the time, there were several raids on Pittsburgh-area restaurants, leaving some businesses with property damage.
More than 500 people who were arrested in the Pittsburgh area were deported from January to September 2025, according to the data.
Soon after an ICE officer fatally shot a woman in South Minneapolis, Mayor Corey O’Connor said the city would continue to not cooperate with ICE operations, a promise he originally made during his campaign.
Meanwhile, a bill to bar Allegheny County’s cooperation with ICE continues to advance, currently awaiting a vote from the Allegheny County Council. The legislation would prohibit county employees from sharing resources or information with the federal law enforcement agency.
‘What choice do they have but to persist?’
Gov. Josh Shapiro has warned that mass detention centers could create economic and safety risks across Pennsylvania.
After the Department of Homeland Security purchased warehouses in Berks and Schuylkill counties to convert into mass detention centers, Shapiro said the facilities “pose serious health, safety, and economic risks” to those communities.
“[These facilities] do not belong in Berks or Schuylkill County,” Shapiro said at a press conference last month. “They undermine the economic growth that we’re seeing across this commonwealth.”
In 2023, there were 5.700 immigrant entrepreneurs in the Pittsburgh metro area — nearly 6% of all entrepreneurs — even though they represented only 4.2% of the population, according to the American Immigration Council.
Nadyli Nuñez, CEO of the entrepreneurial hub Ascender, has had a front-row seat to what these new Americans contribute to Pittsburgh.
At an October ceremony for the organization’s Latine Mini-Grant Program, many immigrant entrepreneurs gave acceptance speeches “about the importance of not backing down and a reminder of the immense contribution immigrants bring to this country,” she said.
“You might argue,” Nuñez added, “what choice do they have but to persist?”
