The US restaurants are ready for the lack of personnel deficiency, as the procedure of the Trump management of the immigration of the Trump government threatens to squeeze an already narrow job market.
The nationwide restaurant operators stated that the immigration officers were enforced by immigration officers to check them to check them employment Status of employees, including visits to more than a hundred shops in Washington in May.
This “very public” implementation by immigration Officials, including the presence of armed civil servants at the recent visits to Washington, had some people who were afraid to get to work, said Tony Foreman, the owner of five restaurants in nearby Maryland, including the Duchess, which was opened in Baltimore at the end of last year.
Foreman said that an impending lack of work “would absolutely put the wage pressure on the hospitality industry”, and added that some restaurateurs may have difficulty finding enough qualified staff.
“There is no increase in people who want to accept these jobs,” he said.
According to estimates by the National Restaurant Association, more than one fifth of the restaurants in the USA were born outside of the country. Most of these people are legally authorized to work in the United States, but the restaurant sector, which has not yet recovered to the pre-Pandemic employment level, also uses an estimated 1 million undocumented immigrant, according to the Center for Migration Studies.
Guest steers say that new immigration restrictions, including the revocation of the legal status of thousands of employees and a growing climate of fear among authorized and unauthorized immigrants who have intensified long -term employment challenges.
The Supreme Court allowed the White House last month to revoke the temporary protection status, which the then President Joe Biden granted up to 350,000 Venezuelan migrants who flee in 2023 from unrest and economic crisis. Protection for another 250,000, which was granted in 2021, expires in September.
Jacob Monty, an immigration lawyer based in Texas who advises chain restaurants, said that many of his customers had difficulty replacing previously authorized workers after the Trump government had affected their status.
Almost a fifth of the Venezuelans, who have been granted a temporary protection status in the hospitality and recreation industry since 2021 since 2021, according to the analysis of the American Community Survey by Michael Clemens, an economic professor at George Mason University. They face the loss of their protected status.
Monty added: “It will be a hectic summer, in which employers try to keep their current staff levels in view of the loss.”
The pipeline of the arrivals looking for work has also slowed down. Trump on Wednesday Forbidden citizens from 12 countries From entry to the USA in a strong expansion of its anti-immigrant policy. He also partially limited admission to citizens of seven other countries, including Venezuela.
“My fear is that (the administration) would expose all legal routes to the United States,” said Irena Stein, founder of Alma Cocina Latina, a Venezuelan restaurant in Baltimore, which has sponsored 10 “extraordinary skills” for highly qualified chefs since its opening in 2015.
“A Venezuelan restaurant without Venezuelans just doesn’t work,” said Stein. “We would have to close if we could not hire immigrants.”
According to Ernesto Castañeda, director of the immigration laboratory at American University, restaurants are a frequent focus on visiting the immigration authorities in the industry on the dependency on migrant work. US immigration and customs authorities can legally enter the public areas of a restaurant without permission, which makes them “simple goals”.
The recent power exhibitions made it difficult for the restaurant owners to recruit employees, said Castañeda, because – without papers or not – people could “prefer to work in an industry in which it checks less”.
The rating agency Fitch lowered its view for the US restaurant sector of “Neutral” in May “worsened”. Jose Luis Rivas, Senior Director at Fitch, said that the industry was exposed to higher tariffs and a closer job market with a “simultaneous pressure to inflate”, but would have difficulty passing on these additional costs to high -price guests.
“You speak of a shortage of labor that can lead to failure,” said Jeff Barta, director of the advice of Alixpartner. From slower service times to reduced menu offer, Barta was that persistent insemination was “a recipe for bad customer experience”.
“None of our restaurants can afford to lose an employee themselves,” said Shawn Townsend, President of the Association of Metropolitan Washington. He added that restaurants in his network for audits of labor documents, which are known as I-9, prepared and prepared the employees for unexpected visits to enforce immigration.
Restaurant operators, especially those who are based in immigrant communities, also warned that people were increasingly out of fear of being targeted by ICE agents, which could tighten the industry, with consumers already containing their expenses in the middle of increased economic uncertainty.
“It has heavily burdened our business,” said Teddy Vazquez Solis, the owner of Teddy’s Red Tacos, a chain of restaurants and food trucks in Los Angeles. “People are afraid to get out and spend their money.”
