As ICE threat scares customers, Kansas City businesses urged to ‘protect people working for you’

Editor’s note: The following story was published by KCUR, Kansas City’s NPR member station, and a fellow member of the KC Media Collective. Click here to read the original story or here to sign up for KCUR’s email newsletter.

After a highly publicized raid on a Mexican restaurant in Liberty, Missouri, earlier this month, immigration advocates and attorneys are rushing to educate business owners on their rights when dealing with federal immigration authorities; Some business owners in the Latino and immigrant communities are facing a growing fear among customers and staff

Business owners in Kansas City’s immigrant and Latino communities are on edge.

Ever since news spread of a federal immigration raid on the Mexican restaurant El Potro in Liberty this month, combined with President Donald Trump’s deportation plans and slew of executive actions targeting immigrants, fear and anxiety have rippled through these groups.

“We have people on our crew that say they may prefer to leave back to their country,” says Joselyn, a Kansas City resident who helps run her family’s paint and drywall business. She asked that KCUR use only her first name over fear her business may be targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“They are hunting people right now, that’s how it feels,” she says.

Like most business owners, Joselyn has always worried about the usual questions: Are we making enough to stay open? Can we take care of our employees?

But a second Trump administration adds another unnerving question: What do I do if federal immigration officers show up at my business, and how do I protect my employees and customers?

‘The right to protect your patrons and the people working for you’

Immigration advocates and attorneys in Kansas City are trying to help answer some of these questions.

Denise Ramos, an immigration attorney in Kansas City, Kansas, has worked with several Latino and immigrant advocacy groups, such Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation, to create new “know your rights” material, aimed specifically at business owners and managers worried about interacting with federal immigration agents.

“I tell business owners, you need to have someone ready to talk to them,” says Ramos. “You also have to have clearly established where they can go — what is considered a private office or employee-only?”

Kansas City, Kansas, immigration attorney Denise Ramos has been spent the past three weeks answering a flurry of questions about how new immigrations policies affect her clients’ status in the U.S.; photo by Zach Perez, KCUR

Ramos says laws governing when authorities can enter a business and where they can go once inside can differ depending on several factors, including things as minute as whether there is an ‘open’ sign in the window. In a restaurant or store for example, authorities can access any public space open to customers without a warrant.

Entering places like a kitchen or a manager’s office that is clearly marked as private or employees only requires a warrant, useless permission is given by a business owner.

Agents who took part in the operation at El Potro did not produce a warrant, according to a Kansas City Star report, but they did claim they received permission from the restaurant owner. The owner’s daughter told the Star a language barrier may have complicated the matter.

Ramos hopes the material she and advocates have created will help businesses feel more confident when dealing with ICE.

“When you open a business, you’re dealing with all kinds of aspects of the law,” says Ramos. “To learn that you also have the right to protect your patrons and the people working for you. … I hope it’s empowering.”

A graphic created by community advocates advising how business owners should interact with ICE; image courtesy of Denise Ramos

‘It is paralyzing our economy’

As advocates rush to support those most impacted by the increased presence of immigration authorities, many businesses that serve Latino and immigrant communities are feeling the squeeze.

Edgar Galicia, who runs the Central Avenue Betterment Association in east Kansas City, Kansas, says businesses that serve the area’s large Latino communities are seeing fewer customers each week due to fears of being caught up in a raid.

“Some have reported up to 62% loss on weekly sales,” says Galicia.

This, coupled with fearful employees calling in sick or not showing up to work, has many businesses worried about how long they can sustain themselves. And Galicia says losses aren’t unique to Latino-owned businesses.

“It is paralyzing our economy,” says Galicia. “The uncertainty is all over the place.”

‘This has been our city’

The fear and uncertainty isn’t exactly a new feeling for Joselyn, who runs her family’s construction company. She has been living and working without legal status in the Kansas City area for several years.

What is new, she says, is its magnitude. The fear in her community has grown to the point that it is crippling many families — even those made up mostly of people with citizenship.

Joselyn says it’s gotten to a point where she struggles to find enough people willing to go out to job sites, even during the slow winter months.

“It is really sad to hear from your people — the ones you trust and the ones that have been working with you — that they need to stay home,” she says. “They’re waiting to see what happens, but every time you see the news it’s getting worse and worse and worse for them.”

She also worries her business may lose clients if they find out her immigration status. And she says clients who knew her status already may now fear retaliation for having worked with someone without legal status.

For now, she and her family will do their best to make things work, and live with the fear as things change.

“I’m afraid. Sad,” Jocelyn admits. “Sometimes angry.”

“We have been giving so much to this place. We build our business here. We pay taxes. My son who passed away is buried here. This has been our city. If we had to leave this place, I’d leave a part of my heart here,” she says.

The only thing she can do for now, she says, is prepare for the worst and pray it doesn’t happen.

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