Smith University about the other kinds of impacts that immigrants have – including building community. She spoke at a forum on the economy and immigration policy this week at Johnson C. We have a lot of businesses kind of holding on their investment decisions because they don't know if they're going to have enough clients or enough labor force,” she said.Īll the focus on the economy and business bothers Amalia Deloney. “You're not going to want to make any investments not knowing what is going to happen. Rocio Gonzalez leads Charlotte's Latin American Chamber of Commerce. Latino business leaders say the current anti-immigrant climate could have a chilly effect on business growth. “It's the North Carolina economy, it's the USA economy, because we get our produce from a big company like Dawn Foods, U.S. When sales are down, he buys less from big suppliers. If they’re spending less out of fear of immigration authorities, that hurts businesses.Īnd Manolo Betancur says when immigrant businesses suffer, so does the broader economy. (The county has more than 100,000 businesses total.) And the number of Latino businesses is growing faster than businesses in the county overall.Ībout 338,000 unauthorized immigrants live in North Carolina. Census Bureau's latest five-year economic census - as of 2012 - found more than 8,000 Latino owned businesses in Mecklenburg County, with sales of more than a billion dollars. (It's a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., that researches immigration issues.) Many own their own businesses - an easy way to generate income when you can't get hired because of your background. About 8 percent of North Carolina's population is foreign born, according to the Migration Policy Institute. One way of measuring the impact is to look at where immigrants fit into the overall economy. “Sales keep going down, but worse than that is the fear, the fear of my employees, the fear of losing my employees, the fear of losing my customers, the fear of our kids losing their parents, and the economy is getting very affected." “My business (is) not going well,” Betancur says. Owner Manolo Betancur says he used to sell 40 cakes on a weekend. The bakery is a favorite with Latinos and others in the neighborhood, and also supplies breads and cakes to dozens of stores. Over at Las Delicias Bakery on Central Avenue, you can hear the thump thump thump of a large mixer as a worker makes bread dough. There's no broad survey of how the immigration crackdown is affecting the economy. He was arrested and now faces deportation - leaving his company in limbo. Last week, an unauthorized immigrant who owns a Charlotte concrete company lost his battle to avoid deportation. And for some, the immigration crackdown threatens their survival. Other businesses also are seeing a slowdown. It hasn't been like that in the past few months,” Crosby says. “Usually you can't even get any parking out here and the store's so crowded you're bumper-to-bumper in the store, with your carts. She's a regular at the store on North Tryon Street. You can see the change in the parking lot, says Tonya Crosby. “How that's affected us, is our sales on weekdays are down drastically because people are just not going out to shop.”ĭown about 4 percent, to be exact, which Jorge says is “pretty tough” for a retail business. “So you have people who are otherwise law abiding, who are afraid to leave their house, who are only going out for the bare necessities,” Jorge says. But ever since President Donald Trump ordered tighter enforcement of immigration laws in January, it's been quieter, says Omar Jorge, the company's CEO. The registers here are usually pretty busy on weekdays. It's a weekday afternoon and a price scanner is beeping as a lone shopper checks out at the Compare Foods on North Tryon Street in Charlotte. Fear and uncertainty are keeping some shoppers home and threatening to dampen investment in immigrant businesses - one of the fastest growing parts of the economy. Business leaders in the region's immigrant communities say President Trump's tougher line on immigration is having a chilling effect on businesses and the broader economy.
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