Behind the counters of many businesses around Marin, there are hardworking groups of Latinx immigrants playing a vital role in keeping them running. According to the American Immigration Council, over 32 percent of California’s labor force is composed of immigrants. One economic sector where this immigrant labor force plays a particularly significant role is the restaurant industry, where they make up 22 percent of the workforce.
Jan Wiginton is the owner of Schroeder’s, a German restaurant located in San Francisco and multiple other restaurants throughout the Bay Area, with extensive experience in the restaurant industry. Her ten-plus years of experience in this industry have allowed her to witness the valuable role immigrants play within it.
“The COVID-19 Pandemic changed the face of San Francisco in terms of who stayed and who left. It left some gaping holes in our industry that needed to be filled, and several of them were filled by immigrants, which has been fantastic,” Wiginton said.
However, due to a recent increase in deportations under President Donald Trump, these holes in the restaurant sector’s workforce are threatening to reopen. In January of 2025, Trump initiated a mass deportation campaign, which he promised would be “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” during his 2024 presidential campaign.
This deportation campaign targeting Latinx immigrants in the United States (U.S.) has already caused a significant reduction in the immigrant population around the country.
According to Reuters, the number of arrests by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under Trump since the beginning of his deportation campaign has more than doubled the arrests made by ICE under the Biden administration in 2024. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), these ICE arrests have led to the deportation of around 600,000 immigrants as of September 23. This significant amount of deportations has not only led to the direct removal of immigrants from the workplace, but has also created a climate of fear within it.
“Sometimes [immigrant workers] don’t show up to work. They’re scared to come to work. If there are rumors of ICE raids or otherwise, they might call out sick that day,” Wiginton said.
Samuel Chavez is a paraeducator at Redwood, working with special education students. Chavez is also a legal immigrant under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program established by Barack Obama’s administration, which grants certain immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, renewable temporary legal status. He has noticed the spread of fear within the immigrant community, especially amongst older immigrants who are more likely to be undocumented due to not having access to easier paths to legal status available to young immigrants like DACA.
“Older immigrants don’t want to go out and live their life like they normally have for the 20-30 years that they’ve been in the country, now they’re just scared to do their everyday activities. It’s a huge shift from being so free and coming to a country where they thought, ‘Now I can work hard and go out and visit family and go to the store,’ to now feeling restricted, even here,” Chavez said.
In contrast, Trump’s deportations have inspired a desire to make a change in a younger generation of immigrants who came to the U.S. legally through the DACA program.
“Looking at the young immigrants who have recently come here, who were able to study in the U.S, I think [Trump’s deportations] create a lot of anger, frustration and they make you want to go into a position where you can make a change. It can be a motivator for working harder in schools, trying to get to good universities, and really going for the ‘American Dream,” Chavez said.
With increased political rhetoric targeted at the immigrant community, a negative image is placed on them now more than ever.
“I have to be more careful about all my decisions. I have to be more cautious and work harder than a lot of other people, because there’s this stigma or negative stereotype that’s already built around immigrants, at least in recent years,” Chavez said.
This stigma is very prevalent in today’s society, with 40 percent of immigrants saying they feel unwelcome in the U.S., according to a May survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. This widespread sense of unwelcomeness is likely due to negative comments made towards immigrants, like one Chavez experienced during Trump’s first term.
“When it was [Trump’s] first term, it was 2016, and I was a senior here at Redwood. I remember one of my best friends from kindergarten through high school said, ‘deport all immigrants.’ It was this negative image. I [said], ‘Dude, I’m an immigrant.’ He [said], ‘You are?’ He had no idea, because I never talked about it. Then he [said], ‘Oh no, you’re one of the good ones. You can stay right?’” Chavez said.
Despite all of these issues, there’s light at the end of the tunnel for immigrants. Chavez believes that with the community’s assistance, immigrants could finally stand on equal economic and social footing with citizens.
“If we had more allies, more people who are willing to speak up for those who can’t speak, we [immigrants] would be in a better place,” Chavez said.
