"With ICE agents in the area, I don't know when - or if - staff will be able to come to work. We all have pretty set schedules, and we're tight-knit. There are only six of us operating this place, seven days a week. And I have concerns: Are my employees going to get stopped on their way to work? Are they going to be hassled or detained? Are they going to come back?"
"It's a day-by-day thing. Over the past couple of weeks, we've adjusted our hours, opening later and closing earlier. I've been picking up everyone's shifts, but I can't physically work 16 hours a day, seven days a week. We had to close last week so that I could have a day off. I had a doctor's appointment that I couldn't miss."
"Some of my employees don't feel comfortable leaving their houses. If they tell me they can't come to the restaurant, my policy, of course, is "no questions asked." I get it. But I'm not a wealthy businessman. If we're not serving guests our food, there's no money coming in, and we can't pay people. I wish that we were at a place where we could offer better PTO benefits, but we're not. That's been hard."
An owner of a six-person fast-casual chicken restaurant in Richfield, Minnesota, faces daily uncertainty because of local ICE activity. Employees fear leaving home and sometimes miss shifts to avoid detention, prompting the owner to pick up extra shifts and shorten operating hours. Temporary closures occurred to allow essential time off, and limited revenues threaten payroll and benefits like PTO. The owner plans physical modifications to reduce visibility into the kitchen out of safety concerns. Customers also fear enforcement presence. National activists are calling for an economic blackout to protest ICE operations.
Read at Business Insider
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