An over-decade-old butcher shop in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, had to let two workers go, casualties of a business drop-off the workers tie to neighborhood fears over immigration enforcement.
The manager of a nearby Ecuadorian restaurant, citing the same fears, reports business losses as well.
Vats of unsold chicken soup are now discarded at day’s end. The owner of a cellphone repair shop blocks away, serving much the same client base, had to dip into savings to make the rent, according to manager Saeed Shanto.
“ Everybody's scared, you know?” Shanto said in an otherwise empty shop.
In the heart of Sunset Park's Fifth Avenue business district, where Spanish is the norm at mom-and-pop shops and chain stores alike, proprietors are reporting similar business hardship, with many attributing their declines to fears of immigration enforcement.
New surveys are putting a finer point on the downturn. A fall survey by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, unveiled during a City Council hearing last week, identified Sunset Park as the Brooklyn neighborhood with the largest percentage of surveyed merchants in the borough reporting losses tied to immigration enforcement.
Nearly 80% of the Sunset Park businesses surveyed by the chamber reported being impacted by immigration enforcement, tops among six key Brooklyn neighborhoods. Across the borough, nearly 30% of 131 surveyed businesses reported being hurt by immigration enforcement.
More than half of Sunset Park’s residents are immigrants, mostly from China and Mexico, according to city planning data. The same findings are showing up in Jackson Heights and Corona in Queens, two of the city’s most immigrant-rich neighborhoods, where more than 3 in 5 residents are immigrants.
According to a November survey of the two neighborhoods by the Queens Economic Development Corporation, also shared with the City Council, nearly 80% of the 66 businesses surveyed reported a decrease in sales and foot traffic, with fears of immigration enforcement cited as the cause.
Nearly 40% of the businesses described the impact as a “major decrease.” Of the businesses that reported a loss in revenue, 84% said they lost more than $1,000, and 7% said they lost more than $10,000.
Additionally, 22% of the businesses reported that their own employees had missed work or expressed fear of coming into work because of ICE activity. Nearly 20% changed hours, cancelled events, or otherwise altered their operations due to ICE activity or fear of it, and another 11% were considering doing so.
Arlette Cepeda, the interim executive director of La Colmena in Staten Island, a nonprofit serving local immigrants, reported a similar story in the immigrant neighborhoods of her borough.
“ Across our community, we are seeing a growing level of fear,” Cepeda said. “ This fear is not abstract. It has real economic consequences.
Small businesses in our neighborhoods are experiencing a decline in customers. These are businesses that often operate in thin margins, and even a small drop in revenue can be devastating.”
The findings arise as civil rights and immigration advocacy groups are suing the Trump administration over what they allege is racial profiling of Latino immigrants across the state.
The Trump administration has denied the charges. And in recent months in New York City, a wave of immigrants, largely with no criminal history, have been swept up in what ICE has called "collateral" arrests. Such arrests, on the rise nationwide, are of individuals who are not the original target of an ICE operation.
'We try to survive'
Sightings of federal immigration officers have become part of the neighborhood talk-of-the-town in Sunset Park, prompting fears even among immigrants with legal status. Official ICE data available doesn’t provide information on the number of ICE arrests in a given neighborhood.
But on social media, posts have proliferated in recent months alleging ICE sightings in the neighborhood, along with online fundraisers benefitting affected residents.
In years past, worker Juan Ramirez said there would always be a line at the New Public Meat Market on Fifth Avenue. But now, the shops often remain empty. The owner had to let go of two workers, Ramirez said.
Sales began to decline during the pandemic, but took a nosedive in the past year, Ramirez said, falling 30% from 2024 to 2025. Four other local businesses interviewed by Gothamist reported similar declines.
“ Practically everyone has cut hours, days,” Ramirez said.
At the cellphone repair shop a block away, manager Saeed Shanto said he’d sell $1,500 to $1,700 in merchandise and services each day in 2024. Now, most days, he says he sells $400 to $500. He said he had to lay off the store’s only other employee due to the decline.
The owner has another cellphone repair store on Fourth Avenue, where Shanto said he’s had to pull money from savings to pay the rent.
Shanto suspects that fears of ICE are keeping customers away, as he hears his mostly Latino customers gossip about fears of ICE and sightings in the neighborhood.
By mid-afternoon on a recent Thursday, the Ecuadorian restaurant La Carreta – meaning “the cart” in English — had only received eight customers. In years past, it usually served 20 customers by that time of day. Overall, said manager Benito Ortega, the business has lost 30% in sales this year compared to the previous year.
Ortega suspects a range of issues: fears of ICE, but also rising costs from tariffs and the Iran war. A large box of tomatoes that used to cost $28 in years past is now $80, he said. That, among other rising costs, has prompted the restaurant to raise prices.
At the end of the day, they often throw away vats of salad and chicken and beef soup.
“ We try to survive,” Benito Ortega, the manager of La Carreta, said in Spanish. “Now we’re just surviving, nothing more.”
