In 2025 and the early parts of 2026, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal enforcement agencies, supercharged by a huge infusion in their budgets, vastly ramped up activity in multiple American cities, putting a focus on high-visibility incursions into Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis. The surges in arrests resulted in mass protests, spikes in arrests and detentions, and multiple deaths, including deaths of American citizens. Federal immigration arrests continue at an even higher level today but are spread across the country and less aimed at media shock and awe.
As each city-based operation was underway, immigration advocates and economists predicted the drastic impacts heightened ICE activity and mass deportation would have on local economies and communities. Now, several reports have outlined exactly how much these mass deportation efforts have hurt the social and economic wellbeing of immigrants and U.S.-born workers alike.
A new report by Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago examines foot traffic data from Advan Research to determine how people in communities with high rates Latine immigrants responded to the spike in ICE activity in Cook County, Illinois, in January 2025.
“Hunkering Down: Immigration Enforcement’s Economic Impacts” provides a comprehensive analysis of how Latine immigrants have responded to heightened ICE activity in their communities, and the results are staggering. The report uses a combination of credit card and cell-phone locational data to reveal that people who live in communities with high rates of Latine immigrants are far less likely to travel outside their own communities for both essential and discretionary spending.
That is, people from Latine communities have stopped going outside their neighborhoods to patronize other businesses, even when it comes to buying groceries or other essential purchases.
The most alarming finding is that businesses in neighborhoods with low rates of Latine immigrants have lost an estimated $1.26 billion in spending at retail and restaurant businesses since January 2025 and state and local government have missed out on $107 million in potential sales tax revenues.
It should come as no surprise that when immigrants feel the need to protect themselves from rampant and sometimes indiscriminate arrests, it harms both U.S.-born and immigrant workers and business owners
The simple truth is that when there are fewer workers and consumers, or if people are choosing not to participate in the economy as a means of protecting themselves from immigration enforcement, it hurts everyone in the economy.
For more information on how ICE activity has impacted the economy in Cook County and the greater Chicago area, read the full report here.