After an Immigration and Customs Enforcement workplace raid, rattled undocumented workers may not show up to their jobs in construction, agriculture, hospitality, retail and other industries. The disruptions can raise costs for businesses, which then pass them to consumers. Eventually, Raisz said, most of these immigrants try to go back to work out of financial need, but cut back on spending.

“What they won’t do is go back to establishments. They won’t go eat out at restaurants that maybe they would have previously. They won’t shop locally,” Raisz said, calling it “the cost of fear.”

“That affects the business owners, who often are immigrants themselves, especially when we look at areas that are very concentrated with high shares of immigrants,” she added.

Mass deportations could reduce California’s gross domestic product by $275 billion through labor shortages, supply chain disruptions and reduced household spending, according to a June report by Raisz and other researchers at the Bay Area Council Economic Institute and UC Merced.

California has roughly 2.3 million undocumented immigrants — roughly 8% of its workforce — the most of any state. The Bay Area is home to more than 300,000 undocumented workers, with nearly half concentrated in Alameda and Santa Clara counties, according to estimates by the Migration Policy Institute.

Transmatic Transmission in the Fruitvale neighborhood in Oakland on Oct. 22, 2025. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)

In Los Angeles and Chicago, National Guard troops — sometimes armed with rifles — accompanied ICE agents or provided logistical support. Trump said the troops were needed to protect agents from violent protesters and address “out-of-control crime,” a claim local authorities disputed.

Gilbert Alfonso, who has operated a car transmission repair shop in the Fruitvale for 48 years, said he’s been surprised by how quiet streets have remained amid the looming threat of increased immigration enforcement. Deploying the National Guard, he said, to the neighborhood would only make things worse.

“The businesses around me — the stores, the restaurants — they have no customers. They are just not coming out,” Alfonso, who owns Transmatic Transmission, said. “I’ve been here for that many years and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it.”

He used to handle up to 15 repair jobs a week. Now he’s lucky to get one. Because he owns his building, it blunts the financial hit somewhat, but he feels for other business owners who must come up with the rent money.

A mural on the facade of Transmatic Transmission in the Fruitvale neighborhood in Oakland on Oct. 22, 2025. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)

“Nobody is driving up or down the streets no more. The foot traffic is hardly anything anymore. My phone doesn’t ring anymore,” he said.

The sales slump and labor disruptions compound the economic uncertainties small businesses face, said Oscar Garcia, senior vice president of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce.

“Inflation, cost of doing business, cost of your product or your service, gasoline, rent — all that makes it a bigger challenge,” he said, adding that many businesses also lack access to capital or grants once available during the pandemic. “There are many factors that contribute to slow business.”