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Credit: Photo via Disney<\/p>\nCredit: Photo via Disney<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump\u2019s mass immigrant detention and deportation agenda is creating a climate of fear and uncertainty for immigrant workers in Central Florida\u2019s tourism workforce, including workers at the world-renowned Walt Disney World.<\/p>\n
About one-third of the nation\u2019s hospitality industry workforce \u2014 working in hotels, airports, restaurants and theme parks, for example \u2014 is made up of immigrants<\/a>. This includes not just undocumented workers, but immigrants from countries such as Haiti and Venezuela, whose ability to lawfully live and work in the U.S. has been thrown into flux under the Trump administration\u2019s proposed changes to programs that allow them to live here, like Temporary Protected Status and the asylum process.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not talking about people who have been here six months,\u201d said Isaie Marc, a Haitian immigrant and U.S. citizen on staff with Unite Here Local 737, which represents roughly 18,000 workers at Disney World. \u201cThere are some people who have been here 10, 18, 20 years, so they\u2019ve built a life in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n Marc is one of his union\u2019s key advocates for Haitian workers, many of whom work back-of-house jobs at major Central Florida attractions like Disney World.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some of his union\u2019s immigrant members, including workers at Disney, have bought homes in Central Florida. They own cars, and they pay taxes that help support their local communities. \u201cWe\u2019re not talking about criminals,\u201d Marc said, referring to the Trump administration\u2019s assertion that federal officials are only going after violent criminals in the U.S. without legal status. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people who keep the economy going. That\u2019s who we\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n According to data compiled by the nonpartisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, nearly 75 percent<\/a> of the roughly 68,000 people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as of Feb. 7 don\u2019t have any criminal convictions on their record. Research has found<\/a> that people born in the U.S. are more likely to commit crimes than immigrants, regardless of their legal status.<\/p>\n Living under threat<\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s willingness to send federal agents after people who are trying to build a better life for themselves in the U.S. is hanging over some tourism workers like a cloud.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery single day is living under threat,\u201d said Pericles Joseph, a Haitian immigrant who works as a dishwasher at Via Napoli, one of the Italian restaurants at Disney World\u2019s Epcot. Joseph, a member of Unite Here Local 737, told Orlando Weekly through a translator that he originally came to the U.S. in 2008, alone, for economic reasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now he has a family, in addition to a job at one of the most beloved theme parks in the world. He has two daughters who were born in the U.S., and he\u2019s a homeowner. He\u2019s one of more than 300,000 Haitian immigrants lawfully living in the U.S. under TPS, a program<\/a> that recognizes that his home country is currently unsafe due to issues such as gang violence and other dangerous conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of the nearly 1.3 million TPS recipients living in the U.S., as of March 2025, nearly half were located in Florida<\/a>, according to the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Wharton School of Business. Altogether, they contribute billions of dollars to the economy each year.<\/p>\n Efforts by the Trump administration to revoke TPS designation for several countries, including Haiti, over the last year have therefore left hundreds of thousands of recipients destabilized.<\/p>\n U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has argued<\/a> that allowing Haitian TPS holders to remain in the U.S. is \u201ccontrary to the national interest\u201d \u2014 an argument struck down by a D.C. District court on Feb. 2, just one day before TPS designation for Haiti was scheduled to be revoked.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Joseph, the uncertainty of whether he\u2019ll be able to stay and work in Florida, in order to pay the bills and provide for his family, is overwhelming.\u00a0<\/p>\n He no longer has a home in Haiti, where he worries the lives of himself and his daughters would be at risk if he were to be deported. His life, his job, his home, is here. \u201cIt\u2019s sad,\u201d he told Orlando Weekly through a translator. Many of his Haitian co-workers, he said, feel the same way.\u00a0<\/p>\n Evans Corvoisier, a food handler at Via Napoli who\u2019s also from Haiti, told Orlando Weekly it\u2019s not safe in his home country, and that life would be very difficult for him if he was forced to return. He\u2019s also a TPS holder and has lived in the U.S. for nearly 20 years.<\/p>\n \u2018You can tell business has slowed down\u2019<\/p>\n His union, advocating on behalf of 19,000 workers in Central Florida\u2019s hospitality industry, is part of a local coalition of immigrant rights advocates who have called on Orange County leaders to stand up to federal immigration enforcement and ensure due process rights for immigrants detained by ICE in the local jail. <\/p>\n \u201cMy community is in fear,\u201d Marc told county commissioners earlier this month, during the public comment portion of a board meeting. \u201cEven people that have legal status have been questioned and targeted. That\u2019s not right.\u201d<\/p>\n Another union representative, Xiomary Rivera, told county leaders that she herself \u2014 a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico \u2014 had been racially profiled by local law enforcement and pulled over for questioning several times without being presented with any evidence of a traffic infraction. <\/p>\n The federal crackdown on unlawful immigration, she said, isn\u2019t just hurting undocumented people, but entire communities. \u201cHaitians and Latinos are the backbone of the tourism workforce,\u201d she told county commissioners. \u201cWe need action, not silence.\u201d<\/p>\n Hospitality and tourism is the most pivotal industry in Central Florida, a region that\u2019s home to world-renowned theme parks like Disney World, Universal Studios (and its new park, Epic Universe), SeaWorld and other popular attractions.<\/p>\n In 2024, the region welcomed more than 75 million visitors<\/a>, 6.5 million of whom traveled from overseas. Altogether, tourism drove\u00a0 an estimated $5.6 billion in local and state tax revenue to Central Florida in 2024 alone, according to estimates from Visit Orlando.<\/p>\n A new report<\/a> from the union Unite Here, however, warns that Trump\u2019s mass deportation plans \u2014 including his stated goal of deporting one million people per year \u2014 are having a chilling effect on industries that employ large concentrations of immigrant workers, including agriculture, construction and hospitality.\u00a0<\/p>\n The report, dubbed \u201cInhospitable,\u201d found that the national hospitality industry workforce shrunk by 98,000 workers from December 2024 to December 2025, with the industry\u2019s unemployment rate ticking up just slightly. Citing U.S. International Trade Association data, the report says the U.S. saw 2.5 billion fewer trips by international visitors last year, and a 5.5 percent decline in tourism revenue \u2014 a loss of $1.2 billion \u2014 from Sept. 2024 to Sept. 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can feel that business has slowed down. People are spending less, and some of my co-workers who depend on tips are seeing a real drop,\u201d Shaleah Taylor, a guest room attendant and Unite Here union member in Las Vegas, said in a statement. \u201cEverything costs more, and it feels like we are constantly trying to catch up. A lot of us are nervous about job security, about our hours, and about what happens if things slow down even more.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of us are nervous about job security, about our hours, and about what happens if things slow down even more.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s tariffs, and other economic pressures, have also weighed on small business owners<\/a>, particularly those who are importing goods from overseas, like Asian food markets<\/a>. Everyday people who are seeing higher prices at the grocery store, or facing rent hikes without a pay raise to match, may also be less likely to visit their favorite bar or restaurant, or shell out for the wares of a locally owned retailer when their purse is looking flat.<\/p>\n Visit Florida, the Sunshine State\u2019s own tourism marketing agency, came out with its own report this month in collaboration with the governor\u2019s office, announcing a record-breaking number of visitors<\/a> to Florida in 2025, with domestic visitation (i.e., visitors traveling from other parts of the U.S.) accounting for 91.5 percent of that.<\/p>\n Despite less love<\/a> from Canadians last year \u2014 who\u2019ve reportedly shied away from U.S. travel due in part to ongoing tariff wars<\/a> and annexation threats<\/a> \u2014 Visit Florida found that the state still welcomed an estimated 9.3 million overseas visitors in 2025, compared to just under 9 million in 2024. Canadians made up 2 percent of visitors to the Sunshine State last year.<\/p>\n \u201cFlorida continues to set the standard as the top travel destination in the nation, welcoming millions of visitors while delivering real economic benefits for our residents,\u201d Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a statement. \u201cThrough strategic investments in infrastructure, public safety, and environmental stewardship, we are ensuring that Florida remains a place where families can vacation with confidence and where our tourism industry can continue to thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n Visit Orlando, a local tourism marketing agency that operates separately from Visit Florida, doesn\u2019t release its own annual tourism numbers for the Central Florida region until May.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, president and CEO Cassandra Matej told Orlando Weekly that current estimates for international visitation to Orlando predict a slight 4.5 percent decline in 2025, with much of that decline resulting from Canadian visitor losses, estimated to be around 13 percent. <\/p>\n Other markets are expected to show growth or remain flat from last year, according to their numbers, with estimates of a 5.5 percent increase in visitors in 2025 from Brazil, a 0.2 percent increase from the United Kingdom, and a 0.3 percent increase from Mexico.<\/p>\n \u201cTravel is influenced by many factors, including politics, inflation, and even the weather,\u201d Matej said in a statement. \u201cHowever, we remain optimistic about international outlook over the next three to five years, particularly as global travel continues to rebound, and Orlando continues to expand its international reach.\u201d<\/p>\n Visit Orlando expects their international visitation in 2026 to rebound to where they were in 2024 \u201cdue to healthy gains across most origin markets.\u201d<\/p>\n We keep each other safe<\/p>\n Across the country, fear of immigration enforcement agents roaming the streets doesn\u2019t just stem from fear of deportation. Detention centers, including the so-called Alligator Alcatraz in South Florida, have been accused<\/a> of dangerous living conditions, human rights violations and detention of people who are in the country lawfully.<\/p>\n Workers\u2019 rights organizers have been targeted<\/a> and abducted by federal agents<\/a>. U.S. citizens have been shot dead<\/a> by federal agents during ICE raids. State employees in the Florida Department of Financial Services, deputized to carry out immigration duties on behalf of ICE, have been accused of luring immigrants out of their homes<\/a> in order to detain them here in Orange County.<\/p>\n In Orlando, labor union Unite Here Local 737 has hosted legal clinics for their members with local immigration attorneys over the last year, to help provide information and updates on TPS and other immigration policy changes.\u00a0<\/p>\n They\u2019ve also enshrined into some of their union contracts \u2014 covering workers at Disney and a couple of local hotels \u2014 certain protections<\/a> that guarantee immigrant workers the right to get their jobs back for up to one to two years (varies by contract) if they lose their work authorization or work visa temporarily, and then regain it.<\/p>\n Marc, the union staffer, said Central Florida\u2019s immigrant workforce is critical to keeping the magic of local tourist attractions (and their money-making potential) alive. \u201cWithout them, there is no industry.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Apple News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>\u00a0| Or sign up for our\u00a0RSS Feed<\/a><\/p>\n Related Stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tAbout one-third of the nation\u2019s hospitality industry workforce \u2014 in hotels, airports, restaurants and theme parks \u2014 are immigrants. \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/italy-pavilion-gmaps.png\")
A view from Disney World\u2019s Epcot Credit: Photo via Google Maps<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Isaie-Marc-ICE-orange-county-commission-public-comment-2026.jpg\")
Isaie Marc, a union representative for Unite Here Local 737, speaks to Orange County commissioners during a board meeting on Feb. 10, 2026. Credit: Orange County Government\/YouTube<\/p>\n
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