Eateries with a largely Hispanic customer base are choosing to close down temporarily. Cooks and dishwashers are staying home out of fear. Delivery drivers are sitting out shifts. And customers are finding that some menu items are no longer available, because somewhere along the supply chain someone was afraid to report for work.
As Border Patrol agents have fanned out across New Orleans over the past week to enforce the Trump administration’s deportation agenda, their presence has had a particularly chilling effect on the city’s many restaurants and their suppliers.
Amarys Koenig Herndon, a co-owner of Palm and Pine, an upscale restaurant in the city’s French Quarter, said that a few of her employees had chosen to stay home, regardless of their immigration status. “They’re working legally, but they’re hunkered down and not coming to pick up their paychecks,” she said…