A UCLA study found that Latino businesses were disrupted by the ICE raids last summer by looking at 75 entrepreneurs across L.A. County.
46,000 fewer customers visited businesses that were within a half mile of enforcement sites, two weeks after the raids, leading to an estimated three million loss in revenue.
This statistic in the Cost of Fear study came by monitoring the same businesses before and after the raids, affecting both the businesses that were raided and those in close proximity.
Nicholas Vargas, associate professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, contributed to the study and said the economic consequences of the raids led to some sad stories.
“People who had previously suffered from issues of addiction and in the aftermath of the economic consequences and the debt accumulating, they kind of relapsed into some of those addictions and had mental health implications,” said Vargas.
Business owners reported that they had to close for periods of time and find different kinds of work due to the lack of traffic at their shops, according to Vargas.
Vargas said the business owners were still suffering personally and still losing revenues about nine months after the raids.
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