Liliana Valdez arrives at work on a hazy morning. As soon as she logs onto her computer, she walks to the back of the bank, wearing a stylish collared shirt, pencil skirt and pumps, and unlocks the vault. She pulls out her cash can and returns to her station. After organizing her money, she unlocks the door and takes a seat on her swivel chair. Five minutes pass, then ten, but still no sign of customers. Finally after 25 minutes, she greets her first customer. “Good morning. How’s business?” she asks the merchant. “Morning, Lily,” he responds. “Business is not good, not good at all.” What once used to be tens of thousands of dollars that this customer deposited is now only a little over $10,000—not enough to run a successful business in the expensive Bay Area.
The rest of her morning is the same story.

When she first began, Valdez’s days would go by fast. The line of customers would fill the lobby, and her drawer would overflow with cash. Now, most complain about how bad business is and don’t seem optimistic about it getting better any time soon.

“Before, the customers were a lot happier, but now they are very serious and don’t like engaging in conversation with us anymore,” says Valdez. Her own employers have been cutting back her hours because not only has merchant business gone down, but business in general has declined.

Last June, two economic writers from the Washington Post announced that the U.S. economy crash had just begun. Although they were referring to big corporations, small business owners have also noticed a significant drop in their sales. Some attribute part of their losses to the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, (ICE), who have been conducting raids of illegal immigrants in areas that are highly saturated with people from Latin and Central America.

“Back in the days it was so busy that I wouldn’t have the chance to take a sip of my coffee before it got cold,” says Ibrahim Ali, who worked for Evergreen Produce #1 in Oakland. “But now the grocery store is more like a liquor store where every once in a while customers come in.”

Ali, a native of Yemen, recently opened his own business a couple of doors down from Evergreen Produce #1, called Bay Area Wireless, a cell phone store. After tallying up the monthly bills and the store’s income, he only manages to break even. He invested more than $130,000 into the business, and doesn’t believe he is going to make that up any time soon. But Ali stays optimistic because he has no choice. “We have nothing else to do but work hard,” says Ali. “We have families to take care of.”

The small businesses showing signs of suffering are often located in cities that immigrants once thought to be safe havens. All around the Bay, the story doesn’t seem to change. The ICE raids have instilled fear into many immigrants and some are scared to leave their homes.

Arturo Reyes, a husband and father of two, wakes up before dawn to work at a landscaping company. He tends the weeds, grass and prickly trees Monday through Thursday, and Friday through Sunday he works at a family-owned Mexican supermarket as a cashier, shelf-stocker and cook, where he has worked for 14 years.

He has seen the happiness of a successful year—and the bitterness of a bad one. Recently the morale of the business partners has dropped, often leading to arguments over things that have no importance. Emotions run high and he knows that it is due to the stress of a bad economical year.

Reyes often makes the daily deposit for the store. He always has a smile on his face, greeting every bank employee by name, offering them lollipops or gum. His outgoing personality lifts everyone’s spirits, especially when he sings the "ABCs" or the “Itsy Bitsy Spider," two songs he learned from his 5-year-old son.

But behind all the jokes, the reality is that every time he steps outside his front door, there is the possibility of deportation. Although he is inching his way towards obtaining legal residency in the U.S., he is potentially the next victim of the ICE raids.

“You don’t understand how it feels to be out in public knowing that at any time you can be taken away from your family,” he says. “Not a day goes by that I do not think about it.”

Last June, the Immigrant Economic Impact report revealed that “immigrants are a critical part of the workforce and contribute to productivity growth and technological advancement.” It also stated that immigration has a positive influence on the economy.

A few cities away in East Oakland, a single mother of three understands where Reyes is coming from. Herminia Peña has lived in Oakland for 25 years without any papers. Her neighborhood is in the heart of the Fruitvale District, an area that was hit with raids in recent months. But although she is fearful of what can happen to her as soon as she leaves her home, she also knows she has a family to take care of. She has no choice but to go out. Peña jumps behind the wheel of her turquoise minivan on most days with a crate of cleaning supplies, sponges, and towels to clean people’s homes. She doesn’t have a drivers license and gets nervous at the sight of a police officer. She was pulled over twice, and had her van towed for not having a license. The income she makes is not enough for a decent living, but she is willing to take what she can.

Peña stands in her kitchen, reflecting on the hardships she’s had to endure as the sun from the kitchen window illuminates her face. After realizing that she doesn’t have any cabbage to top off the chicken tostadas she made for dinner, she decides to walk over to the small produce market two blocks away from her home. As she crosses the intersection of Fruitvale and Foothill, she glances around the bare streets. “People used to congregate on that corner looking for work,” she says. “But not anymore. Every once in a while you will see some people, but nothing like it was before. You can sense the fear.”
But the Bay Area has not seen the absolute worst of the ICE raids. According to ICE’s official website, the Los Angeles area witnessed the largest sweep of “more than 1,300 criminal aliens, immigration fugitives, and immigration violators.” Although most of those taken into custody were Mexican nationals, the group included violators from 30 countries, including Armenia, Peru, Jordan, India, and Indonesia.

Peña’s daughters, Evelyn, 18, and Guadalupe, 16, are working to alleviate her financial stress. Evelyn Salcedo sits in the living room of her mother’s home, which is adorned with pictures of their relatives, while working on a presentation for her medical assistant class at Western Career College. She cannot wait until she finishes school so she can get a good job, but she is even more eager to turn 21. Her reasons are different than most. “Being able to buy alcohol is the last thing on my mind,” she says. “Once I turn 21 I will be able to file papers for my mom so she can become a legal resident. I want my mom to be happy.” Salcedo recalls many nights that she would lay in bed thinking about her mom being taken away from her. The oldest of three, she knows that if anything should happen to her mother, the responsibility of her two younger siblings would rest on her shoulders.

“Now that my daughters are working, I don’t feel the economic stress as much as I did before,” she says as she serves dinner to her 80-year-old father. “All I really want is a work permit so I can get a better job. Becoming a resident would grant me the right to go to Mexico, but what for? It’s not like I have the money to vacation.”

Although Reyes and Peña are living in different cities, they have parallel stories. And there are many more people with similar situations, if not worse. As long as ICE raids continue to sweep up immigrants from the inner cities, businesses will continue to suffer—and people will walk the streets afraid, not knowing what their future has in store for them.