Deportation

Fiona Harrigan | From the January 2026 issue

Entrepreneurship is in Alejandro Flores-Muñoz's blood.

Back in his birthplace of Guadalajara, Mexico, his mother and other relatives sold whatever they could—hair products, food products—to make ends meet. After Flores-Muñoz's mom brought him to the U.S. as a child, she got a nine-to-five job but kept her entrepreneurial streak alive. "From me just having to watch her figure out how to make a large batch of cheesecakes and flanes" to observing her develop "her selling points" and participate in pop-up events, Flores-Muñoz says, "that entrepreneurship spirit was instilled in me."

He was inspired to become an entrepreneur himself in 2012 after receiving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a status established by President Barack Obama's administration that delays deportation for people who were brought to the U.S. without documentation as children. That gave him a way to get a Social Security number and the ability to earn the licenses and certifications he needed to become a full-fledged business owner who employs others. He launched several hustles throughout his 20s before becoming part owner of a food truck in 2018. He now owns a catering company.

"I wanted to pay taxes," he says. "I wanted to get a business license. I wanted to get all of the things that made a business a business."

Flores-Muñoz has contributed to his community and local economy for years and has become an outspoken advocate for immigrant entrepreneurs. But since President Donald Trump began his second term and launched his mass deportation operation, those activities have become much riskier. "I have never really feared for my immigration status," Flores-Muñoz says. "That has changed since January 20, 2025, because now nobody is safe."

"I've had to actually write a letter of what to do if I was to get detained. It's something that I've never had to consider. I've had to write down all my business information, my banking information, just have that available if I do ever get detained," he adds. "I can't believe that I've had to think that way."

People like Flores-Muñoz—and other immigrants, legally present or not—are an important entrepreneurial force in the United States. They start businesses at a higher rate than native-born Americans, creating jobs and enriching communities in the process. Now they're getting swept up in Trump's mass deportation efforts. As entrepreneurial immigrants are detained and deported, it won't just be newcomers and their families who suffer. The American workers, customers, and communities they support will suffer too.

Trump campaigned for his second presidential term on a promise to carry out large-scale deportations of undocumented immigrants. "These are people that aren't legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country," he said in an April 2024 interview with Time. Trump stressed that agents would "absolutely start with the criminals that are coming in." His administration would deport "the worst of the worst," he pledged.

So far, that doesn't seem to be true. According to an analysis of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records by the Cato Institute, "convicted criminals account for just 29% of the increase in people detained by ICE" between January and June 2025. "By early June," ICE arrests of immigrants "who had no criminal conviction or pending charge…were approximately 453 per day—a 14-fold increase" compared to early January, the Cato Institute reported. Undocumented individuals, temporary residents, and U.S. citizens alike have been detained.

Several immigrant entrepreneurs have been swept up. Kelly Yu was 19 years old and pregnant when she fled China's one-child policy and crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into Arizona illegally. Since arriving in 2004, Yu has had no 

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