When Border Patrol agents conducted massive operations in the city of Charlotte in November 2025, The consequences were quickly felt in the local economyMany supermarkets, bakeries, shops, and restaurants had to close completely. Merchants reported a sharp drop in customers, workers stopped showing up for work for fear of being arrested, and some businesses registered significant losses.
In the following months, many businesses continued to struggle to recover. Meanwhile, several community organizations launched bells to encourage consumption in the affected commercial corridors.
Now, a new one research The Brookings Institution concludes that the economic effects observed in Charlotte are not isolated cases. The study found that cities with the largest increases in arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) experienced job losses that extended far beyond those detained.
Among the metropolitan areas included in the analysis is Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, a region that spans parts of North Carolina and South Carolina and is home to one of the largest immigrant communities in the Southeast.
Immigration raids hit North Carolina jobs: Charlotte was one of the hardest hit cities
The Brookings research examined 86 metropolitan areas where ICE arrests increased significantly during the first half of 2025. Researchers compared employment trends in those cities with those in similar urban areas where immigration activity did not see comparable increases.
Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia appears in the group of cities identified as “surge cities.” That is, those where the immigration arrests They grew sharply compared to the levels observed during 2024.
According to the researchers, the affected cities recorded employment levels 0.73% lower than they would have been without the increase in ICE activity. In the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia area, researchers they calculated a loss of almost 10,000 jobs.
More than half a million jobs lost
Nationally, the study estimates that the increase in ICE activity was associated with the loss of approximately 668,000 jobs in the 86 cities analyzed.
One of the most striking findings is that the magnitude of job losses far exceeded the number of people arrested.
According to Brookings, ICE made approximately 52,000 additional arrests in the cities studied. However, each additional arrest was associated with the loss of roughly 13 jobs in the local economy.
The authors estimate that between 51,000 and 297,000 of those jobs would have been filled by American-born workers.
“Increased enforcement of immigration laws cost 668,000 jobs,” the report concludes.
The impact extends beyond detained immigrants
Researchers argue that the economic consequences of immigration raids are not limited to the people arrested.
According to the study, the presence of visible operations, arrests in workplaces, and the fear generated within immigrant communities can cause workers to avoid traveling, miss work, or temporarily abandon certain economic activities.
Furthermore, the fear of potential arrests is also affecting consumption. Families are reducing their visits to restaurants, shops, and other businesses. This situation is particularly impacting companies that depend on local economic activity.
This is a trend reported by merchants in east Charlotte following the Border Patrol operation in 2025. Several owners they said Enlace Latino NC that their sales decreased significantly because many residents stopped leaving their homes or avoided going to areas where they believed there might be immigration agents.
Construction and restaurants, among the most affected sectors
Brookings found that the greatest job losses were concentrated in industries with a high proportion of immigrant workers.
The sectors most affected were construction and accommodation and food services. These two sectors rely heavily on immigrant labor in many U.S. cities.
However, the effects were not limited to those sectors.
The research detected reductions in employment in sectors with a relatively low presence of immigrant workers, such as the arts, entertainment, and recreation. According to the authors, this demonstrates that the economic effects of immigration raids ripple throughout the local economy by reducing consumption, investment, and business activity.
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A debate that goes beyond immigration
The study's findings challenge one of the most frequently used arguments to justify the increase in immigration operations: the idea that the departure of immigrant workers would generate more job opportunities for workers born in the United States.
According to Brookings, the data shows the opposite.
Instead of producing a substitution of immigrant workers for American workers, the cities where arrests increased the most registered an overall decrease in employment.
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