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For Cesar Zapata, a celebrated chef with four restaurants in Miami, the wave of migrants who arrived between 2021 and 2024 came at the perfect time.
After the pandemic, few American workers were eager to bus tables and wash dishes, even as people flocked to Florida in search of looser Covid-19 restrictions. But plenty of Nicaraguans, Guatemalans and Hondurans were eager to do the work. And they often had legal permission to do so, under rules issued during the Biden administration, allowing Mr. Zapata to keep his tables turning over.
Two years ago, Florida enacted a law requiring larger employers to screen workers for their immigration status, which scared some of them off. “They just left — they didn’t come to work — so we started having issues again,” Mr. Zapata said.
With the return of President Trump and news of immigrant arrests across the city, staff departures mounted quickly. It’s now very difficult to find workers again, or at least ones who will accept a wage that Mr. Zapata can afford.
In a sense, however, this crackdown was also well timed. Restaurant traffic has plunged in recent months, as foreigners have avoided tourist hot spots and even locals watched their wallets. Mr. Zapata pared his menus and slowed backfilling staff who left. He is now personally subbing for one of his prep cooks, an Ecuadorean immigrant who left a few months ago because she didn’t want to risk going to work.
“Last year was one of our best years ever, and this is one of our worst years,” Mr. Zapata said. “The fact that we haven’t been able to hire people kind of helped a little bit, because we were able to scale down on labor.”
