'Ghost town': Restaurants consider closing as 'clientele is in hiding' out of 'real fear'​

President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policies have had a freezing effect on some communities as people hide out of fear of arrest and deportation. In the sanctuary city of Somerville, Mass. some restaurants are considering closing because the area feels like a “ghost town,” the Boston Herald reported Monday.

Trump border czar Tom Homan said over the weekend that arrests and deportations need to increase. “We’ve got to do a lot more,” Homan said on CNN. “We’ve got to get the targeting and production up. It’s hard work.”

“People are afraid to be outside on the streets,” City Councilor Matthew McLaughlin said last week. “Law-abiding people who are just trying to survive and take care of their families in this community. And there’s a real fear amongst both undocumented and naturalized American immigrants who are afraid of being mistaken for being undocumented.”

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“We are seeing this play out in the business community as well,” he continued, “especially in East Somerville where the restaurants are not making as much money as they did before, the clientele is in hiding.”

East Somerville restaurant owner Daniel Bojorquez told the City Council that some restaurants were considering closing. “A couple of restaurant owners within the area … they’re talking about potential closures because … the whole street feels like a ghost town,” he said.

“People are scared,” he added.

According to McLaughlin, 75% of the businesses in East Somerville are immigrant owned. Somerville has been a sanctuary city for almost 40 years, meaning that they limit their cooperation with the federal government on the issue of immigration. Almost a quarter of the city’s population was born in another country, according to census data. Somerville voted overwhelmingly for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

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“The City Council reaffirmed that status in the weeks after Donald Trump won last November’s election, vowing to protect all immigrants at ‘sensitive locations’ such as schools, hospitals, places of worship and courthouses,” reports the Herald’s Lance Reynolds. The city council will be monitoring the economic impact that federal immigration policy has on small businesses.

“It is affecting our tax revenue and that will in turn affect our ability to serve this community,” McLaughlin said.

“East Somerville has a very big concentration of immigrants so you can really see the impact everything is having,” Bojorquez said. “What we’re trying to figure out is how to bring this to everyone’s attention.”