Laborers are heading to construction jobs later than normal.

They start later hoping to evade immigration agents who began showing up this summer at Kansas City area apartment complexes in the early morning.

Trips to Home Depot also are made at odd hours, avoiding early morning for the same reason.

And QuikTrip, once a popular spot for immigrant workers to fill up with gas and grab food, is approached cautiously, if at all.

Several hundred area immigrants have gone to free taillight repair clinics since March to eliminate a top reason law enforcement can stop a truck or car.

“Even not going to work is an act of resistance,” said a northeast Kansas City man with family members and friends who are undocumented.

A game of cat and mouse is emerging, with some local immigrants attempting to stay a step ahead of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the other federal agencies tasked with fulfilling a new White House directive to detain 2,000 immigrants a day across the nation.

Skipping regular work is especially true for undocumented men with U.S.-born children.

“They are afraid for the lives they need to provide for,” one man said. “They just can’t risk it.”

An average of 1,474 people per day were arrested during the first 11 days of July, according to the latest data released by the Department of Homeland Security and analyzed by Austin Kocher, a professor at Syracuse University, and Relevant Research’s DetentionReports.com.

The Beacon is sharing stories of how local immigrant communities are reacting to increased immigration enforcement. Families and close allies spoke with The Beacon anonymously out of concern over being targeted by the Department of Homeland Security.

Demographers and economists are beginning to document the cumulative impacts of increased immigration enforcement on immigrant neighborhoods, specific job sectors and the broader economy. 

“Shock, awe and economic fallout” is a Brookings study of the 2025 enforcement surges across 341 American cities, including the Kansas City area. The study was released May 29.

Brookings found U.S. cities not only lost jobs held by immigrants, but jobs held by American-born people as well.

Nationwide, 668,000 jobs were lost due to increased immigration enforcement, according to Brookings. That’s nearly equal to the combined populations of Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. Brookings estimated the two Kansas Citys lost 7,986 jobs due to a 93% increase in immigration arrests.

Wichita, meanwhile, was found to have lost 2,240 jobs due to a 360% increase in enforcement.

“The 2025 approach, in the administration’s own description, was built around ‘shock and awe’ tactics; highly visible raids, worksite arrests, and viral videos of detentions — acts designed to induce fear in a broad population,” the report found.

Each immigration arrest that Brookings deemed to be excessive, meaning it diverged from previous enforcement scale and tactics that focused on jails and prisons, was associated with 13 lost jobs.

“The gap widened over time, and the knock-on effects extended far beyond those directly targeted,” the report said. “In surge cities, employment fell most in immigrant-intensive sectors, but job losses spread further. American-born workers also experienced job loss.” 

Deportation ripple effects

A decision affecting even one immigrant worker can quickly impact other workers and those who seek their labor.

A Guatemalan man, living in the Kansas City area for a decade, said he is picking up landscaping jobs from friends, undocumented men also from Guatemala and a few from Mexico.

He’s at his limit, and is turning away new work.

“They’re more fearful right now,” he said of his friends. “They don’t want to leave their homes.”

Because he has a U.S.-born wife, he believes that paperwork he filed years ago is close to being approved for his legal permanent residency, colloquially known as a green card.

Still, he’s apprehensive about being named for publication.

Calculating economic impacts of immigration enforcement is more complicated than White House talking points implying that every deported immigrant equals a new job for a U.S. worker.

The reverse is true, the Brookings study said.

“As firms faced sudden labor shortages, they scaled back operations, delayed projects, and cut headcount,” the Brookings study found. “At the same time, declining foot traffic and consumer spending hurt businesses whose customers stayed home.” 

Nationwide, construction and food service saw the deepest and most direct job losses, the study found. But other sectors like the arts and entertainment also saw contractions in cities where immigration enforcement surged.

Another factor is the Trump administration’s widening enforcement efforts targeting new groups of immigrants for deportation, including some who have work authorization.

For instance, as of July 28, the Trump administration began targeting Haitians for arrest and removal.

Work permits and Temporary Protected Status for up to 350,000 Haitians are being allowed to expire, according to a White House directive upheld by a June 25 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Another new Trump administration regulation will give asylum officers the ability to deny applications en masse, without interviewing the applicants.

More than 450,000 asylum seekers could be affected.

Neighbors helping neighbors

Another wrinkle to tracking ongoing economic impacts stems from immigrant communities leaning into neighborly aid, keeping their dollars closer to home.

In some portions of Kansas City, one person on a block will go to the grocery, dropping off items at a neighbor’s door. A neighbor will prepare a large pot of food, sharing it so others can avoid their usual shopping.

Some local advocates observe an uptick in people selling items like crafts and tamales online. Such sales can supplement income when one family breadwinner has been detained. In other cases it replaces a more public job that now feels less safe.

The owner of a hair salon in Kansas City, Kansas, has a legal immigration status. But many of her Latina clients do not.

For their safety and comfort, she vowed months ago to do all that she could to protect them.

Hair appointments are taken by phone. The front door is locked after the client arrives.

A few Kansas City area advocates are leaning into how they can better utilize immigrant neighborhood connections.

One local group has donated $200 in cash to the family of every immigrant they learn has been detained. But it’s an overwhelming task as arrests continue.

They’re considering finding trusted women leaders in neighborhoods to pass payments to impacted families.

“If we can understand our reality, and withstand the pressure, we can get ahead of this game and actually win it,” said Edgar Galicia, executive director of the Central Avenue Betterment Association in KCK.

Consistent education for the immigrant community is necessary, Galicia said, letting them know their rights, and what federal enforcement agents can legally do.

We can accept that federal immigration agents are acting under a legal frame,  Galicia said. 

“But that legal frame does not include fear, terrorism, masks, aggressions, violence, hunting, profiling,” Galicia said. “None of that is within the law.”

‘Trying not to cry’

Tactics used by some federal agents have drawn heavy criticism.

“Agents of Chaos and Cruelty: How the Trump Administration’s National Deportation Policing Force Has Attacked American Communities” is a report by the ACLU that identified 432 incidents involving misconduct by immigration agents.

Misconduct was defined as the use of force or threatened force, the use of intimidation tactics and retaliatory actions taken against those observing or documenting enforcement.

“We found patterns of misconduct in state after state, in both cities with massive enforcement surges and in communities that never saw significant federal law enforcement deployment,” the report said.

Aggressive tactics by federal agents impact the behavior of families, the decisions they make, which in turn have economic outcomes.

“I’m trying not to cry,” one Kansas City woman said, “because it upsets me so much that I have to alter my life completely to make sure I am safe.”

She has a renewable legal status, but other family members do not.

One result of decades without comprehensive immigration reform is that many families are considered to be mixed status. Some family members will have a legal foothold or are in the process to obtain one, while others are without a legal pathway.

A 2017 study by the Center for Migration Studies predicted that removing one family member from every mixed-status household through deportation would drop the median income of those households by nearly 50%.

If the U.S. removed all of its undocumented residents, “gross domestic product (GDP) would be reduced by 1.4% in the first year, and cumulative GDP would be reduced by $4.7 trillion over 10 years,” the report said.

“Being in detention is a choice,” said ICE Public Affairs Midwest in an emailed statement to The Beacon. The agency is encouraging targeted immigrants to “take control of their departure” and self-deport with a free flight through the CBP Home App. 

For the woman’s mixed-status family, difficult discussions have been held around “what does it look like if we have to leave?” 

The decision would include quitting employment in the Kansas City area.

The older children researched laws in Mexico for housing costs, opening bank accounts and getting dual citizenship for the U.S.-born children in the family.

Each family member has a file folder downloaded to their cellphone. It contains their birth certificate, Social Security card, green card (legal permanent residency card).

It’s a small assurance, the ability to prove their legality on the spot, if stopped by immigration agents.

All of it is done to better protect the family members without legal status.

“I have lived for many years with what could happen,” said the woman. “I’m not American enough to stay here, but yet if I go to Mexico I’m not Mexican enough for them.”