MINNEAPOLIS — Operation Metro Surge has been over for months. The same can't be said for the crisis facing Daniel Hernandez's Colonial Market grocery stores.
After Hernandez's parking lot became a well-known hangout spot for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the lines that Hernandez grew accustomed to seeing each morning at his stores disappeared. The rebound in traffic Hernandez hoped to see after the end of the surge never materialized.
"We're barely — literally barely — surviving," Hernandez told CNBC in an interview inside one of his stores, where Spanish-language music played through speakers and piñatas dangled from the ceiling. "The damage has been done."
This summer, Hernandez shuttered Colonial Market's location on Lake Street, the heart of Minneapolis' Hispanic business community. Hernandez had spent savings and borrowed money against his house to open the store two years prior. He said sales at his stores have declined by roughly 60%.
The financial turmoil facing Hernandez and others in Minneapolis is being experienced, to varying degrees, in communities across the country. As President Donald Trump has directed federal immigration officers to carry out mass deportations in major U.S. cities during his second term, a growing body of research shows that a monthslong economic chill followed.