For two weeks last November, kitchens at David “Woody” Lockwood’s restaurants ran short of dishwashers, prep cooks and servers as workers stayed home, afraid to leave their houses during a federal immigration crackdown that resulted in more than 400 arrests across North Carolina.
“We had a lot of people, mostly in the kitchen, that didn’t feel safe coming to work,” said Lockwood, a co-owner of Trophy Brewing and The Bend. That meant managers working extra shifts, longer waits for customers and paying employees who were not on the job to help them get by.
“We decided, at least for those two weeks, to pay those people for the hours they missed, which is not a sustainable thing,” Lockwood said.
Business owners and educators said the effects of the crackdown extended well beyond those taken into custody, disrupting construction and hospitality – two of the state’s largest industries – and keeping some students home from school.
Mikki Paradis, chief executive of PDI Drywall, said construction sites fell silent for more than a week during the November operations.
“There was not a single person working on those jobs,” said Paradis, who has relied on Hispanic workers throughout her 21-year career. She said these labor shortages would slow housing construction and drive up costs.
The accounts came at a roundtable hosted Friday by Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC02) as Congress remained deadlocked over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats have sought new limits on interior immigration enforcement, while Republicans say the agency must be fully funded to continue its operations. The partial shutdown was on its sixth day.
“We have a partial government shutdown because we can’t agree on a budget for the Department of Homeland Security,” Ross said. “That hurts North Carolina doubly, because we’ve got the ICE and CBP raids that are going on, but we also need our FEMA money that they have not released for western North Carolina.”
Cheetie Kumar, chef and owner of the Raleigh restaurant Ajja, said the fear following the raids was so intense that managers delivered groceries to employees who were afraid to leave their apartments.
“People just didn’t come to work, period,” Kumar said. “We found ourselves helping folks navigate — what do I do with my kids?”
Kumar, who employs about 40 people and immigrated to the United States as a child, said the current immigration system leaves many longtime workers without a viable legal pathway. She added that her business withholds payroll taxes from the checks of employees who are ineligible for many of the benefits those taxes fund.
“People always talk about how these people are taking advantage of us,” Kumar said. “It’s the other way around.”
Sarah Blalock, a Raleigh immigration attorney, said some clients eligible for humanitarian or family-based relief are now too afraid to file applications.
“People are even afraid to apply for an affirmative benefit,” Blalock said.
She pointed to visa backlogs that stretch for decades for some applicants, leaving families in legal limbo.
The anxiety has intensified since the Trump administration ended limits on immigration enforcement at certain locations, including schools, a policy previously intended to prevent arrests in sensitive areas.
Deborah Brown, middle school director at The Exploris School in Raleigh, said parents kept children home after immigration agents’ vehicles appeared near campus carpool lines. Staff members began delivering groceries to families and stocking an emergency pantry.
One sixth-grade girl asked a question that Brown said captured the mood in the building: “Are they taking all the brown people or just the ones who speak Spanish?”
Brown is the 2026 Wells Fargo North Carolina Charter School Principal of the Year and one of nine finalists for the statewide award to be announced May 15.
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