Gary Rohwer (85) thought the government was “left alone bad guysThat’s not how it went on the morning of June 10, 2025, almost a year ago now. ICE agents unnoticed surrounded his Glenn Valley Foods meat processing plant in Omaha, Nebraska. They were masked and had batons, a battering ram and a drone. No one inside knew anything until the door of the factory hall opened. Some employees fled into the freezer room.
By 1:30 p.m., about 75 Rohwer employees were on their way to a detention center in central Nebraska, hours away. That was roughly half of his staff. At three o’clock, “two brothers, about fourteen years old” showed up at the factory, Rohwer says. “They were concerned and asked where their mother was. What the hell you say? She has been taken away and is in jail?”
A year later, the anger is still in Rohwer’s voice on the phone. The entrepreneur, who was registered as a Republican all his life but voted Democratic in 2024, never saw most people again. That “broke his heart,” he says, but Rohwer also had to immediately try to save his company. ICE stated that he himself had done nothing wrong, Rohwer had adequately screened his staff, but nevertheless the impact was enormous.
We need the people from Latin America. Trump doesn’t understand that
Production fell sharply, and Rohwer said he put sales staff in the factory to be able to make something. “We immediately lost customers.” Survival seemed to be in danger and Rohwer could only think: how am I going to survive this?
President Donald Trump has been implementing his harsh immigration policy for a year and a half. Since the beginning, in addition to the great human suffering caused by the evictions, there have been concerns about the economic consequences. Many sectors, such as agriculture, construction and meat processing, are highly dependent on immigrants, who often do not have the correct documents.
Also fewer working Americans
The first studies are gradually trickling in on the question of what effects this will have on the American economy. One appeared in the United States at the end of April much-discussed research from economists at the University of Colorado. It found that in regions where ICE was very active during January-October 2025, employment fell for everyone – both immigrants and people born in the US. For every six undocumented immigrants who no longer work in a local labor market, there is also one fewer born American with a job.
“We took advantage of the fact that ICE raids were not happening everywhere,” explains Elisabeth Cox, one of the study’s authors, over the phone. By comparing arrest data from the nonprofit The Deportation Data Project with regional economic data, the researchers were able to draw conclusions about regional labor markets.
It showed that jobs held by undocumented immigrants and native-born Americans are “complementary”: the two groups of workers do not compete with each other, but undocumented immigrants help industries grow. Less educated Americans in particular are also losing jobs due to ICE actions. “That goes against the reasons the government gives for deportations,” says Cox. Trump’s narrative is precisely that deportations lead to more jobs for Americans. “That certainly doesn’t seem to be the case.”
The first studies are also not favorable at the macro level. Earlier this year, researchers from the Brookings Institute and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), two think tanks in Washington, calculated that GDP growth would be 0.2 or 0.3 percentage points lower in 2025 due to immigration policy. This also takes into account that fewer immigrants leads to less consumption.
“That may not seem like a lot, but this is comparable to estimates about the effects of all changes in trade policy,” says Stan Veuger, a Dutch economist at the AEI, known as a conservative think tank.
It was not easy to arrive at this figure, he explains. “It’s difficult to get in real time to determine what the immigration figures are.” The US actually lacks good data on this. “The government does not keep track of departures, people can leave temporarily or permanently. Even the influx is not completely clear.” Visa dates from the US Department of State have not been up to date for months.
Veuger and his colleagues complied extensive estimates concluded that in 2025 the US had more departing migrants than newcomers for the first time in fifty years: net between 0 and 300,000 people left. Evictions are only responsible for a small part of this. “It is mainly because the influx at the border has decreased significantly.” The government has abolished a number of specific programs for Venezuelans and Cubans, for example. “This resulted in approximately 400,000 people arriving in 2024. That has now more or less gone to zero.”
Based on macro data, Veuger draws a similar conclusion as economist Cox: there is no indication that the strict policy leads to more jobs for Americans. “Unemployment among native-born Americans has not fallen and wages have not increased.” In the period 2021-2023, when there was a lot of immigration, you also saw no pressure on salaries of less educated Americans, he says.
Police officers guard Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey. There were several clashes between demonstrators and ICE agents at the detention center.
Photo Eduardo Munoz/AFP
‘Bloody and dangerous’ work
Gary Rohwer of Glenn Valley Foods knows why. “No American wants to do this job.” Working in his factory is hard, it is freezing, wet and “bloody and dangerous”. “The work is physical. We need the people from Latin America. Trump doesn’t understand that.”
A year after the raid, Rohwer, whose company is known for ‘Gary’s QuickSteak’, has an easy-to-prepare piece of meat (‘Real Steak, Real Fast‘), its workforce is back up to standard. The ICE campaign generated so much local attention that in the following days he had to deal with a veritable queue of new interested employees from factories in the area.
According to Rohwer, it had become known that he was paid more than the minimum wage. “I could have lost my entire company. But thank God we treated our staff well.”
Nevertheless, he estimates the damage from the entire issue at approximately $3 million. “Missed sales, training new staff.” It is not possible to recover that amount from ICE, he says he has figured that out legally. Glenn Valley Foods’ sales are approximately $115 million.
Rohwer eventually even created a whole new HR function to do additional screening of personnel. Like thousands of entrepreneurs, he has used the E-Verify computer program to screen employees in recent years, on the advice of the government. He was able to introduce new staff here and then Glenn Valley Foods received a decision from the government fairly quickly: you can employ this person or not.
Rohwer thus fulfilled his legal obligation. But E-Verify cannot see whether someone is committing identity fraud, for example. This apparently appeared to have been the case on a large scale – something that is far from unusual for undocumented migrants.
“After the raid, I asked ICE and Homeland Security: what do I do now? They said: keep using E-Verify.” According to Rohwer, they also told him he was the victim. “I thought: that is possible, but that is because of your actions.”
Because he no longer trusted E-Verify and did not want to get into trouble again, he is now conducting more extensive research into his staff. He has hired a manager who can speak Spanish and interviews employees more extensively. Is their story correct? “We have become a bit more accurate,” he says.
Construction sector in trouble
Rohwer quickly managed to attract new people, but this does not apply to all companies and sectors. There are indications from the construction industry in particular that the government’s eviction policy is leading to fewer new houses. “We really see this market shrinking and less new construction taking place,” says researcher Cox. Construction was already struggling with staff shortages and, according to estimates, has up to 15 percent undocumented employees. Employment for native-born Americans in the sector fell 3 percent between January and October 2025.
Economists are not optimistic about the future. ICE actions are less in the news, but still take place on a large scale. “And don’t forget that a lot of money goes to ICE and Customs & Border Protection in the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’,” says Veuger of the AEI. “That bureaucracy is being scaled up enormously.” He also expects GDP to be 0.1 to 0.3 percent lower in 2026 due to immigration policy.
Ultimately, Rohwer thinks that the raid on his relatively small company mainly served to set an example. He noticed that ICE was not doing the same to its major competitors, such as Tyson, Cargill or JBS. “I think it would be difficult to circle the entire factory there.” His company is now growing again, something he would never have dared to think about a year ago, just after the raid. “That’s how you do it as an entrepreneur. You solve a problem and move on.”
Migrant workers harvest watermelons in Salisbury, Maryland. Even though they are legal, they fear the harsh approach of ICE.
Photo Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty
