By Jorge Mercado Friday, September 11th, 2026

Businesses throughout the Central Coast, especially in Carpinteria, continue to feel the negative economic impacts of the ongoing presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents throughout the region.

A recent study from the Carpinteria Immigrant Rights Coalition, a nonprofit bilingual organization founded in the spring of 2025, published the results of a survey of local businesses, offices and agricultural workplaces in the Carpinteria Valley asking how they have been affected by ICE activity.

Deborah Dentler, one of the founders of the coalition, told the Business Times the reason she and her friend, Becki Norton, wanted to start the organization was that Carpinteria lacked “existing infrastructure and business organizations.”

“As I watched these detentions and ICE arrests unfold, it was my feeling, and shared by many others, that we needed to start considering the impacts on employers and employees and customers of our town because we already have nonprofits who are doing things like feeding people, offering drives, driving people to appointments, providing referrals to legal resources, etc. But there wasn’t anyone addressing the economic impacts, and that’s kind of a space that opened up that we felt was a place where we could be useful as we came up with the idea of the business survey project,” Dentler said.

The study was conducted in March thanks to a $3,000 grant the coalition was able to secure. The organization reached out to 61 workplaces in Carpinteria, of which 45 decided to participate in the survey while seven declined and nine never responded.

What the study found was that a substantial majority of respondents (78%) reported that their businesses, workers or customers have been negatively affected by ICE activity or fear of ICE, with 40% indicating significant impacts and 38% reporting moderate effects.

The report highlighted that over half of respondents said they’d lost customers or revenue.

“None of this was a shock,” Dentler said. “But our findings mirrored the findings of much bigger think tanks and huge surveys that have been done in other parts of the state and that is what we wanted to capture.”

Revenue loss was not the only way these businesses were hurt. According to the report, 47% of businesses reported increased stress and morale issues among employees, while 36% indicated that workers were afraid to come to work. 

Operational disruptions (24%) and challenges with hiring or retaining staff (22%) further illustrate the strain placed on businesses. A smaller but notable share (9%) reported employees reducing their work hours or leaving altogether.

As a result of these disruptions, 40% of those surveyed reported experiencing some level of financial impact, including 29% estimating losses under $50,000 and smaller percentages reporting losses exceeding $50,000 or even $250,000. 

Additionally, 7% of businesses estimated substantial revenue declines of 30–50%, indicating that the economic effects of immigration enforcement have been severe for some.

Dentler said one of the saddest things is that some of the businesses that filled out the report are no longer in business just a few months later as a direct impact of ICE’s presence.

“We’re a small beach resort town, so we’re very dependent on tourist dollars. We have people coming here from all over the world, speaking lots of languages, so it’s a perfect storm for a disproportionate impact on a town like ours,” Dentler said.

She said another striking finding is how unprepared many businesses are. According to the report, 31% of businesses do not have a plan or protocol in the event of an ICE visit. 

Dentler, a former lawyer, said many of the businesses were also asking about how to get more legal information should anything happen.

“This is a problem that cuts across all political perspectives. We need our community to be unified in understanding that preparing for ICE descending in Carpinteria is the same as preparing for an earthquake, a flood, a fire,” Dentler said. “In order to be a resilient community and have a resilient economy, we need our workplaces to have quality information, access to legal advice and written preparedness plans that their staff are aware of and familiar with, so that people feel safer and more comfortable and know what to do in a crisis.”

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