Felipa Ventura doesn’t have much time to stop and think about the possibility that she could get deported back to her native Mexico. She’s been too busy grinding to keep her South Philadelphia restaurant open. She’s been clocking 16 hour days, five days a week, at Taqueria Morales, and a second job that she and her husband, who works alongside her, agreed to take on.

Even with all their hard work, the couple is barely able to keep the restaurant running and also care for their family of four. Everything about their business has become more expensive, from the food to the containers they use for deliveries.

       Listen to the audio edition here:

And it could get even more expensive in the weeks or months ahead as the effects of the Trump tariffs begin to be felt by Americans. Most of the goods they use at the restaurant are imported from Mexico, which has been sucker-punched with a 25 percent levy on many exports. That could trigger perilous cost increases for a range of imported goods, according to many economists. And that means Ventura’s business could get walloped.

“This is our life. This is how we contribute to the city. We want our businesses to keep operating.” — Felipa Ventura, Taqueria Morales

“If we want to stay open, we’re going to have to raise prices,” Ventura says in Spanish, seated at one of the 10 tables at her Jackson Street restaurant, which is decorated with colorful paper picado banners. She was recently elected president of the Association of Mexican Business Owners of Philadelphia, which has about 40 members. She says she doesn’t like the idea of raising prices. “It hurts me because I know people are dealing with the same economic situation,” she adds.

Immigrant-owned business is international business

Across Philadelphia, immigrants who own small businesses are struggling to adapt to the changing economic and political landscape. On April 2, 2025, President Trump announced a 10 percent universal tariff on all goods imported into the U.S., with some countries receiving higher “reciprocal” ones. Trump later suspended many of the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days until August 12. At the same time, he has been following through on his campaign promise to mobilize federal resources to arrest and deport immigrants.

While all small businesses are expected to experience sales headwinds because of the tariffs, immigrant businesses — from Turkish rug importers to Vietnamese grocery stores — are particularly vulnerable because they specialize in products imported from their native countries. For Ventura, this means having to deal with increased costs for staples of Mexican cuisine like tamarinds, chilis, vegetables and avocados from Peru, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Chile and Guatemala (Mexican avocados are currently not subject to the new tariffs).

The tariffs on goods imported from Mexico doesn’t apply to products covered by the free trade agreement — including a few other agricultural products, textiles, medical devices and auto parts — that has been in place since the three neighboring North American countries agreed to it in 2018.

Other exempted products include copper, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and select fertilizers. Most other countries will now have to pay the 10 percent tariff. But other countries face higher tariffs, especially Asian nations. The U.S. is currently imposing a 30 percent tariff on China and 46 percent on Vietnam. But Trump’s administration has raised and lowered and paused tariffs multiple times.

“When the population upon which you depend so much for new business creation, new job creation, new tax revenue and are threatened to go out of business because of tariffs … that’s bad.” — Zeke Hernandez, Wharton

Retailers have little choice but to pass on the costs to consumers — even Walmart has said it will have to raise prices on many products. Analysts estimate that U.S. households will experience a reduction in after-tax income between $1,100 and $1,400 this year because of the increased costs caused by the levies.

While economists have argued that the revenue-generating benefits of tariffs are outweighed by significant economic downsides, the White House has argued they are necessary to rebalance global trade, bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and protect national security by cutting back on critical imports from foreign adversaries.

Small business groups have been warning that the economic impacts of the tariffs on their constituents could lead to many closing down. “We’ve heard from small business owners who said that any cost increases can be devastating for businesses already operating on thin margins,” said Small Business Majority Founder & CEO John Arensmeyer in a statement. The national group has a network of 85,000 small businesses.

Doing business in Philadelphia

According to a 2022 study from The Pew Charitable Trusts, 36 percent (nearly 15,000) of the city’s 41,000 “mom-and-pop” stores in the city were owned by immigrants. Now, they face not only tariffs, but the fears of deportation and raids, which can threaten their whole ecosystem.

And that ecosystem isn’t critical just to Philadelphia’s small businesses owners: Foreign-born workers accounted for a third of the increase in the city’s overall employed labor force. While the Pew study showed that immigrants have a largely positive effect on the local economy through job and business creation, newcomers also increase burdens on infrastructure and tax-funded services.

“Being a welcoming city that attracts talent, that attracts people, really is the best thing.” — Zeke Hernandez, Wharton

Zeke Hernandez, a Wharton professor of management and author of The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Neighbors says the tariffs will be a shock to the “cost structure” of immigrant-owned small businesses and could lead some to shut down. “When the population upon which you depend so much for new business creation, new job creation, new tax revenue and are threatened to go out of business because of tariffs … that’s bad,” he says.

He encouraged the City of Philadelphia to find ways to support small businesses to offset increased costs, though he acknowledged the local government’s tools were limited. “Being a welcoming city that attracts talent, that attracts people, really is the best thing,” he says.

Ventura, 45, says her family opened Taqueria Morales (aka Tacos Morales), located in an unassuming building on Jackson Street near Broad, in 2019. During the pandemic, they focused on delivery, which is still the driver of 80 percent of their business. She says the fees from delivery apps of up to 30 percent are worth it. But with a rent of about $20,000 a month and the hard costs of taxes and utilities, it’s a steep climb to profit for them (they declined to disclose their income). The biggest driver of costs for them are the products they need to make the food that they sell — and that’s where tariffs could cause the most pain.

One of Ventura’s most popular dishes is mole, the chocolate-based sauce from pre-Columbian times that is poured over meat or vegetables. She says the dish requires various chilis — anchos, pasillas, chipotles — and Mexican herbs. All of these need to be imported, and she’s not sure if they will be affected by tariffs. But if they are, that would increase the costs of the dish. “We haven’t increased the prices at all,” she says. Nonetheless, for reasons she’s not 100 percent sure of — most likely, the economy — business “is very, very low.”

To make matters even more difficult for Ventura and her family, immigration agents could swoop in at any time to deport her and her husband back to their native Mexico; neither of them have legal status in the U.S. But she says they have a plan: Their daughters, aged 23 and 19, as well as other family members who are citizens will keep the restaurant open in their absence.

“This is our life. This is how we contribute to the city,” she says. “We want our businesses to keep operating.”

MORE ON IMMIGRANT LIVES IN PHILLY