Un Día Sin Mexicanos (“A Day Without A Mexican”) Is Today!

How removing Mexicans from California’s economy changed from being a joke to something serious. Un Día Sin Mexicanos (“A Day Without A Mexican”) Is Today!

In the 2004 movie Un Día Sin Mexicanos (“A Day Without A Mexican”), Californians awake to discover that all the Latinos among them have mysteriously disappeared. The state swiftly descends into anarchy.

Streets are uncleaned, fruit rots on trees while drug hustlers start peddling vegetables as they fall into short supply.

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Middle-class people who were bullying their Hispanic maids and janitors hours earlier buckle under the backbreaking work they now have to do. Schools close. Riots break out as baseball games are canceled (basketball continues as normal).

The directors laid on the satire with a sledgehammer, but the message wasn’t particularly controversial. The relationship between California and its Mexicans had become symbiotic, not parasitic.

At the time, the movie fed into a then–widespread notion that migrants’ status should be resolved, and those who had spent most of their lives in the US shouldn’t live with the stigma of being illegal.

That was 20 years ago. On Monday, it will be exactly 10 years since Donald Trump descended the escalator to open his campaign for president by inveighing against Mexicans who are “rapists” and “bring disease.”

The decade since has set California, and the rest of the nation, on a course to the current drama, in which the administration has sent troops to support aggressive efforts to round up migrant laborers at their places of work, while protesters wave Mexican flags atop burning cars.

Immigration is above all a cultural issue. But the clampdown could also have profound economic consequences. Unlike tariffs, Trump’s other signature policy, it’s already having a dramatic effect. According to George Saravelos of Deutsche Bank AG:

While everyone is focused on the impact of tariffs, the real story for the US economy is the collapse in immigration: down more than 90% compared to the run rate of previous years, equivalent to a slowing in labor force growth of more than 2 million people.

This represents a far more sustained negative supply shock for the economy than tariffs.

Also unlike tariffs, anti-immigration policies have strong popular support, while Americans appear evenly divided over the ugliness on the streets of Los Angeles.

The administration’s performatively cruel tactics raise constitutional issues and may not survive. A big reduction in the US migrant population for the next four years, however, seems to be a fait accompli.

High-flying students or desperate laborers looking to scrape by will be equally deterred by recent events. An economic experiment lies ahead — do the benefits of immigration outweigh the costs?

The Winding Road

This wasn’t inevitable. Ronald Reagan, a former California governor, controversially gave migrants an amnesty. Two decades later, George W. Bush, governor of another border state, arrived in the White House determined to thrash out a lasting migration compact with Mexico.

Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda wanted the “whole enchilada,” a full package of measures that would formalize migrants’ status in a way that worked for both countries, and even persuaded American labor unions to take his side — before the 9/11 terrorist attacks sent immigration spinning down the agenda.

As recently as 2012, Barack Obama’s reelection shocked Republicans into seeking a more liberal position on migration. Even the Fox News pundit Sean Hannity suggested “you create a pathway for those people that are here, you don’t say you gotta go home.”

Republican senators including the current Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined a bipartisan “Gang of Eight” to proclaim 2013 a “year of immigration reform.”

They thrashed out a compromise combining a path to citizenship with much tighter border enforcement. It resembled Castaneda’s enchilada, and passed the Senate easily, only to die in the House.

Since then, the turnaround has been total. Not even Democrats want to encourage migration. As vice president, Kamala Harris told potential migrants: “Do not come. Do not come.” Coming from her, the message didn’t land.

It does now. And the meaning is clear that there is no statute of limitations. However long you’ve been in the US, if you’re not legal, “you gotta go home.”

The Economy

In theory, immigration can have positive or negative effects on inflation and unemployment. Migrants mean greater demand, which pushes up prices.

They also increase the supply of labor, reducing costs for businesses and prices for consumers. The question for economists is whether there is a shortage or surplus of labor.

This divides the Republican Party — although their answers to an economic question tend to reflect cultural priorities. Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, a vocal Trump proponent, argues that it’s time “to ban Third World immigration, legal or illegal” because the US has “reached our limit, and we have a huge cultural, educational, housing, financial and essential services problem to fix now because of it.”

The business wing of the party, and its natural supporters in Wall Street, take the opposite position. Vincent Deluard, macro strategist at StoneX Financial, argues that MAGA policies raise labor costs and are part of a “long march towards economic populism” and an agenda of “redistributing income to workers.”

After the pandemic, the US suffered a severe labor shortage, and job vacancies surged to an all-time record. That fueled a return to inflation and a wave of immigration, leading to what Deutsche’s Saravelos calls a Goldilocks mix of high employment growth and low wages. If the immigration halt endures, he says, “it must follow that over the course of the year the reverse will happen.”

For economists, the issue isn’t difficult. As Andrew Harris, of London’s Fathom Consulting, puts it: “There’s a negative supply shock, from restricted migration, and a positive demand shock from reshoring. How is that not going to be inflationary?”

The Culture

It’s possible that minds will change if the economic experiment plays out, and America discovers that it needs its migrants after all. Absent that clear evidence, however, the issue is cultural. Anti-immigrant sentiment long predates Trump, and spreads far beyond the US.

Though now driven primarily by the populist right — from Nigel Farage’s various British parties that drove Brexit, through France’s Le Pen to the Alternative für Deutschland — it’s also about the left, and it involves intellectuals as much as the masses.

The British liberal journalist David Goodhart published “The British Dream” in 2013, arguing that the left had been wrong about immigration, which, he said, created “a kind of development distortion, the human equivalent of global trade and fiscal imbalances” in which well-educated people left countries that needed them for places where they could enjoy a higher standard of living.

Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer shocked many observers last month with a white paper to “restore control over the immigration system.”

Just as conservatives were ready to compromise before Trump arrived, now figures on the left feel they must appease the anti-immigrant movement.

In the US, a country almost entirely made up of migrants and their descendants, opposition to migration is more complicated. But in 2004, the Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington published a hugely controversial essay, The Hispanic Challenge.

He argued that Hispanics were less prepared to assimilate than their predecessors, kept themselves apart in enclaves, and rejected “Anglo-Protestant values that built the American Dream.”

They hadn’t crossed oceans, but merely walked across a border. Indeed, most came to the US not just to settle but to earn money to build “una casa por mama.”

Huntington warned of a risk ahead from the rise of an anti-Hispanic, anti-black, and anti-immigrant movement composed largely of white, working- and middle-class males, protesting their job losses to immigrants and foreign countries, the perversion of their culture, and the displacement of their language.

Writing in the year of Un Dia Sin Mexicanos, he invoked another movie: 1993’s Falling Down, in which Michael Douglas plays a frustrated white man who has lost his job and explodes with violence against the migrants who now dominate Los Angeles.

A sequel to Un Dia is in the works. The original ends with the migrants reappearing as suddenly as they had vanished, and emotional scenes of reconciliation.

“Damn these gringos are f***ing cool,” says one immigrant as he’s hoisted on the shoulders of border control agents who cannot contain their delight that Mexicans are back.

Such a cinematic ending would be preferable — but it looks as if the US will have to experience life without immigration for a while before any such happy ending is possible.

Updated: 6-16-2025

ICE Raids Have Sent Latino Shoppers Into Hiding And Big Brands Are Hurting

Coca-Cola and other companies have seen a drop in sales due in part to a pullback by Hispanic

Coca-Cola has long looked to Hispanic consumers for sales growth—a group the company has said holds an annual $2.1 trillion in spending power.

Now Coke and other brands are discovering what it means to lose them.

Fear and uncertainty are driving changes in shopping behavior. The Trump administration’s sweeping deportations of immigrants living in the country illegally have made many Latinos—including those with legal status—fearful of being stopped by immigration officers.

Many consumers say they are retreating from public life, forgoing their regular shopping trips and restaurant meals.

Beyond deportation fears, job losses in industries like construction have left Hispanics with less money to spend. And inflation has squeezed their monthly budgets.

The issue has grown increasingly tense after Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids sparked protests in Los Angeles, leading President Trump to send in National Guard troops and Marines.

Many demonstrators said they had family members who were afraid to leave their homes because they didn’t have legal status in the U.S. Protests have since spread to other cities.

Across America—and particularly in Southern states with large Hispanic populations—consumer goods companies, food and beverage makers, restaurants and retailers are taking a hit.

Coca-Cola’s sales volume in North America fell 3% in the first quarter of the year, partly because of the pullback by Hispanic shoppers, company executives said.

Colgate-Palmolive, Modelo brewer Constellation Brands and restaurant chains including Wingstop and El Pollo Loco over the past few months have told investors that a decrease in Hispanic spending is hurting their sales.

Coca-Cola Zero Sugar bottles with personalized names on display at a gas station.

“We have seen a huge decline in traffic,” Régis Schultz, CEO of JD Sports, said on a call with analysts in May. The company owns retail chain Shoe Palace, which has stores in 12 states and targets Latino consumers. “You can see definitively the impact” of the immigration policy, he said.

Coke has deep roots in the Hispanic community, and it’s already working to recapture some of those consumers. In May it introduced a new marketing campaign in English and Spanish called “For Everyone.”

It’s a reimagining of a well-known advertisement called “Para Todos” that Coke introduced in Argentina more than two decades ago.

Coke has had to contend with the effects of inflation and a boycott based on a social-media rumor—but for it and other companies, getting consumers into shops might be the biggest challenge.

In places like Plum Grove, Texas, a predominantly Latino town northeast of Houston where it’s not uncommon to spot a horse in the yards abutting its rural roads, immigration raids have spawned widespread fear, residents and retailers said.

Convenience store owners said they regularly see ICE agents in their parking lots, which often scares away customers. Parents have sent their U.S.-born children out to buy eggs, milk and other essentials, store owners said.

In nearby Cleveland, Texas, foot traffic has slowed at the Let’s Go Market convenience store. Sales fell by nearly a third in February and haven’t fully rebounded, said store owner Dennis Kim.

“I think it’s the fear,” said Kim.

Coke is a top seller at Let’s Go Market, he said. On the glass door of a refrigerator case, a decal says “Who will you share a Coke with?” alongside a picture of bottles with the names Luis and Sofia.

A refrigerated room, or “beer cave,” is stacked high with cases of Modelo Especial and Corona. The store’s bestselling beer is a 12-pack of Modelo, Kim said. A container of limes to accompany beer purchases sits near the checkout counter.

Modelo, an import from Mexico, rocketed past Bud Light in 2023 to become America’s bestselling beer, but its sales are now slipping. About half of Modelo’s U.S. customer base is Hispanic, according to the beer’s maker, Constellation Brands.

“If that consumer has concerns, issues, et cetera, that’s a big deal for us,” Constellation Chief Executive Bill Newlands said in an April interview.

Constellation’s beer sales to retailers slid 1% in the latest quarter, the first time they have fallen since the company in 2013 acquired U.S. rights to the Modelo, Corona and Pacifico brands.

Constellation recently began conducting monthly studies to take the pulse of Hispanic buyers, who also account for some 30% of Corona’s sales. A survey earlier this year found that Hispanic consumers were worried about inflation and immigration crackdowns.

Some 75% of Hispanic consumers said they were going to restaurants less frequently, a more recent company survey found. It also showed that Hispanic people were attending fewer social gatherings where beer was served.

“Across the board, consumers are a little wary,” Newlands said at an investor conference this month. “That’s doubled down if you’re a Hispanic consumer.”

Constellation might consider a marketing campaign for the fall if Hispanic spending doesn’t recover, distributors said.

Boston Beer has attributed the slowing sales growth of its Twisted Tea drinks partially to a decline in Hispanic purchases. It continues to market the brand through social-media influencers, placing Spanish-language ads in public spaces and promoting Twisted Tea’s partnership with Top Rank boxing, which is popular among Latinos.

Boston Beer founder Jim Koch said he worries that there’s not much his company can do in the short term to solve the problem.

“I don’t know, and I suspect there’s not a good answer,” Koch said in an interview.

Coke’s Woes

Coca-Cola’s ties to Hispanic spenders span to Latin America, which is a stronghold for the brand. Its classic red cans are ubiquitous in Mexico and other Latin American countries, and Latin Americans who immigrate to the U.S. often bring with them their dedication to the brand.

Glass bottles of imported Mexican Coke, made with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, are sold widely in the U.S.

Hispanics account for nearly one in five people in the U.S. and one in four Gen Z consumers, with a gross domestic product equivalent to Italy’s, according to research Coca-Cola posted last year on a website it created to share consumer insights with its retail and restaurant partners.

A report last year by market-research firm Circana found that Hispanic households outpaced non-Hispanic ones in consumer sales growth.

Before the pullback by Hispanic shoppers, Coca-Cola was already contending with the fact that inflation in recent years had strained many soda drinkers’ household budgets. Coke last year began offering new package sizes for consumers looking for lower price points.

Then videos began circulating on social media claiming that the company had called on ICE to help remove workers living in the country illegally. Coke called the claims “unequivocally false.”

Still, the videos fueled a boycott, and people shared TikTok videos of themselves in store aisles, walking past Coke and grabbing Pepsi instead.

“Misinformation is unfortunately a fact of digital life,” Coca-Cola’s finance chief, John Murphy, said in an interview.

In late May, owners of convenience stores in Latino neighborhoods around Houston said the Coke boycott was still affecting sales of the brand, but that they were starting to recover.
Staying home

ICE’s tactics have had a chilling effect on some retailers, store owners and company executives said. Stephen Miller, a top White House aide and the architect of the president’s immigration agenda, has directed ICE officials to target Home Depot, where day laborers typically gather for hire, or 7-Eleven convenience stores, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Hispanic shoppers reduced visits to physical stores more than non-Hispanic ones in the first quarter of the year, compared with the same period in 2024, according to a May report by market research firm Kantar.

Walgreens experienced a 10.5 percentage point decline in Hispanic shoppers in the first quarter, while Home Depot had an 8.7 percentage point drop and Dollar General a 6.1 percentage point decrease, according to the report.

The share of Hispanic shoppers who made purchases in bricks-and-mortar stores dropped to 53% in the first quarter of this year from 62% in the fourth quarter of 2024, while the share who made online purchases increased to 58% from 51%, the Kantar report said.

Manuel Marchant, a 34-year-old IT manager at a car dealership in Davie, Fla., said that despite being a naturalized U.S. citizen, he no longer goes out at night if he can avoid it.

He said he and his wife have stopped going to nice restaurants—where they used to eat about twice a week—and he carries copies of his passport and citizenship paperwork at all times.

“I’m worried if I’m stopped,” said Marchant.

Retailers are trying to lure back Hispanic shoppers with promotions—such as buy one item, get 50% off a second; price reductions; and so-called recipe plays, like promoting pork for particular Latino dishes, said Dave Marcotte, senior vice president for strategic advisory at Kantar.

Isabel Aguilar, who is 47 and lives in Houston, doesn’t have legal residency. She said she has changed her shopping habits—avoiding places like a Walmart store that has had a high police presence. She is afraid to go to work but can’t afford not to, she said.

In a stall at the Houston Farmers Market, in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, she sells herbs, dried chilies and ceramic products imported from Mexico. Visitors to the market often browse now rather than buy, she said.

“People don’t want to spend because, obviously out of fear, they prefer to keep their money in case there will be deportations,” Aguilar said.

Aguilar said many of her customers are avoiding Coke due to the boycott, and asking for Pepsi instead. A few have suggested that her stall stop selling Coke entirely.

Middle-class, U.S.-born Latinos are altering consumption habits as well. Carlos Jimenez, a program manager for a federal agency in Albuquerque, N.M., and father of three, said he and his wife have cut back in various ways.

Earning $76,000 a year as the family’s sole breadwinner, Jimenez, 43, said he worries he could lose his job in a round of government layoffs.

The couple, who own one car, had been thinking of buying a second one, but decided against it. They have eliminated vacations and instead seek family entertainment at free local events. Instead of buying clothes for their children at the mall, they are shopping at secondhand stores.

“We’re trying to make our dollar stretch as much as possible,” Jimenez said.

At the supermarket, Jimenez and his wife are buying less beef and more chicken. To save money, they have stopped buying Coke, Coke Zero and Cherry Coke.

Instead, they drink store-brand cola from Kroger or Walmart.

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