DENVER — Alejandro Flores-Nuñez immigrated to the United States from Mexico, with his single mother and brother when he was just 7 years old. Now, he's the owner of a successful catering company in Denver, Combi Taco & Stokes Poke Catering.
"When we first came to this country in 1997, one of my mom's first ways of generating income was through food," said Flores-Nuñez. "Back then, it was just something kind of like to do it for survival. Now, I've actually made it into a business with staff, and last year we were able to cook over 60,000 meals."
He said every year, his team has been able to expand by one or two staff members. But Flores-Nuñez said reaching this level of success as an immigrant business owner hasn't been easy.
"All my life I've been told that we are taking jobs away. All my life I've been told that we don't pay taxes, that we don't contribute, but that is the contrary, right? Including newcomers who have arrived to this country, currently," he said.
It's also not easy for Flores-Nuñez to navigate the controversy surrounding immigration as the 2024 presidential election nears. A key part of former President Donald Trump's campaign has centered around the idea of mass deportations. At a news conference in California last month, the former president and current Republican presidential nominee singled out the city of Aurora and promised to conduct “large deportations” of immigrants.
Trump’s comments followed the Sept. 10 presidential debate, in which he cited Venezuelan gang activity in Aurora claiming “they are taking over the towns.” Aurora mayor Mike Coffman — a Republican — has since refuted those claims after initially suggesting on national television that several apartment complexes that were shuttered due to code violations had “fallen to these Venezuelan gangs."
Despite efforts by Coffman to combat what he has called "grossly exaggerated" statements, the Trump campaign — in announcing the former president's visit to Aurora later this week — called the city a "war zone," claiming it has seen an "influx of violent Venezuelan prison gang members from Tren de Aragua."
Aurora
What is Tren de Aragua? The gang's history, from Venezuela's prisons to US soil
It's not clear what Trump will say when he delivers remarks during a rally at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center on Friday at 1 p.m., but it's the rhetoric coming from the former president that leaves Flores-Nuñez — also a DACA recipient — wondering what the future will hold.
Trump has repeatedly vowed to his supporters at rallies across the country that he would deport millions of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States if he's elected president again. That would mean deporting about 11 million people, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
"With Donald Trump's mass deportation plan, he has said that even though persons like me and folks who are under a protection legal status, he will remove that legal status so that we can then be deported out of this country," said Flores-Nuñez. "I think removing millions of contributors from our local economy will definitely be detrimental for many folks."
And while a recent poll by Scripps News/Ipsos shows that the majority of people in the U.S. support the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, with 54% percent of respondents saying they "strongly" or "somewhat support" the policy, a CU Denver economic professor said the proposed plan could negatively impact the U.S. economy.
Chloe East, an associate professor of economics at CU Denver who focuses on immigration policy, told Denver7 Tuesday the country would see "a lot of economic costs as a result of a mass deportation effort in Colorado."
East said the last time the United States saw mass deportations was during the Secure Communities program, which ran from 2008-2014, when 400,000 undocumented immigrants left the labor market after being removed physically and also due to fears of deportation.
East, who conducted a 2023 study on the economic effects of the Secure Communities program, found that when those 400,000 undocumented immigrant workers were forced out of the country, 44,000 fewer jobs were held by U.S.-born workers.
"The sort of common narrative is that when we remove one foreign-born person, that means one more job for a U.S.-born person. But that's not how the economy works. It's not a one for one trade-off like that. Most immigrants work in jobs that U.S.-born people are not willing to work in," said East. "I think the main thing is that mass deportations would cause mass chaos and a mass economic collapse, basically because our economy is so reliant on immigrants, including undocumented immigrants."
The study by the American Immigration Council found the cost to deport the nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants would come to a staggering price tag of $315 billion. East said that's the same cost as building three million new homes in America.
We broke down some key findings from that report in the Infogram below, which can you also view here.
Flores-Nuñez hopes he can continue to give back to the only home he's ever known.
"I've been in this country since I was 7 years old," he said. "I want to stay here, and I want to continue to contribute by creating jobs, by contributing to the local economy and more important, sharing delicious food that we have known to be part of our countries, that we are bringing back to here and sharing with folks."
Denver7's Óscar Contreras contributed to this report.
Editor's note on Oct. 16, 2024: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Chloe East as the lead author of the special report from the American Immigration Council. East is the lead author of a 2023 study that looked at the economic effects of increased deportations under the Secure Communities program.
Denver7 is committed to making a difference in our community by standing up for what's right, listening, lending a helping hand and following through on promises. See that work in action, in the videos above.