Island Workers Staying Home, Business Closing For "A Day Without Immigrants"

Amid the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration and promise of mass deportations, a sense of fear has pervaded Nantucket's immigrant community. There has been noticeably less traffic on the roads, reports of people not showing up to work, and parents keeping their children home from school.

On Monday, at least one island restaurant will be closing its doors to join a nationwide "Day Without Immigrants" and send a message about the importance of immigrant workers. Casa Real, the Mexican/Salvadoran-style restaurant that opened last year on Macys Lane, will stay closed in solidarity with other businesses and workers across the country who will be participating.

"Casa Real will be closed Monday, February 3, in suppport of the Hispanic community 'A Day Without Immigrants'," the restaurant posted on its Facebook page. The owners of Casa Real, Salvador Aguilar and Mayra Escobar, are originally from El Salvador, but have lived on the island for two decades.

"A Day Without Immigrants" encourages people not to work, shop, or go to school in protest of the Trump administration's immigration policies. Similar protests happened in February 2017 and in Florida in 2023.

Beyond Casa Real, many other workers on the island will be staying home on Monday, according to a Nantucket resident who does carpentry and housekeeping, but asked to remain anonymous.

"A lot of carpenters, painters, and housecleaners are staying home," the man told the Current on Sunday of the "Day Without Immigrants" protest. "All my friends and family, we're all legal, but we support this. I believe they are taking a lot of innocent people. I see a lot of hardworking people, illegals, friends, very quiet people, working from early morning to late at night to keep the yards and houses of Nantucket looking clean and pretty. People who paid their taxes. People who only seek a better future. Not everyone has to pay for a bad one."