Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are shaking the U.S. hospitality sector in ways travelers can feel. Hotels ordered 36 percent more employee background checks in the first half of 2025 than a year ago, and surprise sweeps on Great Lakes Cruise ships have sidelined key crew, triggering service cuts and itinerary tweaks. The dual pressure arrives just as the industry fights to rebuild staffing levels after the pandemic, raising new questions about wait times, housekeeping frequency, and onboard amenities for the busy late-summer season.
Key Points
- ICE raids prompt a hiring-vetting surge, extending onboarding times.
- Great Lakes Cruise ships lost dozens of crew in July detentions, crimping service.
- Hotels already face a 10 percent vacancy rate for housekeeping roles.
- Why it matters: Service quality and trip reliability may dip as operators scramble to cover gaps.
Snapshot
Work-site immigration raids target undocumented employees and anyone lacking proper visa status. Under U.S. law, employers can be fined or criminally charged for knowingly hiring unauthorized workers. President Trump's second-term directive restored large-scale Hotel, restaurant, and farm raids in June, empowering ICE and sister agencies to board vessels, inspect staff rosters, and detain crew without advance notice. Hotels are responding with extra background checks-often adding a week or more to the hiring timeline-while Cruise lines must keep minimum crew-to-passenger ratios, forcing them to limit services or reassign staff when colleagues are removed.
Background
Hospitality depends heavily on foreign-born labor: one-third of U.S. travel-industry jobs and nearly a quarter of all Hotel cooks are immigrants. Pandemic layoffs gutted payrolls, and many workers never returned. Despite aggressive recruiting campaigns, hotels entered 2025 roughly 8 percent below pre-COVID staffing. Cruise lines face parallel challenges; small ships sailing the Great Lakes rely on lean hotel divisions and specialists who rotate on C-1/D seafarer visas. When immigration agents detain even a handful of employees, the service ripple is immediate-especially on vessels carrying fewer than 400 guests.
Latest Developments
Hotel Hiring Crunch
Hireology data show Hotel managers requested 36 percent more background checks from January-June 2025 versus the same stretch in 2024. Human-resources directors say each check now averages four business days, up from two, slowing the onboarding of housekeepers and line cooks when occupancy is rising.
Cruise Crew Detentions
From July 9-17, Customs and Border Protection teams boarded at least five Great Lakes ships, removing 37 foreign crew across Victory Cruise Lines, Viking Expeditions, and Pearl Seas vessels. The seizures forced lines to shorten dining-room hours, cut live entertainment, and cancel two shore excursions-details we covered in our deeper dive on crew removals on Great Lakes cruises. Victory Cruise Lines reassigned staff from sister ships; Viking delayed its Port Colborne departure by six hours while fresh bartenders ferried in from Toronto.
Service Fallout
Guests are encountering longer check-in lines as hotels Train replacement front-desk agents, while some properties now clean rooms every other day unless travelers opt in. Cruise passengers report slower drink service and reduced room-service hours. Industry analysts warn that a sustained enforcement wave could blunt gains forecast for the fall convention season if operators can't fill vacancies quickly.
Analysis
For travelers, the most obvious pain points will be response times and amenity availability. Expect sporadic housekeeping, limited restaurant menus, and stretched tour staff, particularly in markets with high immigrant labor shares such as Las Vegas, Orlando, and Chicago. Cruise passengers on the Great Lakes should monitor pre-departure emails for itinerary tweaks and consider trip-delay coverage in their travel-insurance policies. Business groups may need to build longer buffer times into meeting agendas, while leisure travelers can minimize hassle by checking in online, using mobile room keys, and confirming excursion availability 48 hours before sailing. Operators with strong cross-training programs will better protect guest experience, but small independents risk reputation hits if ICE raids strip away critical talent.
Final Thoughts
The return of high-profile ICE raids comes at a fragile moment for hospitality. Hotels trying to restore pre-pandemic service standards now juggle added vetting costs and shrinking applicant pools, while Great Lakes Cruise lines confront the logistical shock of mid-voyage crew losses. Travelers can still enjoy smooth trips by staying flexible, communicating with providers, and purchasing coverage-but until immigration policy stabilizes, the specter of ICE raids will remain a wildcard for service quality across America's travel landscape.