MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee food trucks will soon close earlier than they have been after the Common Council unanimously approved a plan this week to restrict late-night operating hours.

Local perspective:

Common Council members said the change came in response to safety concerns. The new rule, which takes effect on May 9, will require food trucks in the downtown area to close by 10 p.m. In other food truck zones, it’s now 11 p.m.

FREE DOWNLOAD: Get breaking news alerts in the FOX LOCAL Mobile app for iOS or Android

The previous closing time for food trucks in the city was 1 a.m.

‘This is not fair’

What they’re saying:

On Saturday, the smell of burgers, brats and tacos lingered around the food trucks as busy cooks prepared tasty bites for hungry customers on Water Street.

“Everyone knows us here. A lot of support from students, from the community in this area,” said Abdallah Ismail, who owns the Fatty Patty food truck.

SIGN UP TODAY: Get daily headlines, breaking news emails from FOX6 News

Ismail said their peak hour is 10 p.m. Soon, they won’t be allowed to stay open at that time.

“If we close at 10, we lose everything,” said Ismail. “We have to close. That’s it. There’s no work anymore.”

Ismail said he and other food truck owners learned about the new rule from the news. He also said the city had reached out to them the first time they created restrictions for food trucks and outlined acceptable operating hours.

Abdallah Ismail, owner of Fatty Patty food truck

“This is not a fair decision, and at least they have to talk to us,” he said. “I’m a legit legal business – that I pay tax, that I have my permits, that I obey to all rules that the city has – so they should at least respect us.”

For now, the businesses parked along Water Street said they hope they can find a solution with Common Council members that works for everyone.

“I hope that they’re going to listen to us. If not, we want to see how we can solve it,” said Ismail.

In a statement, Ald. Robert Bauman said:

“The city and council followed all required procedures regarding posting and publishing notice of this legislation. Same process for all files that come before the council.

“There was a public hearing on this file before the Public Safety and Health Committee. There was public testimony in favor and against the file. 

“The file passed the council unanimously and I understand it has been signed by the mayor. 

“We are doing everything we can to quell the violence and disorder that has plagued the downtown  entertainment districts. MPD and other stakeholders testified that food trucks were a contributing factor to this violence and disorder.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include Bauman’s statement.

At the peak of the crackdown, carloads of masked immigration officers were a common sight in the streets of Minneapolis, while thousands of people were being arrested every week in Texas, Florida and California.

In December, arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents peaked at nearly 40,000 nationwide and were nearly as high the next month, according to data provided to UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the Associated Press.

In late January, the killings in Minneapolis of two American citizens by immigration officers and growing concerns over the government’s heavy-handed tactics led to a shake-up of top immigration officials. In the weeks that followed, ICE arrests across the country dropped on average by nearly 12%.

Polling has found the general public felt the immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota went too far, a factor that may have contributed to the abrupt firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in early March.

An AP analysis of ICE arrest records show the department averaged 7,369 weekly arrests nationwide in the five weeks after Homan’s drawdown announcement, , the most recent period for which data is available, down from 8,347 per week in the previous five weeks. Those arrest numbers were still higher on average than during much of the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, and were dramatically higher than during the Biden administration.

ICE arrests rose significantly in Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina and Florida during those five weeks, in some cases hitting their highest weekly count since the start of Trump’s second term.. In Kentucky alone, weekly arrests more than doubled, reaching 86 by early March.

Those increases were offset by steep drops in a handful of large states, including Minnesota and Texas.

Nationally, some 46% of the people ICE arrested in the five weeks before Feb. 4 had no criminal charges or convictions, dropping to 41% in the five weeks that followed.

Yet that’s still above the 35% weekly average for the time since Trump returned to office. And in a number of states, even after Feb. 4, the share of noncriminals being arrested went up, not down.

Across the country, thousands of federal court filings offer an imperfect window into how the Trump administration’s deportation tactics remain in high gear, even if activity has waned.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the research and advocacy group the American Immigration Council, says he sees signs of change in lower arrest and detention numbers but warns it’s too early to know if those shifts are permanent.