NRI PULSE STAFF REPORT
New York, NY, Jan. 29, 2026 — Budget hotels across the United States have emerged as an unexpected battleground in the nation’s immigration debate, placing many Indian American hotel owners in the middle, according to a report by The New York Times.
From Minneapolis to New York City and Maine, protesters opposed to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown have launched “no sleep” demonstrations outside hotels believed to be housing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The protests involve loud noise late into the night — whistles, drums, and banging pots — aimed at pressuring hotels to refuse rooms to federal agents.
These protests have disproportionately affected budget and mid-range hotels operated as franchises, many of which are owned by Indian American and other Asian American immigrants. According to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA), more than half of U.S. hotels are franchises run by Asian American small-business owners, with Indian Americans forming the largest group within that sector.
For these owners, the situation presents a painful dilemma: renting rooms to ICE agents can trigger protests, boycotts, and loss of business, while refusing service can violate franchise rules and lead to severe penalties from major hotel chains.
That risk became clear earlier this month when Hilton dropped a Hampton Inn franchise in Lakeville, Minnesota, after a right-wing influencer released a secretly recorded video appearing to show a desk clerk refusing rooms to immigration agents. Hilton said it enforces strict standards requiring franchisees to welcome all guests, including federal officials.
While many hotel owners declined to speak publicly, the Times report notes that they are often immigrants themselves — people who built small businesses over decades and now find themselves caught between corporate policies, federal enforcement, and grassroots protest movements.
Some of the activists leading or participating in the protests are also Indian American.
In New York City, demonstrators briefly took over the lobby of a Hilton Garden Inn in TriBeCa this week in solidarity with similar protests in Minneapolis. One of the participating groups was the New York Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression, chaired by Shivani Ishwar, an Indian American activist. Ishwar said the action was symbolic and aimed at sending a message to hotels nationwide, even though, to her knowledge, no ICE agents were staying at the Manhattan property.
“We absolutely believe that the purpose of the action was to send a message,” Ishwar told The New York Times, adding that similar protests could continue.
Nationally, groups such as the Sunrise Movement — led by Aru Shiney-Ajay, another Indian American activist — have encouraged supporters to book rooms at targeted hotels and cancel them at the last minute, a tactic designed to disrupt operations and pressure owners financially.
Federal officials, meanwhile, have condemned the protests. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Times that immigration agents are facing coordinated harassment, including vandalism and bomb threats at hotels in Minnesota, which temporarily shut down two downtown properties.
Hotel workers are also feeling the strain. Hospitality unions say the presence of ICE agents has heightened fear among immigrant employees, many of whom work in housekeeping and maintenance roles and may themselves have precarious immigration status.
As protests spread, Indian American hotel owners — long seen as a quiet success story of immigrant entrepreneurship — now find themselves at the center of a national political conflict, facing pressure from activists, corporations, and the federal government all at once.
Cover photo credit: Sunrise Movement/Instagram.
