"The viral clip became a rallying point this week for critics of President Donald Trump's deportation machine, which has spread to multiple U.S. cities and swept up citizens in the process. For Mike Peregudov, the co-founder of e-bike subscription service Whizz, it was a visceral representation of the abject fear delivery workers have described to his team for weeks in Chicago."
"That's because threat of being snatched up by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), or one of the many other agencies helping boost the administration's deportation numbers, has become measurable in Whizz's own metrics. "The reason Whizz's fleet hasn't grown in Chicago in the last month," Peregudov wrote in a LinkedIn post, where he shared the clip. "It has become way harder to deliver a food order in the city.""
"Whizz is relatively new to Chicago, having only launched in the city a few months ago. But Peregudov told TechCrunch in an interview the company's fleet was "growing really fast" over the summer, from having zero bikes on the ground in March to around 300 by the end of July. This growth was encouraging for Whizz's mission of providing safe, reliable, and affordable bikes for delivery workers."
A viral clip shows a food delivery worker chased by armed, masked federal agents across a Chicago bridge, with agents yelling "Get him!" and the worker escaping. Threat of being snatched by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), or other agencies has become measurable in Whizz's operational metrics. Whizz's fleet grew from zero bikes in March to about 300 by late July, then halted growth in August and lost roughly 8% of business after National Guard deployment and ongoing ICE raids spooked delivery workers. Many delivery workers rely on affordable e-bike subscriptions due to unreliable alternatives.
Read at TechCrunch
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