Bummer: Local Economies Reeling From Fear Of ICE Raids

It’s a real shame that businesses that are dependent on illegal immigrants are having such problems

Local economies under pressure as ICE crackdowns create climate of fear

Lupe Lopez’s Latino market in Newark, California, has been a shopping and social hub for decades — until recently.

Now the aisles are often quiet, the parking lot near empty, she said. Neighboring businesses are no different, she added: Restaurants, party and clothing stores, and even the big-box retailers seem to be emptier since the Trump administration ramped up its mass deportation campaign, raiding businesses across industries and targeting day workers in retail parking lots.

“The fear is felt in every aspect — no one is doing a party, no one is going anywhere,” the 68-year-old said of her customers. “The shelves are just untouched.”

From California grocery stores to chicken chains in suburban D.C., businesses that serve large immigrant populations are reporting shifts in consumer behavior — fewer in-store visits, lower receipts and more delivery orders — that threaten to drag down local economies, according to interviews with business owners, as well as spending data.

If your business model depends on illegals, you’re doing something wrong. They just figured that the illegal would be forever, and never really under any pressure for violating America’s borders. No one cries when another business has issues, such as Blockbuster, which made a huge mistake in not purchasing Netflix. And some other issues. Businesses get themselves into issues, which sometimes they cannot recover from. No one is getting all squishy.

Lopez says deportation fears are affecting who comes into her stores, noting that some of her undocumented customers are sending their U.S.-born children to pick up groceries. Even those here legally are afraid to be out during the day, she added, and many people carry their passport with them in case they are stopped.

“If this doesn’t stop, I feel it’s going to break our economy.”

Maybe do things to attract customers who are legally in the U.S.? Anyhow, it is a long, long article based on emotion, but, as the saying goes, we are a nation of Law, not Men. Meanwhile

Florida sprints ahead with ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ immigration detention center project

Florida’s headline-grabbing push to create “Alligator Alcatraz” — an immigration detention center deep in the Everglades — happened swiftly, with little apparent notice to state legislators responsible for paying for it or to local officials who will have it on their doorstep.

It also may prove to be one of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ most aggressive moves during his six-plus years in office. Citing the governor’s emergency powers, the state’s emergency management director told Miami-Dade County that it was taking control of an Everglades airstrip now owned by Miami-Dade County and located mainly in Collier County in order to begin building the multimillion dollar facility. (snip)

Not much was known publicly about the plans for the detention center until Attorney General James Uthmeier — DeSantis’ former chief of staff who was appointed to the job in February — talked up the idea of “Alligator Alcatraz” on social media last week. The chosen site is a long airstrip that was built as part of a massive project abandoned in 1970 amid environmental opposition.

By Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said it had signed off on a plan to house up to 5,000 people in Florida who are either arrested by state law enforcement or brought to detention centers by federal immigration authorities. DHS said in a statement that it planned to tap into a Federal Emergency Management Agency shelter program to reimburse the state the estimated $450 million a year it will cost to run the remote detention centers.

LOL. Have fun there, illegals.

The post Bummer: Local Economies Reeling From Fear Of ICE Raids appeared first on Pirate’s Cove.