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Restaurants, shops and other businesses that rely on immigrant customers are feeling strained as federal immigration enforcement intensifies. The Trump administration says that since January, it has deported more than half a million migrants without legal status. Nancy Guan from member station WUSF visited a flea market near Tampa, Florida, where vendors and customers are experiencing the impact first hand.
NANCY GUAN, BYLINE: Mr. G Flea Market is a one-stop shop for nearly everything - clothes, household goods, fruits and vegetables and even live chickens.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHICKENS CLUCKING)
GUAN: Open on Sundays, it's been a hub for the Hispanic community in Manatee County since the early 2000s.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing in Spanish).
GUAN: A mariachi band plays in the afternoon, as families look for a good bargain and a bite. But lately, the crowd has thinned. Shoppers are no longer shoulder to shoulder in the open-air hallways, and vendors say they're barely scraping by.
BIYEY SAUCEDO: These past few months has definitely been way low.
GUAN: Biyey Saucedo sells fresh produce at Mr. G. He says he noticed less people coming as immigration enforcement ramped up this year, including a major joint federal and state operation in April. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said more than 1,100 people were arrested.
SAUCEDO: The people are just scared to come out, you know. They don't want to come shop.
GUAN: As of July, immigration arrests this year tripled in Florida compared to all of last year. That's according to the Deportation Data Project, which got the numbers through Freedom of Information requests. It shows Florida is only second to Texas for the number of ICE arrests in Trump's second term.
GIOVANNI PALACIOS: We lost a lot of vendors due to the changes on the administration.
GUAN: That is Mr. G himself. Giovanni Palacios and his family run the flea market. While he hasn't seen ICE agents on his property, the possibility, he says, is enough to keep people in the country illegally, or even those with temporary protections, away. He says foot traffic from shoppers is down by more than 30% since last year, and he's lost about the same share of sellers. More than a hundred of them have left.
PALACIOS: And I have never experienced having empty booths.
GUAN: Palacio says he's reduced rent to help his vendors stay afloat, and so he can stay open too.
SAL ORTIZ: (Speaking Spanish).
GUAN: Sal Ortiz is still hanging on at one of those booths at the flea market.
ORTIZ: We make T-shirts for other vendors. We make signs, menus.
GUAN: In a way, he's in the business of helping other businesses. This year, Ortiz says he's lost more than half his client base.
ORTIZ: Customers who were wanting to expand and wanting signs, they just - by the next weekend when I came, they were packing up already, saying that this was their last month.
GUAN: He remembers just last year, when the market was packed every Sunday.
ORTIZ: People would be here till, like, 5 o'clock, lines down the street. It's almost 2 o'clock and people are going to start packing up 'cause they're ready to go.
GUAN: But it's not just businesses that are losing out, it's also the community, Ortiz says.
ORTIZ: A lot of people come out here just to be with family, enjoy a cup of fruit. And not to be able to do that, I feel like it's just messed up.
GUAN: Now, pockets of the market sit bare, fenced up and covered in plastic tarp.
For NPR News, I'm Nancy Guan in Tampa, Florida.
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