On Sundays, music and chatter typically fill the open halls of Mr. G Flea Market, a sprawling maze of vendors selling everything from cowboy boots and jewelry to used power tools and live chickens.
Since the early 2000s, the market has served as a hub for the Hispanic community in north Manatee County. It’s where shoppers know they can find a good bargain, and where families coming from Sunday morning mass can gather for a bite.
On a recent afternoon, people sipped on sweet aguas frescas, as one audience member requested the mariachi band play the classic "Hermoso Cariño," or "Beautiful Darling," by the late Mexican ranchera singer Vicente Fernandez.
It's a familiar scene in the food hall — only the crowd isn’t what it used to be.
Some tables sit empty. People aren't crammed shoulder to shoulder as they squeeze their way past each other to the next booth. And cars no longer have to wait in a snaking line down the South Tamiami Trail to get in.
There used to be a fight for parking, said Natalie Garza, a Manatee County native and longtime shopper at the flea market.
“I mean, you were so packed that you couldn’t really walk,” Garza said. “There’s definitely been a decline.”
The chill, according to shoppers and vendors, coincided with the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, a campaign built on the promise of mass deportations.
Since then, the crackdown can be seen in rising arrests across the country. In Florida, the daily immigration arrest rate through July of this year tripled compared to last, according to data from The Deportation Data Project.
In group chats, immigrants and community members warn each other about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sightings in the neighborhood. Even though ICE hasn’t shown up at the flea market yet, the possibility is enough to keep people away.
“People are just scared to come out, they don’t want to come shop,” said Biyey Saucedo, owner of Saucedo’s Fresh Produce.
Saucedo, who also sells in neighboring Hillsborough County, said he’s seeing the same situation play out in those markets. Dwindling foot traffic and meager sales have left many vendors barely scraping by.
“There’s a lot of vendors who have had to quit and just give it up because it’s so slow,” Saucedo said.
Numbers of vendors, customers are down
The chilling effect feels more palpable than when Florida passed its own sweeping illegal immigration bill in 2023, Saucedo said. With state and federal resources fueling Trump’s deportation effort, fear is rippling deeper throughout the immigrant community.
Giovanni Palacios, the owner of Mr. G, said, as a result of immigration fears, he’s lost about a third of his business this year. Customers, who pay two dollars per car to enter, are down between 30 to 40 percent.
And, out of more than 300 vendors, 110 have left.
“I have never experienced having empty booths. If you walk around my flea market, every single booth was full,” said Palacios.
Now pockets of the market sit bare, fenced up and covered in plastic tarp. Some vendors have scaled back, renting a smaller square footage.
Palacios said he used to have a waiting list of 50 to 60 additional sellers hoping to score a space to set up on the grass lawn.
But he said, “those good times of having people waiting to come in are gone.”
For a business that’s open one day a week, Palacios said he’s taken a big hit, but he’s doing what he can to help his vendors and the flea market stay afloat.
He's let go of any remaining employees who aren’t family members and reduced rent by 15 percent.
“It’s scary times, but we’re doing what we can in order to survive,” Palacios said.
Reports show how communities across the U.S. are struggling under heightened illegal immigration enforcement.
In Chicago neighborhoods, local businesses withered as the administration deployed federal immigration agents into the city.
Shuttered restaurants and empty sidewalks are a reminder of the fear plaguing communities in Los Angeles, which has also been a primary target for immigration raids.
If local economies continue to contract like this, there could be spillover effects, said Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the American Immigration Council, a non-profit advocacy group.
“If people aren't spending, that trickles through the whole economy because then businesses aren't earning, and then there are fewer jobs, and then there's (less) money to spend,” said Robbins.
According to a report from the American Immigration Council, immigrants without legal status in Florida have a total spending power of about $22.6 billion.
The Trump administration argues that the cost of illegal immigration outweighs any of those contributions. But advocates like Robbins claim otherwise, pointing to tax dollars from undocumented immigrants that fund social services the group is mostly barred from using.
Fears abound no matter the immigration status
And it’s not just immigrants without legal status who are staying home and not spending, Robbins added.
“It's people who are citizens, it's people who have dark skin or who may … look like they might be an immigrant in places immigrants might go,” said Robbins, referring to a Supreme Court ruling that permits racial profiling as grounds for immigration stops.
“That's going to have a chilling effect that's far broader.”
With Congress injecting more money into immigration enforcement, Robbins said it’s unlikely surveillance and the fear it causes will go away any time soon.
A fruit and vegetable vendor at the market, who requested we use only her last initial “H," said a combination of high prices and immigration enforcement is taking its toll on small businesses like hers.
H said she fears being targeted for commenting on immigration policies.
In recent months, H said she and other vendors have managed to survive by paying rent in installments, often out of their own pockets. Sometimes they purchase groceries and other products from each other’s booths to make up for the losses.
“Cuando hay problemas es que todos los hispanos estemos juntos, porque cuando estamos juntos somos fuertes. (When there are problems, the Hispanic community must work together because that’s what makes us strong).”
Before, the halls were packed with people of all nationalities, H said.
“Americanos Africanos, de todas las nacionalidades, Colombianos, de Cuba, de todas partes, tenían que formarse en línea para hacer sus compras en cualquier parte de estas.
(African Americans, Colombians, Cubans, everyone from everywhere. People had to line up to do their shopping anywhere."
'It's sad, very sad'
But gradually, the crowd thinned, H said. Her sales are half of what they used to be. When customers come by, they tell her stories about family members, friends and neighbors who’ve been deported, and children left alone.
“Está triste, es muy triste (It’s sad, very sad),” she said.
In another hall, Ortiz, a sign vendor, tells a similar tale. We’re using only his last name because he does not have legal immigration status.
Ortiz, in a way, is in the business of helping other businesses. He makes signs, menus and t-shirts for other vendors. But lately, requests have slowed to a trickle. Some former clients have left the flea market entirely, he says.
In its better days, Ortiz recalled, the market was abuzz up until its closing time of 5 p.m. Now, at 2, people are ready to go.
But it’s more than just business they've lost, he said. It’s a sense of community he and others believe has diminished.
After the mariachi band’s singer croons the last words of “Hermoso Cariño,” he shouts “beso, beso,” urging the man who requested the song to plant a kiss on his wife’s cheek.
His bandmates and the small crowd cheer.
"A lot of people come out here just to be with family, enjoy a cup of fruit,” Ortiz says, “and not to be able to do that, I feel like it's just messed up.”
