Employees Disappearing: ICE presence makes workers uneasy

The Alamo Flea Market was almost empty this weekend, which is a miracle, but not in a good way, for the vendors who make their living there.

When you think of the old flea market, big crowds come immediately to mind. The sides of Cesar Chavez Road, by the expressway are typically packed, the parking lot is overflowing, and people are parking down the road just to walk to the flea market. The joint is booming.

Then Saturday evenings, the vendors shut up shop around 6 so the big dance floor can get ready for the music that starts at 7. Good times.

Now, the place is nearly empty. Not because ICE has ever “raided” the place, which is what so many people there fear, but just because someone makes the claim, either while talking to someone or sending out a text, and that’s enough these days to make people take off, both customers and vendors alike.

People who have either lived their entire lives in the RGV, or part of their lives, to live in near constant fear (no hyperbole) of being deported back to their country of origin, which may or may not be Mexico, could be anywhere south of the border, about which they know nothing or no one, has to be a certain brand of mental torture.

Say you’re a woman. What are you going to do if you get deported back to Mexico while your kids stay behind with dad? Where will ICE drop you? Exactly? On some street corner close to Boy’s Town?

Seriously. Has any reporter posed this question to an ICE spokesperson? Where exactly are these people being released from custody? If they have no family in, say, Mexico?

For Republicans, this may backfire in a political sense if the public starts to see too many “Joe the Plumber” getting deported, even if Joe has no criminal record and has been in the U.S. for 20 years working hard every day of his life.

Just saying. It’s a question that both Trump and the GOP needs to answer – what happens to these people, and is it really fair to deport them?

One Alamo Flea Market vendor told me that if it remains as slow as it was this past weekend, he won’t last too many more months in business, and he’s been a vendor there for more than 25 years.

“Someone will mention ICE, and boom, everyone disappears,” he said.

At local restaurants, the same problem exists.

A Border Patrol agent walks into a local restaurant for lunch, and boom, most of the staff is running out the back door, even though all the guy did was stop by for a bite to eat.

That’s at least the scenario that three restaurant owners painted this week, asking for anonymity.

To say that people are living in fear, many of the locals, isn’t hyperbole, they say. It’s a fact, Jack.

The deal involving ICE at the Flea Market Sunday didn’t even take place inside the Alamo Flea Market, but in the parking lot. One guy apparently got upset with a vendor working out of the parking lot next to the expressway and called the cops, and then ICE showed up.

At least that’s the story I got from a reliable source who, no, doesn’t want to be named even though he’s in this country legally.

If one looks at the construction industry in the RGV, across the board, the subs don’t have enough workers, I’ve been told this week by at least four in the business. Electric, plumbing, HVAC, roofing, no shows on the job.

The landscapers have it even worse. How many of them are in this country legally? Probably not many, so who wants to be out cutting the grass at the corner of Nolana and 10th? Or anywhere, where your face is going to draw attention.

Still, no one has showed that ICE is simply stopping people on the street asking for ID to prove they’re in the U.S. legally. I can’t see that ever happening, but the fear of that is being stoked by some for obvious political gain.

The idea, though, that some people living in the U.S. are being deported to a country they no longer know, still doesn’t sit right with some people. Call it sweat equity. If they’ve contributed to the work that goes on in the U.S. for a number of years, have committed no serious crimes (the ounce possession of pot while in college or high school shouldn’t count), have raised a family, then, no, count me down as one who doesn’t believe they should be deported.

Not to mention this one simple fact – those construction workers taken into custody by ICE last week on SPI and Brownsville, working out in the 95-degree heat, who exactly is going to replace them?