Re: Life under the Trump 2 Dictatorship
Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2025 3:15 pm
More than a little callous of me but it's just temporary...
ICE shut down this Latino market — without even showing up
On a typical weekend, 20,000 people stream through the metal gates at Broadacres Marketplace, thronging the aisles of the outdoor “swap meet” to hunt for the best deals, savor snacks and sip micheladas under the desert sky.
Until late June, Broadacres’ familiar bustle had cemented its place as the heart of this city’s Latino community. That has been replaced with an eerie quiet. Hundreds of booths stand barren behind a chain-link fence, mostly stripped to their skeletal remains and covered in fabric or tarp.
Save for one security guard at the main gate, there’s no one in sight.
Broadacres Marketplace announced that it would temporarily close on June 21 because of the threat of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a statement online, the market’s management said the decision to close was made “out of an abundance of caution and concern for our community.” Broadacres’ owner, Greg Danz, is president and CEO of Newport Diversified Inc., a company that also owns two other swap meets in California.
“We don’t want any of our customers, vendors, or employees to be detained at our business or for us to be a beacon of shopping and entertainment while our federal government is raiding businesses and detaining its people,” the statement read, adding that management does not yet have a planned date to reopen.
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