By Heather Schlitz
CHICAGO, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Allyson Lopez hoped business would pick up at her dress shop in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, which specializes in ball gowns for Quinceaneras, a coming-of-age rite of passage in many Latino communities that celebrate a girl’s 15th birthday. Instead, this week brought the return of federal immigration raids that have emptied normally bustling streets.
The first phase of the Department of Homeland Security’s deportation campaign, dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” netted more than 4,200 arrests across the city in less than three months. The operation rocked Chicago, but for Little Village, the working-class Mexican neighborhood that was repeatedly targeted, the effect was catastrophic.
The return on Tuesday of US Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino in a large convoy of agents in camouflage, some with assault rifles peering through car windows, was met with jeers and whistles from dozens of protesters who streamed the meetings live on social media.
At Estela’s Bridal, a second-generation family business, Lopez specializes in custom designs that sell for an average of $1,000. It can take 16 hours to make a dress, matching the glittering fabrics to size and adding embroidered flowers, rhinestones and sequins. She said she lost 90 percent of her clients during the first wave of arrests because people decided to stay home for fear of immigration agents.
BUSINESS IS STRUGGLING TO MAKE RENT
“We’re going to suffer again as a business,” Lopez said. “I didn’t even make the rent this month, so it’s scary.”
A DHS spokesman did not respond when asked about the impact of the raids on businesses.
Even before Bovino’s return, the Little Village had been deflated by raids.
The tourists who came to the “Mexican Capital of the Midwest” to eat tacos, sweetbreads and tamales and shop for quinceanera dresses, pinatas and Mexican chiles are gone. Dozens of neighborhood residents have been detained or deported, community leaders said. Others hid.
“It’s like those old Western movies where all you see is grass blowing in the breeze,” said Roxana, a 42-year-old hair salon owner from Guatemala. She declined to share her last name or immigration status for fear of retaliation from immigration agents.
In her empty salon, with half the chairs wrapped in plastic, Roxana pulled back her neat bangs to reveal patches of thinning hair, which she said had begun to fall out from the stress of an 80 percent drop in revenue since the start of the immigration enforcement campaign.
As the Border Patrol convoy descended on Little Village again this week, Roxana shook. The salon was open, but empty of customers.
“They broke into the neighborhood again,” she said. “It definitely shocked and devastated us because it wasn’t something we expected.”
COMMERCIAL HEART OF A PRISONER
Roxana’s salon sits near the stucco arch that marks the beginning of 26th Street, a two-mile strip of shops, bakeries and restaurants that has become the city’s second-most profitable shopping corridor, according to the Small Village Chamber of Commerce. Many business owners said their savings dwindled after customers, including people who are in the US legally, stopped visiting for fear of immigration officers.
Before the immigration crackdown, stores selling elaborate prom dresses, glittering tiaras and satin flower bouquets were happy places, where girls giggled and twirled in their dresses to the delight of their mothers, store owners said.
But anxiety about venturing outside — as well as fears that large parties could become targets for immigration enforcement — hit Little Village quinceanera shops hard.
Two store owners said they lost 90 percent of their income in the early stages of the Midway Blitz.
Evelyn Flores, owner of the Alborada Quinceanera shop, said she had laid off seven staff members. “I can’t sleep at night at the moment and during the day I’m always scared.”
Maria Ortiz, who owns a store that sells party supplies, said there are days when no one comes into her store.
THE FAMILY LEFT BEHIND
For one family, the aftershocks of the fall raids lingered for weeks. Kamila, 15, said she was afraid to leave her apartment, except to go to school, after her cousin was detained by immigration agents in November on his way to a job as a carpet fitter. He had lived in the US for 18 years without legal status.
“I’m scared. We can’t go outside because they might be waiting for us,” she said.
Asked for comment, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said, “There’s no reason to be afraid of law enforcement unless you’re breaking the law.”
The cousin’s small apartment is mostly as he left it – the bed unmade and his fluffy cream-colored dog, Fluffy, romping around the apartment. Every day since his owner was taken into custody, Peluchin pushes aside the dusty blinds with his tiny muzzle to stare for hours at the street, waiting for him to return, said a neighbor who comes to walk him.
“All his dreams, all his effort, all his work – it’s here, empty,” said Sofia, Kamila’s mother and a 47-year-old housekeeper.
“My daughter is 15 years old, she shouldn’t be living like this,” said Sofia, who came to the U.S. from Mexico without legal status and is considering self-deportation. “There is no life here.”
RESISTANCE
On a recent afternoon, the Little Village Community Council hummed in overlapping voices as people coordinated school pickups, shared videos and called family members of people who had been detained.
LVCC President Baltazar Enriquez led local resistance to immigration enforcement, organizing patrols for federal agents and distributing plastic whistles now used in the city to warn of immigration agents in the area.
The tight-knit nature of “La Villita,” the Spanish name for The Little Village, has given residents an organizational advantage as they turn to WhatsApp, Facebook, and Signal groups to coordinate. Although Little Village has long struggled with gun violence and has the highest number of gang-related crimes in the city, residents said they felt safe before federal agents came to town.
Other forms of resistance have been quieter — like Vicky Martinez, a 55-year-old resident who leaves shopping to friends and neighbors too scared to go to the store.
“It feels like you’re in jail. We don’t even know what they’re going to throw at us,” Martinez said.
(Reporting by Heather Schlitz; Additional reporting by Daniel Cole, Carlos Barria and Emily Schmall. Editing by Emily Schmall and Suzanne Goldenberg)