Flea market serving Las Vegas Latino community temporarily closes over ICE activity

Action figures are displayed for sale at Broadacres Marketplace in North Las Vegas, Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018. Photo by: Wade Vandervort

An outdoor flea market predominately serving Las Vegas’ Latino community is temporarily closing because of “ongoing” Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raids, management said this afternoon in a social media post.

Broadacres Marketplace, with a nearly 50-year history and over 1,000 vendors, is shuttering as fear among the city’s immigrant community is “at its highest level ever,” it wrote. Management doesn't know when the market — which hosts over 15,000 weekly shoppers in the 44-acre complex — will reopen.

They cannot “in good conscience” continue to operate and do not want Broadacres to act as a “beacon of shopping and entertainment” as the federal government raids workplaces.

“We are heartbroken to announce this temporary closure,” they wrote. “Please know we are not turning away from you. This closure is temporary, but our solidarity with you is permanent.”

Broadacres closing its doors is another example of reduced participation in daily life caused by the fear and reality of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, Assemblymember Selena Torres-Fossett, D-Las Vegas, said.

People are scared to go to work, with some construction sites deciding to close early while other employees don’t show up at all, Torres-Fossett told the Sun. And as a local teacher, she’s worried about back-to-school season. 

“We’re on summer break right now, which is for the better because I don’t know that students would be attending school if they were seeing what’s going on in the media in our neighboring state,” she said, referencing an uptick in ICE activity in Southern California that has targeted undocumented workers.

Asked whether Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo had a comment on Broadacres’ temporary closure and the impact of immigration enforcement on local businesses, a spokesperson for the governor referred the Sun to ICE “for comment related to federal immigration enforcement.”

“Gov. Lombardo’s ‘no comment’ is more than silence — it’s a clear display of disregard and a failure of leadership,” Torres-Fossett wrote in a statement. “In moments like this, silence isn’t neutral. It’s complicity in the closure of businesses.”

Rico Ocampo, co-organizing director of Make the Road Nevada, called on political and business leaders to “take immediate action” in a statement from the Nevada Immigrant Coalition. Ocampo requested elected officials highlight the trauma created by mass deportation.

Laura Martin of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada added that the vendors who make Broadacres Marketplace function are losing significant business during “what should be their busiest days.”

“Targeting community spaces like Broadacres doesn’t make anyone safer,” vendor Marina Hernandez said in the coalition’s release. “It only disrupts and threatens the lives of hardworking immigrant families and businesses.”

U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., called the marketplace’s closure “a devastating … direct result of the Trump Administration’s indiscriminate mass deportations” in a social media post. 

The coalition is advising immigrants to minimize “unnecessary interactions” with the law enforcement, especially in the wake of Metro Police re-entering into a 287(g) agreement with ICE.

They recommend people carry a “Know Your Rights” card or something similar on a phone while also avoiding dangerous driving and traffic citations.

Vice President JD Vance visited Los Angeles Friday after weeks of protest sparked by immigration enforcement. Against the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, Trump quickly activated the California National Guard to quell demonstrators and sent in Marines.

“If you let violent rioters burn great American cities to the ground, then of course we’re going to send federal law enforcement in to protect the people the president was elected to protect,” Vance said at a press conference despite local officials pushing back against that narrative.

Torres-Fossett said the goal of the Trump administration is to create fear. Currently, they’re succeeding, she said.

“I can’t think of one incidence in history where this type of leadership results in something positive for a nation,” the assemblymember said. “I’m significantly concerned, and I’m scared for our community.”