Reno-Sparks Latino Businesses Lose Business Amid ICE Raids and Uncertainties

Note: all interviews with business owners were conducted in Spanish by reporters Emilio Milo and Camila De La Mora 

The El Rincon owner in Sparks, Maria Figueroa, who has been running her restaurant for 20 years, says with the current climate of increased U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids happening across the country, including here in northern Nevada, her Latino employees and customers are on high alert.

“It's not only people who don't have documentation, but also for just being Hispanic,” said Figueroa. “We've heard instances that people have been stopped by police and ICE arrived, even if they have documentation. It's not only those who don't have documentation, it's all the Latinos that feel attacked.”

El Rincon is a Salvadorian and Mexican restaurant that offers a wide selection of food and beverage for customers. 

“It's not about whether you're illegal or not, it's simply being Latino. It's the fear of being Latino. It's about how they're going to treat us, what's going to happen if we get stopped,” Figueroa says of daily concerns.

She says her business has slowed down considerably.  

“People are afraid. Afraid to spend, afraid to go out; although they're working, they're afraid of spending money,” Figueroa said.

Another local business facing a downturn is D’Lulu Salon on Prater Way in Sparks.  

Hortencia Padilla, the co-owner of the salon, says business has gone down 30%.

“More than anything, clients are fearful ever since they heard rumors of deportations. They’re afraid to come here because it’s a small shopping center and it’s mainly Hispanic businesses, they fear that immigration officials will show up here,” Padilla said.  

Alejandra Falconi, an Ecuadorian independent journalist in the Reno-Sparks area, commented on her own reporting and hearing about the same difficulties people within the Latino community are facing.

“[An owner] who owns two food trucks and a restaurant had to close her restaurant because people were scared to go out,” Falconi said. “She’s trying to reopen [the restaurant] but she’s said ‘I’m doing so bad, I don’t know if I could do it.’”

ICE raids remain for the most part secret, making these difficult to track and report about, with some getting media exposure, and others being verified with a loved one disappearing and then being listed in the ICE online detainee locator system.  

Carlos Campos, the current store director of the Marketon supermarket on Wells Ave, says there’s been a 20%  decrease in sales this year compared to 2024.

“In regards to people who come to the store … many have stopped coming in fear of the politics that’s happening out there,” he said.   

The Marketon on Wells which has been around two decades is a store that residents of the Reno-Sparks area visit to find deals and items not found in other supermarkets. 

Campos says that many Latino residents sometimes send their children, who are U.S citizens, to get basic grocery necessities. 

Campos says many employees feel unease going into work every day as well.
“Employees express that … fear that they have when thinking about the day a situation like that or a federal agency may show up,” Campos said.  

“I came to the U.S. when I had just turned 16 years and until now, never has something like this impactful has been seen until now. And I think that Hispanics who arrived around the same time would say the same,”  Maria Zermeno, the owner of Carniceria Samber, said of the current anxiety in the Latino community.

West Juhl, the Director of Communications and Campaigns at ACLU of Nevada, says the civil liberties organization has been working towards clarity by providing resources and information. “We worked really hard this year [in] making sure that [ACLU] have a lot of accessible know your rights information,” Juhl said.

The ACLU of Nevada has been organizing various in person and virtual Know Your Rights training sessions as a response to the increase in raids under the current Donald Trump administration. These trainings can cover a selection of topics in relation to immigrants’ rights, with one of the topics being how to interact with ICE and law enforcement.  

ACLU of Nevada also launched a program titled Por La Gente, which specifically reaches out to businesses and provides resources, like posters that can be hung in a backroom, informing individuals of their rights and the proper actions to take in the presence of ICE. 

Meanwhile a protest organization in Reno, the Biggest Little Action Group has been distributing whistles with bilingual instruction booklets, including a guide on what to do and a hotline number to call during a raid.  A big blow in the whistle means possible ICE activity, while three rapid blows means detentions may be happening.  

Marketon and other businesses visited for this report remain active and important to the community, just not as busy as these once were, with a looming sense of palpable nervousness. 

“If there's something one can do, try, but if there's nothing we can do, then all we can do is try to survive day-to-day, survive as long as we can,” Campos said.

With its aisles draped with various flags from around the world, Marketon hopes to serve everyone that enters its doors no matter where they’re from.

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