MESA – A popular East Valley swap market is closing down Wednesday and it appears as though the fight against illegal immigration is the reason.

The Fiesta Marketplace in Mesa has only been open since last fall but Jose Barbosa, the man in charge of leasing at the marketplace, says the place has lost too much money following the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office raid at a nearby McDonald’s restaurant.

Barbosa says, “This event that happened outside in the McDonalds place. The sheriff came and did a raid and then people got scared. Not only the shoppers, but the vendors.”

He also says Arizona’s new immigration law was also a cause for people to stay away from the marketplace.
http://www.azfamily.com/news/Once-popular-swap-market-struggling-due-to-immigration-fight-97449504.html
Evelyn j look on the bright side no illegals will get a free college education. There is more to our country than your sense of greed and money being your false GOD

A white Ford pickup with Arizona plates is driving north on U.S. 191 headed for the Utah border. Afraid of encountering police, the family inside is traveling at night. The pickup’s headlights cut through a sea of darkness.

The family is in a hurry to get out of Arizona, to get away from the state’s harsh new immigration law.
The pickup crosses into Utah at 11:59 p.m. Luis Sanchez breathes a sigh of relief as his wife, Marlen Ramirez, keeps driving. Both are undocumented immigrants from Mexico.”Look,” he says. “We are here. We have arrived in Utah.”

They have made it safely out of Arizona, past the Maricopa County sheriff’s deputy they saw as they were leaving Surprise and past the highway patrol cars they saw along Interstate 17 between Phoenix and Flagstaff.

They still have a long way to their final destination: Pennsylvania. There will be engine troubles along the way. And more police. And frayed nerves.

But the hardest part of the nearly 2,700-mile journey will be the end. Their final destination is where starting their lives over begins.

Feeling like prisoners

Luis and Marlen, both 33, lived in Arizona for more than 15 years. They are from the same small town, Xaltianguis, in southern Mexico, but they met while living at the same West Valley apartment complex.

Luis was 17 when he crossed the border illegally near Douglas. Marlen was 16 when she jumped a fence near Nogales. Both came looking for work.

Their three children are U.S. citizens because they were born in Arizona. The oldest, Luis Jr., is a quiet 13-year-old. Vanessa, 10, wears glasses and loves to talk. The baby, Christian, is 2.

Lawyers have told Luis and Marlen that they do not qualify for legal residency.

Luis has washed dishes at a restaurant on Grand Avenue, at a retirement home in Peoria and at a restaurant in Sun City West. For the past four years, he worked as a landscaper for a company that maintains office buildings in the West Valley. He earned $9.80 an hour. Marlen is a stay-at-home mom.

Luis got his jobs using fake papers. He has managed to keep working despite the recession and Arizona’s employer-sanctions law, which have made it much harder for illegal immigrants to get jobs.

The couple started thinking about leaving Arizona when Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio began conducting his crime sweeps two years ago, saturating largely Latino neighborhoods with deputies, stopping vehicles for minor traffic violations and arresting illegal immigrants. The couple said the sweeps made them feel like prisoners. They used to enjoy spending Sundays at the park. But to avoid the police, they started staying home as much as possible.

The day after Gov. Jan Brewer signed Arizona’s new immigration law on April 23, Luis and Marlen decided to leave.

They are not alone.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of families have fled Arizona, abandoning homes and apartments in already struggling neighborhoods. Many more are planning to leave. Some have returned to Mexico. Many are relocating to neighboring states, many of which may soon try to adopt laws similar to Arizona’s.

Luis and Marlen picked Pennsylvania. They have relatives there who say there is plenty of work.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/06/27/20100627arizona-immigration-law-leaving-state.html#ixzz0s2T5dCfk

Standing outside a restaurant, legal immigrant Gilberto Reyes, 56, of Mesa, worried that Hispanics leaving the state will mean fewer customers coming into the supermarket where he works. He said it’s usually busy on Cinco de Mayo, but not this year.”People are scared to go out and celebrate because he might start a raid,” he said in Spanish, referring to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s well-publicized illegal immigration sweeps that have instilled fear in the Hispanic community.

The restaurant, Taqueria Cajeme, has already seen a drop off in the number of patrons in the days since Gov. Jan Brewer signed the law.

The owner, Francisco Meza, 41, a legal immigrant living in Mesa, said he has a good idea why: that more people are afraid to leave their homes, fearing that they will be swept up by police, and that others have already left the state.

“My fear is that all my money is invested in this restaurant,” he said in Spanish.

Meza said he may have to leave Arizona, send his family back to Mexico and go to Colorado to find work.

And then he pulled out his cell phone, to show a reporter a video that he says was circulating in the Hispanic community.

A still photograph of Arpaio was accompanied by Latin music, and a Spanish speaking voice, jokingly saying the sheriff was going to raid Cinco de Mayo celebrations. Meza laughed, but behind the joke, there was fear.

Just miles away at a Phoenix news conference, actor and activist Danny Glover said that, while the law was misguided, a boycott would hurt both the targeted places and businesses as well as the people affected by the law.

While the American Bar Association said it will hold a gathering next week in Phoenix, the calls for boycotts continued.

MARICOPA COUNTY, AZ – A raid targeting illegal immigration led to the arrests of 21 Phoenix-area McDonald’s workers Friday, and authorities were still seeking 30 other employees as part of their investigation.
Deputies armed with search warrants raided McDonald’s restaurants in Scottsdale, Tempe and Mesa Friday morning.

The McDonald’s locations include:

•McDonald’s 1516 North Hayden Road, Scottsdale
•McDonald’s 3218 South McClintock, Tempe
•McDonald’s 2130 West Southern, Mesa
•McDonald’s 1460 West Southern, Mesa
Arpaio said information developed by his deputies indicates that over 50 employees working at the businesses may be using falsified or stolen identities for the purposes of gaining employment.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says it will take more time to determine whether any of them are illegal immigrants as officials suspect.

Deputies also searched a mansion in Paradise Valley. The mansion is owned by Richard Coulston, who owns the restaurants. Coulston was not arrested.

McDonald’s Corp. referred comment to Coulston’s company, R&L Management. In a statement, the company says people shouldn’t jump to conclusions without all the facts.”The company has trained its managers and hiring personnel regarding proper hiring procedures,” Pace said. “It does not permit the hiring of employees without completing those procedures … Any individuals unable to meet the legal requirements for establishing authorization to work are not hired.”

Pace said the company was cooperating with the sheriff’s office.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Friday afternoon that McDonald’s employees had been prepped on what to do if they were raided.

Arpaio also said most employees’ records were not kept at the store, but at the Coulston’s lawyer’s office.

Arpaio said deputies were tipped off in November to the McDonald’s they raided by a caller to their illegal immigration hot line, and the tipster alleged several employees bragged about being illegal immigrants.

Deputies used government databases to identify 51 workers who appear to be illegal workers, and were looking for the 30 outstanding suspects.

County officials said if any of the workers turns out to be an illegal immigrant, it could be their fourth civil case under the employer sanctions law, which penalizes employers for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. The law, which is more than two years old, carries license suspensions and revocations for those who knowingly make illegal hires and is designed to reduce the economic incentive for immigrants to cross the border.

http://www.abc15.com/content/news/northeastvalley/paradisevalley/story/21-arrested-after-raid-of-4-McDonald-s/rB1Qa5lZr0CxtRPn3z-gmw.cspx