David Martinez and Mallory Davis knew exactly the first thing they wanted to do as soon as they returned to Broadacres Marketplace: Order an ice cold michelada. 

The couple, who have been lifelong customers of Broadacres, were among the first dozen people in line for the reopening of the popular North Las Vegas swap meet on Friday afternoon during triple-digit heat. Six weeks ago, managers announced they were temporarily closing the swap meet in the wake of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid at a similar California outdoor market; they said they didn’t want Broadacres to be the site of arrests. 

The news devastated vendors who depend on Broadacres for their livelihoods and the community members who frequent it, although Martinez lauded the venue for taking precautions to keep its vendors safe. 

“I’m proud of them for that ’cause I know they ate a lot in their pockets for that,” said Martinez, 41. “It’s honorable and respectful.”

Broadacres announced on social media Monday that it would reopen this weekend, and said in a Thursday post it prepared for the reopening with the support of legal experts in an effort to make the swap meet a place that is “safer, stronger, and more informed.” 

“We are reopening because our vendors are ready — and they deserve a marketplace that has their back,” said a Thursday social media post from the business’ managers. 

Broadacres also announced a new vendor protocol system that will provide information in real time on visible law enforcement activity in or around the area, which it described “fully within legal guidelines.”

Educational materials will be available throughout the market to help vendors and customers better understand their rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nevada is offering “Know Your Rights” training so vendors and customers can handle interactions with law enforcements “calmly and confidently,” Broadacres managers said. 

Digital signs with information from the ACLU of Nevada and the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada were visible at the swap meet, and representatives from the Nevada Immigrant Coalition and the UNLV Immigration Clinic were also on hand. 

To try to regain momentum, Broadacres offered discounted entrance fees of $2 to draw in customers for its first weekend back. (Tickets are normally $3 on Fridays, $2.50 on Saturdays and $3.50 on Sundays.) It’s also supporting vendors with reduced booth rental fees for the month of August. 

Martinez and Davis were the first to order their micheladas — Mexican beer cocktails — from a bar across from the music stage on Friday. Martinez joked around with staff, and asked them if they were ready to work because there was likely a busy night ahead. 

When a server handed Martinez and Davis their drinks, Martinez called it “a historic moment.”

Lingering fears

Although Broadacres has not been targeted by any immigration enforcement efforts, ICE’s presence has grown in Nevada in recent months, leaving many in the state’s immigrant community of about 600,000 in fear. In the past six months or so, ICE arrests have increased by nearly 300 percent in comparison to the same period last year. 

Athar Haseebullah, the executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, told The Indy that immigration enforcement is “not blanketly prohibited” at Broadacres. The legality around immigration enforcement, he said, is very vendor specific, depending on the protocols of specific vendors and even a booth’s physical structure, Still, he maintained that there are steps that businesses can take to mitigate concerns. 

“We’ll be there next week,” Haseebullah said. “It'll be an ongoing effort to help vendors there.”

Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), who has been following the temporary closure, said in a statement his office has been connecting vendors with critical resources and creating a formal working group “to support these vital small-business owners.”

But despite all the precautions that Broadacres management and others have taken to prepare for the reopening, it wasn’t enough to convince everyone to come back, at least not yet. There was one empty food stall with a sign that read the business will be back in September. Other stalls were empty Friday afternoon. 

Ana Bernal Hernández, who helps run her family’s business, which includes a gorditas stand, Gorditas El Fogón, typically run by her mother and a taco stand typically run by her father, said her parents were initially nervous to come back after hearing from a close friend about an ICE raid at a nearby gas station. 

But they had a change of heart.

“I think they thought about it and decided, ‘If we aren’t on the frontlines, who are we to ask people to go,?” she said. 

‘We are people who work’

Before Friday, vendors said they were concerned about whether there would be a strong turnout. Even before the temporary closure in late June, vendors say Broadacres was experiencing a decline in visitors, some of it prompted by ICE fears, and management had begun offering discounts on its entrance fees in hopes of bringing more people in. 

Because of this, Bernal Hernandez said her family decided to only reopen one of its two food stands for now. 

“We obviously don't expect the same numbers we had prior to the close, but we want to see if people will show up,” Bernal Hernandez said in a Thursday phone interview. 

Though her family also has a standalone restaurant near Broadacres, she said the closure hit her family business and its employees hard, forcing them to cut expenses. She said news coverage about Broadacres has helped lessen the blow. 

Traffic was slow early Friday afternoon while the sun was still beaming down, but Bernal Hernandez said it picked up later in the evening. She was pleasantly surprised to see they had a line of customers, only slightly shorter than in previous years. 

The swap meet’s closure also affected nearby businesses including Raul Contreras’ used appliance store, which offers washers, dryers and stoves. He opened his shop, El Tapatio Appliances, a few months before the temporary closure in hopes of getting a share of the Broadacres’ traffic. 

“We didn’t get anything because the swap meet closed,” he said in Spanish, laughing as he made light of the situation during a Thursday phone interview. 

Contreras said had to let go of the handyman he had hired to handle appliance repairs and has had to borrow money from his second store, which has also been struggling, to pay the rent for the used appliance store. He opened that store, La Galana Tapatia, five years ago, selling Mexican goods and products such as soda, bread and pottery.

“I used to go every week to go and get merchandise, but now it’s every month because we aren’t making sales,” he said. “It’s too slow.” 

But he has noticed a rise in demand for his shipping service as people are preparing to self-deport or are sending some of their belongings to Mexico as a precaution in case they are unexpectedly deported. 

“Everyone wants to send their things to Mexico right now,” he said. “It’s as a customer told me, we are here today. Tomorrow, who knows? No one knows how long we will be able to stay in the U.S.” 

Bernal Hernández’s father and Gorditas El Fogón co-owner, Alfonso Bernal, explained there’s still fear and uncertainty at the swap meet. Even vendors and employees who have legal status are worried they will get caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown if they are racially profiled. 

“We are all afraid … that they can treat us like criminals even though we aren’t,” he said in Spanish. “We are people who work, we are useful, we produce.”  

He urges the community to be cautious, but not afraid to come back to Broadacres.

“We are here to serve them with great pleasure,” he said.