ICE rumors have the Italian Market under stress. Undocumented workers fear losing the lives they’ve built in America

Victoria knew something was wrong as she rode the 64 SEPTA bus to the Italian Market, intending to do some shopping on a day off from her cleaning job.

On most days the seats are full of familiar Latino faces. But on her recent trip there were only three other passengers, and none, said Victoria, who came here from Mexico, looked like her.

She arrived at a mostly empty market, with some of the produce stalls unexpectedly closed and others staffed by only a worker or two.

“Our people are gone, forced into hiding,” said a tearful Victoria, who declined to provide her last name because she, like some absent market workers and customers, is undocumented. “To see a place that’s usually full of life like this, it’s truly disheartening.”

The Ninth Street Italian Market is under pressure — beset by rumors of imminent ICE raids that have kept employees away, hurt businesses, and drained vitality from a place that stands among the most lively and authentic of Philadelphia attractions.

“It’s a market of immigrants, it’s always been a market of immigrants, and we’re very sensitive to that,” said Michele Gambino, business manager of the South Ninth Street Business Association. “We are completely and absolutely supportive of our merchants and business owners and employees, and everyone who works to make the market the great place that it is.”

Foot traffic in the market has dipped, she said, but that’s not unusual at this time of year. And merchants anticipated a busy shopping weekend as people stocked up for Eagles Super Bowl parties.

At lunchtime on Friday, some produce stalls were reopening, again bursting in the orange and green of fresh fruits and vegetables, and some workers were returning, though other stands remained empty and cluttered with boxes. A new round of fliers had gone up on market telephone poles in English and Spanish, alerting people about how to stand up for their rights if agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement appear.

A Monday rally by the sons and daughters of market workers seemed to have helped raise spirits, people said.

It’s unknown how many market workers might be undocumented. Nationally, about 12% of those working in food preparation and serving have no permission to be in the United States, according to the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.

The penalties for hiring undocumented workers can be severe, including fines and jail time, but few employers are prosecuted.

One of the market’s best-known figures, chef Cristina Martinez, the owner of Casa Mexico and winner of a prestigious James Beard Foundation Award, has spoken loudly and publicly about living an undocumented life, cofounding the Popular Alliance for Undocumented Workers’ Rights.

“The only thing I have done since getting here is work to support this country as much as it has supported me,” she said in an interview with The Inquirer last year.

Martinez said last week she was ill and could not respond to questions about the market.

Reports of ICE activity and visits have risen around the metro region since President Donald Trump was inaugurated, undertaking what he says will be the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history. Most Americans support his view, with majorities saying in polls that people here without legal permission should be sent out.

That pressure has caused undocumented migrants to stay away from jobs not just at Italian Market stores but at companies around the country.

“Businesses are feeling the impact,” Rebecca Shi, chief executive officer of the American Business Immigration Coalition, told CNN. “Some of my members are reporting up to 50% slowdowns in operations, in foot traffic, primarily because immigrants — and their U.S.-citizen family members ― are afraid.”

False text messages have spread in the market and around Philadelphia, including one in Spanish that warned of ICE “blitzes” in Northeast Philadelphia. Some in the market said they received warning phone calls from the “Latino Chamber of Commerce.”

Online searches revealed no such organization.

The Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce said it distributed no information like that and of course has no advance knowledge of what ICE may or may not do. The chamber said it is working to provide online and in-person sessions to help business owners understand their legal protections and responsibilities regarding immigration enforcement.

“They came in here and thought that we were undocumented because it’s a Puerto Rican restaurant,” said Robert Acevedo of Boricua 2 in Port Richmond in a social media post, adding that agents had no warrant and were turned away. “We of course knew how to defend ourselves, and we had to check them, that not every Latino is undocumented.”

ICE arrested seven undocumented workers during a Jan. 28 raid at a North Philadelphia car wash. All the men now face deportation.

ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in Philadelphia has publicized the recent arrests of several undocumented immigrants accused of serious crimes, including rape and homicide, with acting field office director Brian McShane saying agents “will relentlessly pursue and remove those who endanger the American public.”

Italian Market workers say that’s not them. But the fear of arrest and deportation has people on edge.

Market workers saw a man taking photographs of local businesses and thought he was an ICE agent. It turned out he was a city worker, from the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections. Late last month a woman came into the shops shouting that an ICE raid was imminent, though no enforcement action occurred.

The immediate result was quiet streets and empty sidewalks.

“People stopped coming,” said an undocumented, 50-year-old worker at a market bakery who would provide only her surname, Moreno. “Sometimes they call just to ask if it’s safe for them to come and get their bread.”

At a nearby market restaurant, a 19-year-old undocumented worker was busily cleaning a table. She said she’s still coming to her job, safe for the moment because of a due-to-expire immigration protection for Venezuelans like her. But she has stopped going out or meeting new people, wanting to avoid all unnecessary contact and attention.

She declined to be identified for fear of repercussions, as the Trump administration moves to end Temporary Protected Status for 350,000 Venezuelans in this country.

The expiration of TPS — granted when it is unsafe for people to return to their home country because of war or disaster — means those Venezuelans will lose their protection from deportation and permission to work in the U.S. in April.

“Going back is not an option,” the worker said, sweat beading on her brow as she labored. “Even if they sent me back, I can’t stay in Venezuela.”

Since the market’s beginnings in the mid-1880s, through 140 years to today, it has always been a place of immigrants. Only the countries of origin have changed.

The market traces its start to when Antonio Palumbo opened a boardinghouse for new arrivals, and businesses arose to support a growing Italian community. Merchants sold fresh fish, fruit, and vegetables on the east side of Ninth Street, while high-quality butchers, cheese shops, restaurants, and bakeries filled the west side.

Produce would be ferried to South Philadelphia from South Jersey farms. The stalls were the stores, though as immigrant Italian families gained stronger footholds it became common for them to live in homes above their street-level, brick-and-mortar shops, wrote public-market historian Helen Tangires.

The city formally recognized the market as a shopping district during World War I, and the place bustled through the challenges, rationing, and scarcities of World War II.

The market’s eternal star turn came in 1976, when Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa jogged through the market as he trained for his climactic boxing match, famously catching an orange tossed by a vendor, in the movie Rocky.

By the 1980s many Italian families had moved, commuting to the market or maintaining the properties as landlords, and new groups of immigrants arrived. In 1983 the market welcomed its first Korean-owned establishment, Tangires noted, and since then Vietnamese, Chinese, and Mexican-run businesses have joined.

It’s a place where customers can peruse a specialty shop to purchase $50-a-pound cheese, step outside to a cart and buy three apples for a dollar, or sit down to a fine meal in different styles of cuisine. The Ninth Street corridor in particular is home to several Mexican and Latino businesses.

Immigrant labor, legal and otherwise, is crucial to restaurants in this country, with 21% of restaurant and food-service workers born outside the United States, according to the National Restaurant Association in Washington.

Undocumented workers make up big parts of major industries, including 25% of farmworkers, 19% of maintenance workers, and 17% of construction workers, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations found. Today the undocumented population in the U.S. has reached an all-time high, about 13.7 million people, according to new research published this past week by the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. About 5.5 million migrants — 40% — are from Mexico.

In South Philadelphia, the Rivera family has run a market business for years, and now wonders what the future will bring.

Their business, which they did not want identified, has provided a living for the family, jobs for employees, and tax revenue to the government. None of that affords the family a path to legal status.

Recently, as the youngest Rivera brother worked at the register, a customer stepped inside, the first in three hours.

“We can’t do anything else but live one day at a time,” said Rivera, 27, who after coming here as a child has lived longer in the U.S. than in Mexico. “I just wish they knew we contribute a lot of things; we add to the culture, to society; we pay taxes to help the economy. This isn’t a fantasy world for us. We are here to work, and we work hard.”