Arizona immigration law hits Latino businesses

Migrant-dependent businesses from cafes and car dealers to pinata shops in the state capital Phoenix say they already are taking a big hit as fear ripples through the Hispanic community.

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Gaytan, whose bright, clean diner offers Mexican staples such as beef soup and spicy seafood dishes, says turnover slumped 35 percent to 40 percent after Arizona's Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed the bill into law on April 23.

Polls taken immediately after it passed showed the law was supported by almost two-thirds of Arizona voters and a majority of voters nationwide. But opponents charge the state law is unconstitutional and a mandate for racial profiling. They are seeking to derail it court.

Some migrants targeted by the law already have begun heading back to their home country or moving to other states, selling off their belongings at numerous weekend yard sales in Latino communities across metro Phoenix.

Others are opting to stay put, while trying to limit their exposure to possible arrest -- a tactic that second-hand car dealer Richard Ruiz says has devastated his business selling cheap cars to low-wage migrants in the city.

"The people I sell to don't want to buy, they don't even want to drive," said Ruiz, 31, who sells clunkers he picks up at auction to migrants for $1,000 to $2,000.

"They're taking cabs now or asking people who have documents to drive them to work."

'IT WILL BE A GHOST TOWN'

Hispanics make up 30 percent of the desert state's population of 6.6 million and their annual buying power is estimated at $31 billion, according to a recent study by the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Of about 50,000 Latino-owned business in the state, most are small family-owned firms in the Phoenix area, the Chamber said. It has no hard estimate of the economic impact of the state immigration law on migrant-dependent firms.