On Wednesday morning, Alma Tinajero, the manager of Sav/Way Foods in east Charlotte, was in the back of the grocery store when a co-worker rushed to tell her that they needed to lock the doors. “My heart dropped. I knew what was going on,” Tinajero said. 

Outside, federal immigration agents had just pulled into the parking lot of the Central Avenue strip mall where the grocery store shares space with a Family Dollar, a beauty salon and other shops.

Before the agents even hopped out of their SUVs, Sav/Way’s doors were locked, Tinajero said. The store already had a sign taped in the window saying agents weren’t allowed in without a warrant. But given how aggressive the operation seemed to be, Tinajero feared the agents might try to enter anyway and question staff and the few customers shopping. 

According to the Department of Homeland Security, more than 370 people had been arrested in the first five days of the sweep, which stretched to other cities like Durham and Lenoir. 

“They just kind of glanced around,” Tinajero said. “They were literally out there for about a minute and left.”

For the next two hours, Tinajero, an American citizen originally from Mexico, stood watch at the door with her key, she said, only unlocking it to let customers in. She worried the agents might return. 

Since last Saturday, when the Border Patrol operation began, nearby stores and restaurants have been taking similar precautions to protect the few customers willing to venture out and shop, while some just closed indefinitely. 

At construction sites, workers haven’t been showing up to work, fearful agents would target an industry so heavily reliant on foreign-born labor. Children stayed home from school, too. 

Meanwhile, projects stalled and sales plummeted. Researchers are already reporting signs of economic harm from the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps, which have been affecting east Charlotte businesses even before Border Patrol arrived.

At Sav/Way, Tinajero said sales last Sunday were down nearly 40% and business has remained slow. Meanwhile, the store is offering free delivery to shoppers fearful of leaving their homes and seeing new customers, who are less likely to be targeted, showing up to support impacted businesses in Charlotte’s Latino community. 

On Thursday morning, Vanessa Pacheco, a Sav/Way employee, rang up the few customers who showed up while keeping an eye on the parking lot. Business, again, had been very slow, leaving Pacheco, 33, and other employees with little to do. 

When she didn’t have customers to check out, she stared out the window, monitoring the parking lot. If a customer arrived, she’d pull the automatic door open for them.

Outside, Miguel Angel, 53, ate a banana he purchased from the store that morning. An Uber and Lyft driver originally from the Dominican Republic, Angel said he feared the economic fallout the latest sweep would have on east Charlotte businesses, like Sav/Way where he shops, and the rest of the state, which he believes will lose millions of dollars as a result.

Economic fears, he said, are what pushed him to vote for Donald Trump in 2020 and 2024. A businessman like Trump, he thought, might be good for a rattled economy, one emerging from a pandemic and later racked by inflation, which Angel blamed on COVID-related stimulus payments handed out under both the Trump and Biden administrations in 2020 and 2021.

But now, he believes Trump is too focused on other issues and countries — specifically, Israel and Venezuela, and immigration enforcement, which Angel said is unfairly targeting Hispanic people. Meanwhile, the economy still suffers. 

“We need a cure. Only talking, no good,” Angel said. “We need a solution.”

Despite rumors, and later confirmation from local elected officials, that the Border Patrol operation was winding down or even ending, Tinajero said she doesn’t expect Sav/Way’s business to pick back up anytime soon. 

Given all that’s happened this last week, she understands why people might choose to stay home. That’s what she would do if she were in their position, she said. 

Plus, the reports of Border Patrol leaving, she said, could be merely a ruse “so people can start coming out and grabbing them.” In a social media post, homeland security even suggested that might be the case.

Tinajero said it wouldn’t make sense for them to just show up for a week, and then just pick up and leave.