Arizona immigration law hits Latino businesses | Reuters: (Reuters) - A month ago, Efrain Gaytan's Mexican diner was bustling with migrant workers wolfing down a breakfast of eggs and burritos before they headed out to work as landscapers and day laborers across west Phoenix.But around 8 a.m. all but three tables are empty as customers rattled by Arizona's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigrants stay away -- even though the law does not go into effect until July.
'Before, there would have been a lot of people eating breakfast but now everyone is worried that they're going to get pulled over,' Gaytan, 42, said one recent weekday morning.
The Arizona law requires state and local police, after making 'lawful contact,' to check the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect is in the country illegally.
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.
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.
