"After Ambiance Apparel raid, Fashion District businesses, workers wait in fear", 14 June 2025

An eerie quiet hung over the Fashion District in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday...

At what few businesses were open, customers were few and far between. A rumor had circulated — via a WhatsApp screenshot — that two large clothing wholesalers in the area were scheduled to be raided that day, several owners and employees said.

The raid never materialized, but the effect was clear. The area, already rendered a ghost town following a raid by federal agents at Ambiance Apparel on June 6 that resulted in the detention of dozens of people, was somehow even quieter and emptier than in previous days.

“Nobody knows what’s really happening. Nobody knows where the raids are happening, so people just post things and they create fear,” said Adnan Akram, the owner of I Heart Fashion in Santee Alley...

...about a half-dozen owners or employees of businesses in the area told The Times that their sales had dropped by about 50% in the last week.

Some brand owners who employ immigrants who are undocumented, or who have papers but still fear federal agents, have sent workers home altogether and halted operations...

Visitors to stores and business in the Fashion District dropped 33% last Sunday compared with a week earlier. Visitors to Santee Alley dropped by 50% over the same period, the group said.

Business owners in the area have expressed fear over the financial and physical security of their businesses, he said...

Today, Metchek said she estimates that around 80% of workers in the Fashion District are immigrants...

Immigrants make up not only the fashion industry’s workforce; in the neighborhood, they are the customers and business owners too...

Javier, a garment worker in the area who declined to give his last name, works in a factory affixing buttons to clothing alongside about 20 other workers. Word of the raid at Ambiance Apparel spread quickly to workers at other factories, he said. He and other workers left early that day and have not returned.

The manufacturer... has remained closed all week.

The 54-year-old said he does not know how he will provide financially for his family if he cannot go to work. He lives with his wife, his daughter and his 9-year-old grandchild. Only his daughter, who has legal status, leaves the house.

“We are basically caged in,” he said...