JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The humming clippers at D\u2019Cuba Barbershop are quieter than usual these days. For owner Damian Lami, the silence is a direct result of a growing wave of anxiety sweeping through Jacksonville\u2019s Hispanic communities as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducts operations across the city. <\/p>\n
In early 2026, the presence of federal agents had transformed daily routines into a series of calculated risks. Even for those with legal status, the fear of a simple misunderstanding has changed how they navigate their own neighborhoods. <\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Damian Lami opened D\u2019Cuba Barbershop on Beachwood Plaza eight months ago, quickly establishing what he calls the best Latino barbershop in Jacksonville Plaza. Business was thriving until the recent enforcement surge began. Now, he says, the drop in clientele is unmistakable. <\/p>\n \u201cBusiness was going well until the ICE operations started,\u201d Lami said in Spanish. <\/p>\n The anxiety is so high that Lami has changed his personal habits. Despite being in the country legally, he now carries his residency documents everywhere he goes. Something he said he didn\u2019t have to do a year ago. <\/p>\n The ICE raids have had a ripple through other ethnic enclaves in Jacksonville. <\/p>\n At La Salsa Market, an Asian food market, the aisles are emptier than usual. Ferdie Simangan, an employee at the market, says the fear has reached their clients. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re scared to come out to shop, even if they have no supplies left,\u201d Simangan said. \u201cThey are still scared to get out to buy food.\u201d <\/p>\n According to Simangan, the panic isn\u2019t confined to one nationality. He noted that customers from the Filipino community and other Asian countries are staying indoors, fearing that they might be profiled or mistaken for the agency\u2019s primary targets. <\/p>\n \u201cEven the Filipinos, and all the countries… they\u2019re scared to get out to buy food,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n As the operations continue with no clear end date, the \u201cnew normal\u201d for many Jacksonville residents involves a pocketful of paperwork. The consensus among those interviewed is a preference for the inconvenience of carrying legal proof of status over the potential risk of a confrontation with federal agents. <\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The humming clippers at D\u2019Cuba Barbershop are quieter than usual these days. For owner Damian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,643,62347,62346,62345,1877,2367,969,116,118,117,6489,62349,62348,634,13822],"class_list":{"0":"post-125838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-action_news_jack","10":"tag-beechwood_plaza","11":"tag-cuba_barber_shop","12":"tag-damian_lami","13":"tag-ice","14":"tag-isis","15":"tag-jack","16":"tag-jacksonville","17":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","18":"tag-jacksonville-news","19":"tag-jessica_salinas","20":"tag-la_salsa_market","21":"tag-lammi","22":"tag-local","23":"tag-united_states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}