SEATAC, Wash. — It's moving day at the SeaTac Center strip mall.
Approximately 40 small businesses -- many owned by women from Somalia -- face eviction on Saturday, Aug. 31.
After 11 years, Dahaba Omar is packing up.
"I sell (clothes) and perfume and jewelry," she said.
The income helped put her daughters through college.
"So sad today, very sad," as she looked around her tiny shop.
The City of SeaTac bought the land in a controversial transaction nine years ago and then resold it last year to a developer.
The city envisions 600 apartments will replace the strip mall, 417 of them affordable for service workers at the airport and nearby hotels.
The current business owners were warned 18 months ago, the city says, but they're asking for more time and more help to relocate. They say the developer is willing to let them stay until groundbreaking after the first of the year.
"These are majority female business owners, majority immigrants from east Africa who went through war and violence and escaped that and came here to our country to live the American dream," said Aneelah Afzali of the American Muslim Empowerment Network at a news conference to protest the eviction.
Another building on the site houses a money transfer business serving the east African immigrants who work at and around the airport a few blocks away. It helps them send money home.
"If I go 10 miles away from the airport, nobody will come and I will be out of business in a day or two," said owner Abdulhakim Hashi. He would like the city's help to relocate close by.
Business owners see the city's immediate eviction demand as hostile to immigrants. But they are not giving up.
"I want to send the city a message, we are here today and we are here tomorrow in the United States. We are citizens."
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