I'm such a softhearted weenie.
Me, I'd rather trade out New Yorkers 1 to 1 for people living south of Texas. And then Californians. And, frankly, most of my fellow Iowans.
I just don't understand why people worry about immigration. Most immigrants work at least as hard as natives. And after all, what did *I* do to become entitled to occupation of this piece of land? The notion that membership in a society should be determined by where you happened to be physically born...I just don't get it.
Like I said. I'm a weenie.
"dfosterf" wrote:
A suburb of D.C. ran into a huge problem with illegal immigrants.
Prince William county, Va.
It is two jurisdictions south of D.C. itself.
It is far enough south that the property values were such that a bunch of illegals (plus one legal) could pool their money together and either buy or rent a single family home. The prices north were just too prohibitive, so this became the "landing spot" for all the illegals, and there was (and is) a shitload of them.
Construction jobs in the region. Booming economy. Not necessarily "cheap" labor, but rather, "cheaper and available" labor.
They would cram like 20 people in a single house. Cars everywhere, weekend / drinking troubles, etc. Property values and quality of life in the neighborhoods would plummet. It became a county-wide problem. The board of supervisors decided to go with "active/aggressive enforcement" of things like occupancy/car sticker/tail-light bulb etc. enforcement, along with some shit in the schools, I forget what, exactly.
My brother informs me that the "Mexicans have been clearing out."
The government made it an unfriendly place to be, and it worked.
I seen the effect of having all those illegals there, and I didn't like what I saw. I would not have wanted to live in one of those neighborhoods.
My understanding is that the Arizona laws are NOT going to be enforced as some here have depicted, but rather as a part of other enforcement actions unrelated to one's alien status. It sounds like --just about anything else in this country anymore--kinda depends on where you get your news and what you want to hear...
ALL I KNOW is that when you have seen some of the problems for YOURSELF, you come away a lot more sympathetic to a state like Arizona trying to do something about it.
Hopefully the illegals will (and I expect this to happen) will find Arizona unfriendly to them and move to California. This will be fair to all parties concerned, as the Californians can put (More of) their money where their political ideology lies, so to speak.
I would personally like to figure out a way to make all the existing illegal population legal, get 'em to pay taxes, etc. --AND STOP the friggin' flow of any more illegals, coupled with a sensible number of legal immigrations in order to sustain us as a society. Give a RETROACTIVE cut-off date so they don't ALL come pouring in due to an amnesty program. Our country DOES need their population in order to sustain and grow the economy, or some of you white folk are gonna have to start making more babies.
"Wade" wrote: