Don't ask, don't tell?!!!

[TyRANTosaur]

In McKinney, illegals are no cause for panic

Trailer park's laborers interested in paychecks, not politics

12:19 PM CST on Sunday, October 29, 2006
By MIKE JACKSON / The Dallas Morning News

McKINNEY – Dungan's Mobile Home Park, a rusting collection of 1960s-era trailers, exists a world away from Washington and the emotional debate on illegal immigration.
The laborers who rent trailer space by the week at Dungan's live quietly below the political din – only a few blocks from the trendy courthouse square in downtown McKinney.
A resident prepared to do laundry recently at Dungan's Mobile Home Park, home to many single men from Mexico.
Juan Franco, 46, left his wife and two teenage children in Guanajuato, Mexico, last year to find work in Texas. He and the other men at Dungan's work for construction contractors, landscapers, restaurants and manufacturers.
Some of them said they came here legally. Mr. Franco admitted he crossed the Rio Grande illegally.
"I have no choice," he said. "There's no work over there."
More than 100 laborers live at Dungan's at any one time. The Dallas Morning News couldn't determine how many might be in the country illegally. The News didn't ask those interviewed for this story to produce papers to prove their immigration status.
They spoke through an interpreter.
In McKinney, the operational policy appears to be "don't ask, don't tell." City leaders say immigration enforcement is best left to Washington.
Immigration has emerged as a major issue in the Nov. 7 elections. Some Texas cities, unlike McKinney, seem to be hostile to workers who cross the border illegally.
When told that illegal immigrants rent trailer space at Dungan's, McKinney Mayor Bill Whitfield replied: "So? You know, as far as I know, most of them are over here for one thing, and that is to make some money to help their families. It appears to me that they're just good, hardworking people."
Politics aside, illegal immigrants are a fact of life, Mr. Whitfield said. McKinney, population 100,000, is a growing suburb. And that means the community needs workers.
"They're out here building houses and doing yard work. You name it. They're out here," he said. "And obviously, people are using them. As long as there's a market, you're going to have them here."
Each morning before dawn, dozens of hopeful workers emerge from the single line of 37 trailers at Dungan's.
Light from doorways spills out into the narrow dirt and gravel spaces between the dwellings. A crowing rooster scampers in the shadows.
The singlewide trailers are covered with faded two-tone paint. Evaporative coolers hang from each one. The trailers date back to 1960, county records show.
Bosses in pickups and vans begin to arrive. Workers jump in and head off to work. Some men meet regular employers at their trailers. Others walk a couple of blocks to a day-labor pickup site on McDonald Street, across the road from the Collin County Courthouse.
Most get picked up. Sometimes, a few don't.
Basalio Godinez, 21, says he earns about $450 a week working for a landscaper. But on a recent morning, Mr. Godinez's employer had car trouble and canceled that day's jobs.
When they aren't working, the men get together and knock back a few beers, talk about home or play soccer at a nearby park.
Mr. Godinez spent part of his unexpected day off reclining on a wooden bench outside his front door.
He spotted two neighbors carrying sacks of laundry slung over their shoulders and waved to them as they crossed the railroad tracks on their way to a nearby laundry center.
Periodically, trains rumble past and rattle the trailers.
"We're used to it," Mr. Godinez said. "We don't even hear it anymore when it passes."
Mr. Godinez said he crossed the Rio Grande illegally more than a year ago and headed to Houston before following a few cousins to McKinney.
He and five other men share their trailer's kitchen, three bedrooms and a bathroom. They share the $100-a-week rent and pay utility bills.
Mr. Godinez said that during a good month he would send about $1,000 to his parents in Hidalgo, Mexico. He buys pre-paid phone cards and calls them each week from a pay phone.
Some residents say they've paid close attention to the debate about immigration reform.
Angel Morales, 41, has a regular job with an ice cream packaging business. Sporting a ball cap that said "Texas," Mr. Morales sat in his kitchen recently playing a used accordion he bought for $50. He talked with his housemates about their hopes for the future.
They favor a guest-worker program that would allow them to travel legally back and forth between Mexico and the U.S.
Mr. Morales said he would like to eventually bring his two daughters, ages 16 and 8, to Texas.
"I'd like to live here and bring my daughters so they can learn to speak English," he said. "I want them to find a job and make a decent living."
Mr. Morales and his wife share their trailer with another couple, Sonia Sibaja and Felipe Toledo. They all said they came to the U.S. illegally.
Their trailer has one bedroom and a bathroom. Ms. Sibaja and Mr. Toledo sleep on a mattress and box spring in a corner of a small living room. Blankets hang from the ceiling as partitions around the bed.
Though tidy, the trailer shows signs of age. Peeling wallpaper hangs over a couch next to the kitchen. Some fixtures show rust. Strips of unevenly cut gray carpet run along the narrow hallway toward the back of the trailer. Beige bedsheets cover cloudy windows.
Ms. Sibaja, 42, who works at a nursery watering plants, has three children, ages 6, 18 and 19. They live with relatives in the Mexican state of Chiapas. She hasn't seen them in about a year.
"If there's amnesty, we could go back and forth to work," she said.
Regardless of whether the rules change, Ms. Sibaja and the others said they would continue to work in Collin County and live at Dungan's, where no one asks them about their immigration status.
Several employers who drove into the trailer park declined to be interviewed. A couple said they only hire documented workers.
The trailer park's owner, Dennis Gilbert, 57, who lives west of Central Expressway in McKinney, declined to be interviewed.
City leaders have taken a pragmatic approach to the immigrants' presence. They've mostly focused on making conditions safe for the trailer park's tenants and for the community.
When a gas leak fueled a fire in a trailer last year, the city required Mr. Gilbert to install new lines and meters.
The city spent $138,000 to build a day labor pickup site a couple of blocks from Dungan's on McDonald Street. Completed in August 2005, it includes waiting areas, portable restrooms, a water fountain and a paved driveway where employers can pull in safely off McDonald.
Before the site was built, laborers often waited in the street, where they risked being hit by a car or causing an accident.
"I would say it is far safer for the community as well as those folks," said Mr. Whitfield, the mayor. "It just makes sense."
Ruth Staton, McKinney's 2006 volunteer of the year, pressed officials to convert a vacant lot into the pickup site. She and her husband once owned a nearby used-car lot and often saw cars swerve to avoid men on the street, she said.
Mrs. Staton recalled a crash one afternoon that hurled a car just a few feet from her business on McDonald. She ran outside with a fire extinguisher to douse flames from the accident.
"I was always scared that someone was going to get killed or hurt," she said.
Mrs. Staton won the volunteer award, in part, because she hosts an annual Thanksgiving dinner for about 400 Hispanic residents.
"I'm not asking, 'Are you legal or illegal?' " Mrs. Staton said. "I'm asking, 'Are you hungry? Would you like to have Thanksgiving dinner with me and my family?' "
Not everyone agrees with the "don't ask" philosophy.
Irving and Farmers Branch are considering joining a federal enforcement plan that uses local police officers to initiate deportation. Houston police announced in early October that they would join the program.
Capt. Randy Roland, a McKinney police spokesman, said his department is not considering the plan.
Tim O'Hare, a Farmers Branch City Council member, recently proposed a law forbidding illegal immigrants from living and working in the city.
Mr. Whitfield said that philosophy is foreign to McKinney.
"I believe in my heart that we need immigration reform," he said. "I don't know how it's going to be reformed, but that will be decided in Washington."

[MW]

When told that illegal immigrants rent trailer space at Dungan's, McKinney Mayor Bill Whitfield replied: "So? You know, as far as I know, most of them are over here for one thing, and that is to make some money to help their families. It appears to me that they're just good, hardworking people."
Politics aside, illegal immigrants are a fact of life, Mr. Whitfield said. McKinney, population 100,000, is a growing suburb. And that means the community needs workers.
"They're out here building houses and doing yard work. You name it. They're out here," he said. "And obviously, people are using them. As long as there's a market, you're going to have them here."
Each morning before dawn, dozens of hopeful workers emerge from the single line of 37 trailers at Dungan's.
Light from doorways spills out into the narrow dirt and gravel spaces between the dwellings. A crowing rooster scampers in the shadows.

McKinney's Mayor, Bill Whitfield, like many other city and town mayors are completely ignoring the rule of law. NYC Mayor Bloomberg is their hero.

[ohflyingone]

He probably makes money off of illegal immigration like so many other corrupt elected officials!

[MW]

ohflyingone wrote:

He probably makes money off of illegal immigration like so many other corrupt elected officials!

I'll bet you're absolutely correct. That does seem to be the case more times than not. I sure would be interested in knowing the percentage of pro-illegal immigrant/open borders advocates that benefit financially from illegal immigrants and/or open borders. Greed will be the #1 contributor to the downfall of our society!

[Tom2]

I live in McKinney and I believe elected officials here are not taking kickbacks, bribes or are engaged in organized crimes. I also believe the businesses here are not engaging in organized employment of illegal aliens. I have no evidence but have seen first hand the character of these folks. IMO, they're going with the flow. If they don't use this readily available slave labor, they won't be competitive.

But I also believe this area has been hoodwinked by an insidious idea that sanctuary is somehow the Christian thing to do for these poor people. I also can tell you that this area is crawling with a massive overpopulation of illegal aliens for whom we have a shortage of work. Consequently, we're also being snicked to bankruptcy with petty crimes, drivers without insurance and all the rest, e.g., medical care, education, law enforcement, multilingualism, etc. These folks are losers who compete well against our children for mowing lawns and carrying stuff around but they also are unable to stand and compete with real men in their own country.

[Lone_Patriot]

In McKinney, illegals are no cause for panic


When told that illegal immigrants rent trailer space at Dungan's, McKinney Mayor Bill Whitfield replied: "So? You know, as far as I know, most of them are over here for one thing, and that is to make some money to help their families. It appears to me that they're just good, hardworking people."

He, like all politicians , wants to protect his government subsidized slave labor. But since we are the fools paying for all this 'cheap' labor's health care, education, social services... incarceration... who's the real slave?