Thread: FL: Hispanics leaving area

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March 29, 2008


SOUTH LEE EDITORIAL: Hispanics leaving area


People are slowly seeing the difference in anchor stores that catered to Hispanic immigrants in several strip malls around Lee County: They are most of the time half empty.

At an even more visible level, chain grocery stores have definitely seen a decrease of Hispanic customers.

You may wonder whether a sluggish economy has forced these workers to flee the area in search of better opportunities. Well, you are partially right.

There is a second, even more important reason why Hispanic immigrants, both legal and illegal, are leaving this area, if not the country.

Twice in the past two years, the U.S. Congress tried but failed to pass comprehensive legislation to deal with the problem of illegal immigration.

However, state and local governments have pressed forward with hundreds of new enforcement bills, regulations and procedures, including stepped up deportations, more workplace raids, and restrictions on access to driver's licenses and other government services and benefits.

It's no secret that the Justice Center in Fort Myers is flooded every day with Hispanic workers to pay their traffic fines for driving without a license.

With the federal government's failure to take up this federal responsibility, municipalities have turned to making life for immigrants both legal and illegal a living hell. Remember that most of the illegal immigrants do have relatives who are legal, including their U.S.-born children.

So the sluggish economy is really the excuse immigrants have been waiting for to leave Lee County.

Unlike staying here collecting unemployment, most of these workers otherwise employed in construction have moved to agricultural and cattle states up North and West.

Hispanics are the nation's largest minority group, numbering 47 million (about 15.5 percent of the total U.S. population).

About a quarter of Hispanic adults are illegal immigrants, most of them arriving as part of a heavy wave of immigration that began gathering force in the 1970s.

Estimates based on the March 2005 Current Population Survey show that 2.5 million undocumented workers arrived in the country between 2000 and 2005, accounting for just under 2 percent of the U.S. labor force.

More than half of them were employed in construction and service occupations where they make up a larger share of the labor force.

People say that immigrants cost jobs. So the economy is down, no jobs, we don't need immigrants - immigrants leave.

False assumption.

Jobs create more jobs. Were these immigrants "legal" they would use their skills locally to create more businesses. Just as history tells us, immigrants have an unparalleled entrepreneurial spirit.

The basic story for the national slowdown is that the end of the housing boom has not been offset by growth and employment creation in other sectors of the economy. Here is where a timely immigration reform could have played a major role.

The products and services immigrants consume create more jobs for the companies that provide them. This needs to be emphasized because it's a major hidden benefit for the state's economy.

We may not see it right now but in a year or so there will be a correction in the construction labor market. Then we will see - again - more demand for construction labor than the marketplace can support. What would we do then?

We'll probably be back to the drawing board, calling for immigration reform.

Will we ever learn?

www.news-press.com

Typical BS. If there is a construction boom then a lot of the young people who are foolishly waiting for IT jobs can learn a building craft as well.

True they have shown up in the West--I've been reporting their unlicensed companies and non-permtted work sites to the proper authorities. But I guess that is what the author means by "unparalleled entreprenuerial spirit."

Too bad there isn't a way to reply directly to this editorial---but that would require freedom of speech, something which will be outlawed in the Takeover.

you have to live here to know there are a lot of people that have mucho money... these are the same people that LOVE Illegal Immigrants as they provide cheap services that are paid under the table subsidized by the tax payer in the form of Welfare, W.I.C. and HUD Housing

With the federal government's failure to take up this federal responsibility, municipalities have turned to making life for immigrants both legal and illegal a living hell. Remember that most of the illegal immigrants do have relatives who are legal, including their U.S.-born children.





A living hell? Oh, I see........a living hell no different than that of identity theft victims? Those left unemployed and losing everything due to illegal aliens? The victims and, families of victims, of illegal aliens?

THAT living hell? TOUGH!!!!


As for their "legal" family members.....they've created their own living hell and the illegal alien parents of US born children have created that living hell for their offspring.

Again, I should feel sorry for any of them how?

Jobs create more jobs. Were these immigrants "legal" they would use their skills locally to create more businesses. Just as history tells us, immigrants have an unparalleled entrepreneurial spirit

WHAT possible skills would an illiterary, uneducated and un-skilled "immigrant" have that we need?!?!? ZERO, and that's why they are illegal aliens!

If they had "skills", they would have entered as LEGAL immigrants. No country will admit uneducated, illiterate people and rightfully so. They cannot support themselves and DO suck up as many social services as they can get. They lie, cheat and steal their way to our social entitlement programs.

Making them "legal" will not make them smarter or more skilled!

Unlike staying here collecting unemployment, most of these workers otherwise employed in construction have moved to agricultural and cattle states up North and West.

If they COULD, they WOULD. The article make this sound like a character principle.

It is illegal for them to collect unemployment insurance and hard to prove if one was employed and paid in cash leaving no paper trail of hours, taxes, and other deductions.

Originally Posted by miguelina

Jobs create more jobs. Were these immigrants "legal" they would use their skills locally to create more businesses. Just as history tells us, immigrants have an unparalleled entrepreneurial spirit

WHAT possible skills would an illiterary, uneducated and un-skilled "immigrant" have that we need?!?!? ZERO, and that's why they are illegal aliens!

If they had "skills", they would have entered as LEGAL immigrants. No country will admit uneducated, illiterate people and rightfully so. They cannot support themselves and DO suck up as many social services as they can get. They lie, cheat and steal their way to our social entitlement programs.

Making them "legal" will not make them smarter or more skilled!

If they had skills, they would have stayed in Mexico. We are getting the bottom of the barrel here in this country. The only skill they seem to possess is the ability to multiply like jack rabbits at the expense of the American Citizens. Unfortunately, their beloved Mexcio does not subsidize their irresponsible breeding habits.