Thread: My Recent Drive From KS to WA

I don't know why I am writing this.

I recently drove from KC Missouri to Tacoma, WA. Two hours into the trip I witnessed a mini-van pulled over on the opposite side of the Interstate 70. There were three law enforcement vehicles surrounding the mini-van. Sitting on the guard rail next to the highway were what appeared to be about 15 illegal aliens, 14 men and 1 woman. Though I have no evidence that they were illegal aliens, the situation made me believe they were. The law enforcement agents were checking documents.

I thought to myself, if they are illegal, WONDERFUL, some law enforcement agents are doing their job. If they aren't illegal aliens, I thought, WONDERFUL, some law enforcement agents are doing their job.

Along the way, I stopped in Mattawa, WA near Yakima because I had read a post here about a woman who was murdered by an illegal who fled back to Mexico. Mattawa is in the middle of nowhere in Central Washington.

The illegals go there to get seasonal fruit picking jobs. The approach and exit to Mattawa is surrounded by orchards and vineyards. They will be picking soon as I could see hundreds of new empty boxes stacked by the orchards.

I drove through town. All the businesses had Spanish language signs, all had ads for Intermex and other money transfer businesses. The town basically has one street surrounded by trailer parks that made the worst parts of the San Fernando Valley (Los Angeles) look like resorts (I grew up in the San Fernando Valley). There was an average of 5 cars parked in front of every mobile home, at least 5 people per single wide way overtaxing a trailer that wide.

Fruit growers are making a killing off these illegal aliens-ok, it's an assumption on my part that they are illegal. I didn't check IDs, but 5 will get you 10, 90% of the people here are illegal aliens. The 10% who were not illegals were anchor babies.

One of the most disturbing things was seeing a Washington State Department of Immigrant Services building. Apparently this agency provides whatever the local community needs. I can just see the orchard landowners begging the state for this.

Every business had large sized advertisements for money transfer agencies that clearly stated services are available to Mexico, Central and South America.

Remembering the mini-van with 14 suspected illegal aliens being arrested made me think what a drop in the bucket that is compared to how intrenched illegals are in certain parts of our country-and how long we have to go, how much work we have to do in order to solve all fronts of this problem.

Interesting observations jonhaloi.

Seasonal workers are just that---seasonal........how do they live the remainder of the year?

I think money transmittances to foreign countries should be taxed heavily--take away the job and money remittance magnets.

While waiting for a prescription I saw a man send 20 remittances--so many to keep them under a certain dollar limit so they wouldn't be flagged for money laundering?
He left in a truck with a construction company name written on it--wish I had gotten the name of the company.