Last Reporter

When I go back to the neighborhood of my boyhood, I see as many as 100 or more men standing on corners of several busy intersections where homeowners have rehabbed older row houses in a once trendy part of Baltimore City.

At red lights, these day laborers anxiously stare at each driver, and when a pretty woman happens to walk by them on the sidewalk, there are often catcalls and kissing sounds that fill the air.

These men are here seven days a week, come rain or shine. If you are bold enough to walk by them, a few will ask your for a cigarette in broken English, or even ask for money, as happened to me one day. The man wouldn't take no for an answer, and followed me all the way to my car door. He refused to move, and I almost ran over the foot of the man, who reeked with alcohol and cursed me in Spanish.

Meanwhile, a police car sits in a parking lot of a convenience store on the same block, and the officer doesn't question or challenge these groups of strangers, who now occupy the blocks of this neighborhood. He doesn't question them because he can't. You see, Baltimore is a sanctuary city, which means that Democratic Mayor Sheila Dixon has instituted a don't ask, don't tell policy when it comes to illegal aliens in Baltimore.

On the street where I grew up, there is trash shewn all over the sidewalks, and in the alleys, there is broken furniture, bottles and hundreds of bags of garbage in torn plastic bags. Large rats come out even in the daylight. The ****-and-span neighborhoods of my youth are gone. In many of the houses there are 10 or more occupants living there, and they stare at you grimly as you drive by. As if to say," What the hell are you doing here? What the hell do you want?"

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