Thread: Town Battling Illegal Immigration Is Emptier Now

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/nyreg ... f=nyregion

July 28, 2006
Town Battling Illegal Immigration Is Emptier Now
By JILL P. CAPUZZO
RIVERSIDE, N.J., July 27 — The downtown streets of this working-class town — usually filled with many of the immigrants who have made this place home — were unusually empty the day after the Township Council approved an ordinance banning employers and landlords from hiring or housing illegal immigrants.

At a heated meeting on Wednesday night that one resident compared to “The Jerry Springer Show,” Riverside’s five-member Council unanimously approved the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, citing overcrowded apartments, jammed parking lots, and a strain on the town’s schools and social services, as reasons for passing the measure.

“They’re jealous of the Brazilians because they’re hard workers and they live well,” said Celeste Martiniano, a Portuguese-American who owns the Pavilion Barbecue restaurant here.

Efforts to reach Mayor Charles Hilton and members of the Township Council were unsuccessful.

The new law is similar to a measure passed in Hazleton, Pa., earlier this month and others being discussed by municipalities around the country. In Congress, the explosive illegal immigration issue has been bogged down over guest worker passes and the level of border enforcement.

Fines start at $1,000 for violations of the Riverside ordinance, which makes it illegal to hire people who cannot prove they are legally in the United States, or to rent or lease them property. A violator also could lose his or her business permit for five years.

Before Brazilian immigrants began moving here in the last five years or so, Ms. Martiniano said, the downtown business district, once a bustling shopping area, had been in decline. But the new ordinance, she said, “this is going to kill the town.”

For the last 25 years, Ms. Martiniano has lived in this Burlington County town of 8,000 residents, where as many as 2,000 to 3,000 immigrants live today. Business has been good since the opening of her restaurant two years ago, largely because of the growing Brazilian population. But on this day, there were no takers for the chicken legs spinning on spits over open flames.

Ms. Martiniano said that immigrants here were scared in the aftermath of the vote, and that those who have been most vocal against immigrants “are not working and have nothing better to do.”

Ingrid Reinhold said that the new ordinance smacked of discrimination. She and her husband, Gustav, own three businesses along Scott Street: a music store that features mostly Latin music, a Brazilian cafe that is undergoing renovations, and a bustling Western Union office, where many of the immigrants can stay in contact with relatives back home. Down the block is another Brazilian restaurant and a Brazilian nail salon. The yellow and green Brazilian flag is pasted to many shop windows.

“Three years ago this was a dead town,” said Ms. Reinhold, who was born in Ecuador. “Now you see all the stores are open, the people are out. If they do this, it’s going to be like it was before.”

Standing in front of his recording studio next door, Ed Robins talked about the Wednesday Council meeting. Describing the meeting’s adversarial atmosphere among members in the audience, Mr. Robins said “it reminded me of being on Jerry Springer.”

Although his business depends very little on the town’s growing immigrant population, Mr. Robins also worried about the ordinance’s impact on the business district and real estate values, which he said have increased with the influx of Brazilians.

“As a community, we should have drawn everybody together, including the illegals and approached it intelligently, rather than taking this small town and ripping it apart,” Mr. Robins said.

Certainly, the Brazilians are not the only immigrant population to call Riverside home. This town on the Delaware River was originally settled by Germans in 1851, followed by Poles, Italians and Irish in the early 20th century. Once a thriving industrial town, the immigrants provided much of the workforce for the textile mills of Riverside, once the country’s leading manufacturer of men’s hosiery, and the Philadelphia Watchcase Company, headquartered here until it closed its doors in 1956.

After the factories closed, the movie theater burned down and many shoppers migrated to nearby malls. Its new distinction, recognized at one point by the Guinness Book of World Records, was having the most bars and liquor licenses in a mile-square town.

Many of those bars remain, and in some of them there is talk about what needs to be done to slow the tide of immigration.

At Big Daddy’s Pub on Scott Street, Dave Dalhman Jr., described the town’s growing immigrant population as “a swarm of bees.” Having lived here for the first 40 years of his life, Mr. Dalhman said he was forced to move to a neighboring town two years ago.

“I’m a minority here now,” said Mr. Dalhman. “I love this town. I was born and raised here, and I’d love to come back here, but that’s not going to happen.”

Funny how the illegals are refered to as immirgrants, not ILLEGAL immigrants.
Also how the article only show one side of the coin. Where are all the people who are fed up with the invasion?
Like one man said "I'm now the miniority" I can relate to that feeling. Sometimes its down right scary!!!

Ingrid Reinhold said that the new ordinance smacked of discrimination. She and her husband, Gustav, own three businesses along Scott Street: a music store that features mostly Latin music, a Brazilian cafe that is undergoing renovations, and a bustling Western Union office, where many of the immigrants can stay in contact (ie, send their money)with relatives back home. Down the block is another Brazilian restaurant and a Brazilian nail salon. The yellow and green Brazilian flag is pasted to many shop windows.

It's always the one's who have profited from illegal immigration who complain the loudest.