They may not like it, they may not support it, but the Gray Lady is reporting that illegal families are moving out of apartment complexes, schools are reporting enrollment drops, and business owners are complaining about fewer clients.
Not long ago we showed our readers an article from the Tucson Citizen which was reporting that illegal immigrants were packing up and leaving in droves due to new stricter law against employers that employed undocumented workers.
Quoting some of those illegal aliens as saying "Everyone wants a good Social Security number now."
Ya think?
State Representative Russell K. Pearce, a Republican from Mesa and leading advocate of the crackdown on illegal immigration, makes the statement "The desired effect was, we don’t have the red carpet out for illegal aliens. most of these are good people” they are a “tremendous burden” on public services.
While data for the last month or so are not available, there were already signs of migration out of Arizona at the end of last year. In the fourth quarter of 2007 the apartment-vacancy rate in metropolitan Phoenix rose to 11.2 percent from 9 percent in the same quarter of 2006, with much higher rates of 15 percent or more in heavily Latino neighborhoods.
“You have many people moving out, but they are not all illegal,” said Terry Feinberg, president of the Arizona Multihousing Alliance, a trade group for the apartment and rental housing industry. “A lot of people moving are citizens, or legal, but because someone in their family or social network is not, and they are having a hard time keeping or finding a job, they all move.”
Elizabeth Leon, a legal immigrant and day care worker, said the families of two of her charges abruptly left, forcing the state to take custody of the children. Ms. Leon’s brother, a construction worker who is not authorized to be in the country, plans to leave, unable to find steady work; families at the neighborhood school have pulled children out, Ms. Leon said, fearful of sheriff’s deputies.
“It is like a panic here,” she said. “This is all having an effect on the community, mostly emotional.”
The portion I highlighted above struck me. These people simply up and left their children????!!!?????
Yes, that encourages sympathy, now doesn't it?
Property managers report that families have uprooted overnight, with little or no notice. Carlos Flores Vizcarra, the Mexican consul general in Phoenix, said while he could not tie the phenomenon to a single factor, the consulate had experienced an “unusual” five-fold increase in parents applying for Mexican birth certificates for their children and other documents that often are a prelude to moving.
First and foremost, this will cause a period of transition for Arizona, things will slow, then employers will have to start paying more for labor because they, for too long, have taken advantage of illegal aliens by paying them a pittance of what a job was worth, knowing they could and that the employee had no recourse.
The burden on the public services will decrease, offsetting any negatives that this transition will cause and more and more immigrants will apply to come to the U.S. legally, in which they will be welcome with opened arms.
Politically, this could very well be a wonderful thing for Republicans because the Democrats are planning on doubling down and introducing the immigration reform issue again, an issue that is highly controversial and which, despite support from the White House and the majority in the House and Senate, including members like John Mccain, "we the people", rose up in massive numbers, emailed, jammed their phone lines and forced them to kill the bill, favoring enforcing our laws, creating stricter ones like in Arizona and securing our border rather than providing amnesty to 12 million illegals.
The reason this is dangerous for Democrats in an election year is because John McCain the favored Republican to win the GOP nomination, lost quite a bit of his supporters when he backed that horrible immigration reform bill and claimed that he "heard the people" and would encourage enforcement and border security before trying that stunt again.
So, in this election year, McCain can win back much of that support by coming out against this new initiative by Democrats, making it clear he didn't just mouth the words to his base, but truly means to keep his word, and that would be an incredible lift in support for him for the upcoming 2008 election.
The immigration debate last year showed that this is a huge political minefield for Democrats, but it may be unavoidable for them. There are a number of moderate Democrats who think that they are vulnerable for re-election this year on the issue of illegal immigration, and they feel compelled to push for further measures to deter it. Their legislative vehicle -- so far -- is Congressman Heath Shuler's SAVE bill, which is cosponsored by dozens of moderate Democrats, and which has already got him in hot water with House liberals.
But the strategy seems to be to join Shuler instead of trying to beat him. If they can come up with a politically-salable compromise that moves the country toward 'earned legalization,' then they'll take the half-a-loaf. However, House Republicans with whom I've spoken say there's no chance that they'll compromise on a measure that can in any way be characterized as amnesty (or 'amnesty lite').
This is a dangerous debate for Democrats. It splits their caucus and raises the profile of an issue that may bite them in November. By raising it during the presidential campaign, they may force their candidates to take a position that's bound to anger part of their constituency.
Once again the Democrats are putting their own chances of taking the White House in jeopardy by raising an issue that was trounced last time around, splits their own base, will force Clinton and Obama to take a stand that is guaranteed to hurt them with a portion of their supporters AND can potentially help John McCain if he stands by his word and his base and votes clearly against this.
I have said time and time again that they are more than capable of shooting themselves in the head with no help needed from the GOP.
The question now goes to John McCain- Do you keep your word and prove that you meant it when you said you heard us or do you borrow one of those guns from Democrats and join them in committing political suicide by backing another immigration reform bill?
The choice is yours Senator, choose wisely.
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