Obama issues new immigration order

President Obama earlier today issued an executive order that would keep some younger illegal immigrants from being deported for two years as long as they meet certain requirements, which include having no criminal record and are either students or have served in the military. In any case, Republicans are calling this a political move designed by the Obama administration to curry favor with Hispanic constituents, and CNN analyzed the issue from that point of view this afternoon.

Of course, for members of the GOP to cry foul about the executive order is a bit disingenuous since more illegals were removed from the country last year — 396,906 — than in any other time in the history of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Obama administration has found more humane ways to tackle the problem than simply wrenching family members away from each other at work, as was the case many times under George W. Bush:

Employers say the audits reach more companies than the work-site roundups of the administration of President George W. Bush. The audits force businesses to fire every suspected illegal immigrant on the payroll— not just those who happened to be on duty at the time of a raid — and make it much harder to hire other unauthorized workers as replacements. Auditing is “a far more effective enforcement tool,” said Mike Gempler, executive director of the Washington Growers League, which includes many worried fruit growers. — “Illegal Workers Swept From Jobs in ‘Silent Raids

Republicans have also called the order unconstitutional and a means to skirt congressional power. That argument also falls flat because the executive precedent offers many examples in which the president, for better or worse, has asserted his power to get things done in the face of a do-nothing House and Senate, which in Obama’s case includes almost the entire Republican Party. Since he got elected, they have cock-blocked nearly everything that he has tried to do to move the country out of the dark ages, including the stimulus and the health care bill. And as stupefying as it will be if it happens, Romney has said he will move to repeal the health care reform bill on day one in office. This from a guy who oversaw a similar plan in Massachusetts.

I don’t think anyone can make a case that Obama hasn’t been tough on immigration, nor that he issued the order just to get votes from the Hispanic community. He may have issued the order in part to get some votes, but certainly not exclusively since the order isn’t going to win him friends in some circles.

To that end, Sen. Dick Durbin was on point when he said:

… there will be those who vote against him because of this decision, too. That’s what leadership is about.

I don’t favor wholesale amnesty across the board. But the simple fact is that those that are here and working or going to school are not going to leave just because it’s illegal for them to be here. Conditions in Mexico are such that it is worth the risk to continue to live in America. They are, for all intent and purposes, just as much a part of American society as legal residents, and if they are working or going to school and not engaging in criminal activity, they are contributing positively to society. In essence, being an “illegal” amounts to a non-violent federal crime. It’s not akin to treason or any other high crime. Actually, it could be viewed as patriotic since immigrants are certainly not coming here because they hate America or want to cause trouble. They love the idea that America represents to them. On this issue, as on others like health care, the Republican point of view comes off as cold, callous and woefully out of touch.

Georgia takes Arizona’s lead on immigration

First published on Blogcritics.

***

My home state, Georgia, falling in lockstep with Arizona and other states that have attempted to take a cavalier approach to the immigration delimma, recently passed its own law, and Gov. Nathan Deal subsequently told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he intends to sign the bill into law.

Proponents of the bill, which allows local and state law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of suspects, say the passage is a triumph in light of the federal government’s inadequate enforcement measures, while opponents claim the bill will put more burden on local businesses and will result in racial profiling.

Photo credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC - Ouafae Azhari (foreground) shouts out as other demonstrators protest Georgia House Bill 87 outside the Capitol on the final day of the 2011 legislative session.

Rep. Matt Ramsey, the Georgia House bill sponsor, had this to say after the bill’s passage:

It’s a great day for Georgia. We think we have done our job that our constituents asked us to do to address the costs and the social consequences that have been visited upon our state by the federal government’s failure to secure our nation’s borders.

The legislation would also require businesses of more than 10 employees to use the federal E-Verify system to check the status of hired employees.

Jann Moore, with the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, said the plan would put undue pressure on businesses amid a still-struggling economic climate:

We’re coming out of [a] recession, and businesses are doing all they can do right now to stay afloat. To turn around and put the responsibility of another policy on business is the wrong thing to do. The timing could not be worse.

Parts of Arizona’s law have been put on hold because of federal challenges of constitutionality. Georgia’s version, which resembles Arizona’s Senate Bill, is one of a handful of state immigration laws that have passed nationwide. It could suffer the fate of Arizona’s since the constitution, opponent say, suggests that the federal government alone confers citizenship.

According to the 14th Amendment, Section 1, Clause 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

The key words here are “jurisdiction thereof.” Two relevent definitions of “jurisdiction” follow:

  1. the right, power, or authority to administer justice byhearing and determining controversies.
  2. power; authority; control: He has jurisdiction over allAmerican soldiers in the area.

The above clause does not say, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and the individual states, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” but that jurisdiction belongs to the United States as a whole, and while individual concerns about immigration are understood, states’ attempts to skirt federal law may present a dangerous precedent, not only because of the possibility of racial profiling by law enforcement officials, but because this could result in a hodgepodge of immigration laws across the nation.

Columnist Tom Crawford, with the Georgia Report, said that even if Deal signs the bill, the buck would stop there:

The U.S. Justice Department will challenge the law in federal court and have it set aside – just as they did with the Arizona law. That’s why all this talk about solving the immigration problem at the state level is a sham. This is the federal government’s problem and the blame for not resolving it must fall on the people elected to Congress.

In Georgia’s case, that would be Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss. Both have taken a hard-line approach on the issue of immigration, and both voted “nay” to a reform bill in 2007. Chambliss’ recordIsakson’s record.

In addition to the legal questions of Georgia’s bill, implicit in the discussion is the perceived damage such legislation might do to the economy, which in Georgia is largely agricultural. Local growers have said they are worried that if the immigration bill actually goes into effect, many members of their current workforce will jump ship and local farms won’t have enough labor to pick crops and tend the fields. Outside of the Atlanta metro, the economic impact could be detrimental.

The real (Nathan) Deal

Here is an article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in which Gov. Nathan Deal said he intends to sign Georgia’s new anti-immigration bill once it reaches his desk.

In the article, he addresses various business groups, who raise obvious concerns about how the bill would add extra burdens to them if enacted. Here is “Deal Real” himself:

I understand their concerns. I would hope that they would channel those concerns to the level of government that can do something about it, which is the federal government.

The level of government that can do something about it?

Then why the heck is Georgia passing its own immigration bill if the federal government is the level of government that can do something about it? Is he admitting the federal government should be in control of this issue? If so, he is right. If not, his state, like Arizona, most likely has a huge legal battle ahead of it.

Only one of two options is possible: either he has unknowingly confessed that Georgia has entirely overstepped its bounds on the illegal immigration issue and that it was a federal concern all along or he, and everyone who voted in favor of the Georgia immigration bill, has the IQ of an adorable panda bear. Judge for yourself.

Colbert: ‘I like talking about people who don’t have any power’

Here in Northeast Georgia, plenty of day laborers make their living out in the fields in one of numerous plots of cultivated land, the fruits and vegetables of which support local produce stands in the county. I’ve seen them working the fields, men and women alike, the smarter ones of which wear large-brimmed hats and towels around their necks to prevent severe sunburn and/or skin damage. They make significantly below minimum wage and get paid a certain figure for each bucket picked. That, it seems to me, is a generous system. In other parts of the nation, I would be willing to bet that migrant laborers don’t receive minimum wage (especially if the farm hires illegals) and don’t get the bonus for picking X number of buckets.

Stephen Colbert recently spent a day as a migrant laborer and subsequently testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship & Border Security on the invitation of House Democrat and committee chairwoman Zoe Lofgren. Consequently, prior to the five minute message (Which was much longer than his officially submitted address), Colbert was asked by Rep. John Conyers to “remove himself” from the proceedings, saying “You run your show, we run the committee.”

Colbert then deferred to Lofgren, who confirmed that he could stay and deliver his short message. Here is the video:

In the video, as you will see, Colbert, and in characteristic irreverence, mocked Congress by, first, by saying, in character about the proposed agricultural jobs bill,

I’m not in favor of the government doing anything, but I’ve got to wonder, why isn’t the government doing anything?

and second,

Maybe this Ag jobs bill will help. I don’t know. Like most members of Congress, I haven’t read it.

Taking a more serious tone toward the end of the address, he said,

But maybe we could offer more visas to the immigrants, who, let’s face it will probably be doing these jobs anyway, and this improved legal status might allow immigrants recourse if they’re abused, and it just stands to reason to me, that if you’re co-workers can’t be exploited, then you’re less likely to be exploited yourself and that itself might improve paying working conditions on these farms and eventually Americans may consider taking these jobs again … Or maybe that’s crazy. Maybe the easier answer is just to have scientists develop vegetables that pick themselves. … The point is, we have to do something because I am not going back out there.

But the most memorable moment came after the speech during a question-answer portion, in which Rep. Judy Chu from California asked this question:

Mr. Colbert, you could work on so many issues. Why are you interested in this issue?

And, after taking a moment to think, he broke character and said this:

I like talking about people who don’t have any power, and it seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come in and do our work, but don’t have any rights as a result. And yet, we still ask them to come here, and at the same time, ask them to leave. And that’s an interesting contradiction to me, and um… You know, “whatsoever you did for the least of my brothers,” and these seemed like the least of my brothers, right now. A lot of people are “least brothers” right now, with the economy so hard, and I don’t want to take anyone’s hardship away from them or diminish it or anything like that. But migrant workers suffer, and have no rights.

Here’s the video:

Top 20 immigrant cities

Arizona immigration reform protesters in Chicago - Credit: Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo

The Daily Beast today featured a photo slide show of the 20 U.S. cities with the most immigrants.

The top five are:

  1. Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Fla., metro area
  2. San Jose, Calif., metro area
  3. Los Angeles, Long Beach, Calif., metro
  4. San Francisco, Oakland area
  5. New York, Northern New Jersey

Phoenix, Ariz., the capital of the state in which Gov. Jan Brewer and her arrest-anyone-who-is-brown approach to immigration reform, is only 14th. Here is a piece from Richard Florida on how the list was compiled.

Federal judge makes ruling on Arizona bill

Credit: Eric Thayer for The New York Times

As predicted, Arizona’s recently passed immigration was, indeed, deemed unconstitutional on some counts by federal judge, Susan Bolton, who in a preliminary injunction had this to say about the more controversial portions of the measure:

Preserving the status quo through a preliminary injunction is less harmful than allowing state laws that are likely pre-empted by federal law to be enforced. …

There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens. By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose (citing a previous Supreme Court case, a) “‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.”

Yes: “only the federal government has the authority to impose.” This has been the issue, in my mind, all along, and unfortunately, the issue summons the tired, and at this point, almost anachronistic, debate on states’ rights that conservatives like Gov. Jan Brewer have attempted to resurrect, 19th-century-style, and feed off old, now buried, debates.

Brewer had this to say on the ruling, and here is The New York Times’ account:

“This fight is far from over,” said Ms. Brewer, whose lawyers had argued that Congress granted states the power to enforce immigration law particularly when, in their view, the federal government fell short. “In fact,” she added, “it is just the beginning, and at the end of what is certain to be a long legal struggle, Arizona will prevail in its right to protect our citizens.”

And Arizona senator Russell Pearce, a primary sponsor of his state’s bill, said:

The courts have made it clear states have the inherent power to enforce the laws of this country.

Let’s ignore the errancy of this argument for a second (federal jurisdiction does not equal state or county jurisdiction), the one problem here is simply that states don’t actually have the right to go willy-nilly into their own jurisprudence on the topic of naturalization and attempt to enforce federal laws when, in their leaders’ views, the feds aren’t doing their jobs. That’s a usurpation of federal law, and it’s as clear as the night sky. Once and for all, immigration and naturalization are federal concerns. That state officials are dissatisfied with the federal response to immigration is inconsequential and does not give states license, via our Constitution, to go it alone. Or else, we should remake or undo the United States as a collective.

Mexican families wiring money north?

Want a pretty good benchmark for when you know times are tough in the United States? When folks in poor parts of Mexico are actually sending money northward to assist unemployed relatives in the States.

The New York Times reported Nov. 15 the cases of several families who previously had received money from their United States-based relatives, but when those relatives lost their jobs, those in Mexico started chipping in and sending what they could north over the border via wire transfer. According to the article,

During the best of the times, Miguel Salcedo’s son, an illegal immigrant in San Diego, would be sending home hundreds of dollars a month to support his struggling family in Mexico. But at times like these, with the American economy out of whack and his son out of work, Mr. Salcedo finds himself doing what he never imagined he would have to do: wiring pesos north.

The article notes a telling fact: it’s easier to get by on very little in Mexico than it is in America. The Avendano family, living in Miahuatlán, scrape by via a kind of subsistence farming on their own land. To help with their finances, Sirenia Avendano sells chili rellenos around the neighborhood.

Sirenia Avendano wept as she spoke of sending money to her sons in the United States.

Sirenia Avendano wept as she spoke of sending money to her sons in the United States.

Speaking of his two sons, whose hours and tips were cut at the Florida restaurant in which they work, Javier Avendano said,

We have an obligation to help them. They’re our sons. It doesn’t matter if they are here or there.

An aquaintance of mine who runs, with the help of his wife and family, a Mexican grocery store and restaurant here in town once told me of his own struggles to reach America. He took the dangerous jaunt across the border many years ago, was once an illegal, and has long since gotten his citizenship. He has children in the local school district and has deep roots in the county in which I live at this point. The last time I checked, he was still sending money back home to his parents.

As I have said many times and will continue to say, stories like those of my acquaintance and of the Avendanos speak to the fact that illegal immigrants aren’t monsters, as Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh and others would have us believe. They are human beings with families and folks who love them. Should we do away with our naturalization laws and open to borders completely? Definitely, we shouldn’t do away with the laws, but enforcing the border with a 1,000-plus mile fences seems like a comic book, implausible, inhumane and abhorent solution. There is such a thing as country citizenship, in Mexico, in other Latino countries and here. Should we accept the fact that the ones who are here probably aren’t leaving unless the situation here gets worse than it is in Mexico? Probably so. The wholesale excavation of these people is completely out of the question and is absolutely, logistically impossible.

So, what do we do? First, and I hope the Obama administration doesn’t oversee anymore raids. We should stop the inhumane raids, separating children from their parents. Focus on the employers who are willingly or not, hiring illegals. If they unwillingly hire them, that is, presented the potential employee with proper paperwork and the illegal lies or presents false information, dish out a lesser penalty to the employer. If the employer willingly hires illegals because it’s cheap labor or for whatever other reason, throw the book at them.

This issue has become one cause that I’m willing to champion over and over again. For too long, I’ve heard the talking heads and folks who apparently have a cold stone for a heart, rant on and on about how immigrants are turning the country brown, that we should close the border and that immigrants are taking “real” Americans’ jobs (whatever that means), and it’s really nauseating.

Talk about nauseating. This quote is too ill-conceived to let slip through the cracks. On the supposed “brown” dilemma, check out what Frosty Wooldridge had to say about the immigration problem in California:

The brown toxic cloud strangling Los Angeles never lifts and grows thicker with every immigrant added. One can’t help appreciate the streets of Paris will soon become the streets of LA. However, Paris’ streets erupted while LA’s shall sink into a Third World quagmire much like Bombay or Calcutta, India. When you import THAT much crime, illiteracy, multiple languages and disease—Americans pick up stakes and move away. It’s an unlivable nightmare.

It’s chilling to me that viewpoints such as this ignorant drivel still persist in what was once, in its infancy, such a progressive, forward-looking country. Arguably, and regrettably from my view, we haven’t been all that progressive since the 18th century, but that’s for another debate.

But I digress. Next, I’ll look at this topic somemore, as it relates to Lou Dobbs’ recent resignation from CNN and a recent, related New York Times editorial. I am currently working on adding content to a new WordPress-powered Counting Crows site, so that would explain my lack of posts in the last week or so. But I’m back in the saddle. … I hope. 🙂

Health care bill stews in House

If you want to spend an unenlightening and sickening few minutes, go listen to members of the U.S. Congress debate health care reform on C-SPAN, in which Republican and Blue Dog Democrats summon every possible cliché, from freedom to the founders, to try to convince folks that the health care Democrat-sponsored reform bill is bankrupt. That doesn’t mention the dozens and dozens of uncited claims about the bill.

Particularly sickening were comments from Mike Pence of Indiana’s fightin’ 6th, in which he made a peculiar analogy between World War II veterans and those who might vote “Nay” on H.R. 3962. “When freedom hung in the balance, you did freedom’s work,” he said of those potentially in opposition to the bill.

The argument goes that passage of the Democrats’ health care bill will mean a loss of freedom for some in America, claiming that some residents will be forced to take policies whether they want to or not, that the private insurance agency’s freedom to persist unimpeded in denying coverage for those who need it and finally, that some sort of collective freedom will be lost if we go down the road toward “nationalized” medicine, a system in which every single developed and modern country operates under. And, every single modernized country has a higher life expectancy than people in the United States.

Jim McDermott of Washington State’s fightin’ 7th tonight made the simple and salient point that the Republicans would prefer the status quo, in which insurance companies are allowed to run roughshod, as they have for decades and that “most (people) can’t take care of their health care problems on their own.”

And Charles Rangel of New York fightin’ 15th requested that members of the House choose that “morality (would) go beyond party loyalty.”

Regardless, it is expected that the House will get the necessary 218 votes to pass the bill, but it’s not certain whether it will pass the Senate, much less some negotiated final bill to make the president’s desk.

As for my personal thoughts, the Republican plan does not ban the denial of insurance to those with pre-existing conditions, and H.R. 3962 does, and to me, that reason alone is enough to stymie the former approach. Returning to Rangel’s thoughts, the moral necessity of helping those who need it most should supercede party lines. I’ve written at length on this topic, so I haven’t put a full, rhetorical thrust behind this post. I’ve done that already here and elsewhere, but I want to include one of the more colorful remarks from George Miller from California, who had this to say:

If the Republican’s plan was a plan for a fire department, they would rush into a burning building and they would rush out and leave everybody behind. … They say their plan is inexpensive. They say their plan saves somebody money. But 10 years from now, there’s as many uninsured as now. At the end of their watch, after 12 years of control of this Congress, eight years of control of the White House at the same time, they left behind 37 million Americans without health insurance. That’s what they left behind on their watch. And now they come forth with a plan for the future, and over the next decade, they’re going to leave behind 50 million Americans! Wanna buy it? Wanna try it? Wanna sell it? Come on, America, buy this one. You’re guaranteed to be left behind if you’re left behind today. What a plan! Hah! God. … [Unintelligible exit, but it sounds like he said, “See ya.”]

I’ve heard many Republicans, some of which I heard during the debate today, say that, “Well it’s not really 40 million uninsured. If we take out the illegals and the young people who don’t want (I would add, can’t afford) insurance, we are left with 5 million or more uninsured. So, I would ask, what of those 5 million?  That’s still a big number. Those 5 million aren’t worth helping? What if it was 500,000? Or 100,000? Or 10,000?

Obama redirects illegal immigration focus

The New York Times yesterday featured a decent editorial titled, “A Shift on Immigration,” in which the paper lauded an immigration policy shift by the Obama administration from the prior group to begin focusing more on holding employers accountable for hiring and employing illegal immigrants, rather than conducting raids vis–à–vis the Bush administration, which merely served to tear apart families, erstwhile not prosecuting the plants employing such workers.

Immigration raid in Greenville, S.C.

Immigration raid

Vitriol among seemingly pissed off, native-born Americans, quite wrongly scared they are somehow losing the country, and further, the country’s identity, is rampant, especially in the South. Here’s a report on hate crimes toward Hispanics from 2008. As seen here, some folks appear quite gleeful about a 2008 raid in Greenville, S.C., which resulted in the arrests of 300 illegals. I thought the comments of Alanboy395,

This SC-born poster couldnt be happier that action was taken in South Carolina.

and

Arizona Bound,

Bye!
And take your 3 welfare anchors with you.
I just heard 330 new AMERICAN jobs opened up at a chicken place…

were quite enlightening.

But the question of whether immigrants, whether they be black, Eastern European, Latino or Irish, have a significant impact on the culture onto which they are imposing themselves is a question for the ages. It’s been with us for centuries, and the folks who, today, gripe about the illegal immigration problem (specifically, about Hispanics) might have griped about the Irish or other peoples in earlier generations. Obviously, this isn’t a new complaint at all; it replicates itself, in some form, in nearly every century this country has existed.

This study suggests the swell of Hispanic immigration to America does not have a significant effect in threatening American identity:

Traditional patterns of linguistic assimilation result in the vast majority of immigrants becoming monolingual in English by the 3rd generation. Clear evidence also points to the continuation of these patterns in the case of Hispanic—and specifically Mexican—immigrants. In the 2000 Census, 50% of the native-born living in the households of Mexican-born immigrants either spoke only English or spoke English very well. … the authors observe that by the 3rd generation, Hispanics’ preferences on policy questions related to bilingual education and declaring English as the official language of the U.S. “closely resemble those of whites and blacks.”

But it may not matter at this point, and the ground swell of illegal immigration may be on the wane, as the job opportunities that have, in the past, brought them here seem to no longer exist in the abundance they once did. Still, it hasn’t stopped some from going nutso over this H1N1 thing, claiming that, not only are Hispanics draining our resources and taking our jobs, but are bringing their illnesses with them. Of this, I’ll address at another time. But lest I spill into a 1,500 word rant on this matter, I’ll leave it at that, for now.

Basic rights seemingly fall by wayside

This story is not really news to me in general, for I knew long before now that Hispanic immigrants, legal or not, are often dealt a bad hand from law enforcement with regard to basic human dignity and human rights.

Take the case of Armando Ojeda-Jimenez, who before his death in an Oconee County, South Carolina detention center, lived in Walhalla, S.C., part of the coverage area of a paper for which I used to work. As the story says, he was apprehended in a ditch and booked for public disorderly conduct. Later that day, he complained of vomiting and police gave him Phenergan and Maalox for the symptoms. He had been drinking. By 10:44 p.m., the man had died of cardiac arrest. I posit there probably wasn’t any explicit malfeasance on the part of the law, other than, perhaps, a general lackadaisical approach to the man’s complaints (“Ahh, he’s just drunk. He’ll sleep it off.”). For instance, did they ask the Jimenez before giving him Phenergan if he had any heart problems or if he was a heavy drinker, both of which could have implications if that drug is administered? Who knows? Maybe it was just his time, but my hunch is that this fellow’s death was perhaps unnecessary had officials taken his complaints more seriously (by checking potential drug interactions, past medical history, etc.). Petty criminal or not, death should not be something with which we are comfortable in any case.

His sister-in-law called my former paper and gave this telling statement,

He is a person, and he does belong to a family. He’s been here for 10 years.

The New York Times recently blew the roof off similar cases in this May 5, 2008 article, in which illegals are being locked up and being denied basic human rights that should be, illegal or not, afforded to all:

As the country debates stricter enforcement of immigration laws, thousands of people who are not American citizens are being locked up for days, months or years while the government decides whether to deport them. Some have no valid visa; some are legal residents, but have past criminal convictions; others are seeking asylum from persecution.

Death is a reality in any jail, and the medical neglect of inmates is a perennial issue. But far more than in the criminal justice system, immigration detainees and their families lack basic ways to get answers when things go wrong.

Heck, it’s hard enough for even journalists to get clear answers from government officials. How much harder is it for the families of illegal immigrants?

And this cuts at the heart of the CNN story. Sure, many Hispanics in this country are here illegally. Sure, they should have tried to go about it the legal way (I will ignore the enormous heap of bureacracy through which one must navigate to even attempt to gain citizenship), but as I say frequently, these are people, and as the sister-in-law said, they are people with families who love them. They are attempting to make a better life for their families — in essence, to turn a life of relegated poverty for their wife and kids to a life of potential and hope. It is a brute fact that they are here, and we must work within that framework. We can’t herd them all up and ship them back; that is nonsensical. We should come up with a way to make the citizenship process less chaotic and less drawn out for applicants (and it is both), and we should, for those who are already here and working with clean track records, supply a ready and easy way (to coin a John Milton line) to citizenship.

As a side note: in the Northeast Georgia county in which I live now, the economic situation has gotten so severe that many Hispanics are, in fact, pulling out and moving elsewhere to find work because it simply doesn’t exist anymore in the county they once called home. I wrote a story reporting that very thing. One authentic Mexican restaurant which serves honest-to-God, regional Mexican cuisine (not Tex-Mex) and which once had a flourishing Hispanic clientele (Its menu is in all Spanish) now has a majority gringo customer base. And some of the Hispanics who are left in the county can be found each morning huddled in front of a local laundry mat hoping for some contractor or some developer to pick them up for a day’s worth of labor. When I went down there to attempt to speak with a couple of them about their situation, I do believe some of them thought I was there to offer them work. Now that’s sad.