dmcowen674
No Lifer
Good, the whole state should be raided, not just this one town.
Of course the resident Republicans said it wasn't true that the state is over run by Mexico when I was there.
9-15-2006 Immigration raid cripples Georgia Chicken town
STILLMORE, Ga. - Trailer parks lie abandoned. The poultry plant is scrambling to replace more than half its workforce. Business has dried up at stores where Mexican laborers once lined up to buy food, beer and cigarettes just weeks ago.
This Georgia community of about 1,000 people has become little more than a ghost town since Sept. 1, when federal agents began rounding up illegal immigrants.
The sweep has had the unintended effect of underscoring just how vital the illegal immigrants were to the local economy.
More than 120 illegal immigrants have been loaded onto buses bound for immigration courts in Atlanta, 189 miles away. Hundreds more fled Emanuel County. Residents say many scattered into the woods, camping out for days. They worry some are still hiding without food.
Last month, the federal government reported that Georgia had the fastest-growing illegal immigrant population in the country. The number more than doubled from an estimated 220,000 in 2000 to 470,000 last year. This year, state lawmakers passed some of the nation's toughest measures targeting illegal immigrants, and Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue last week vowed a statewide crackdown on document fraud.
The poultry plant has limped along with half its normal workforce. Crider increased its starting wages by $1 an hour to help recruit new workers.
Stacie Bell, 23, started work canning chicken at Crider a week ago. She said the pay, $7.75 an hour, led her to leave her $5.60-an-hour job as a Wal-Mart cashier in nearby Statesboro. Still, Bell said she felt bad about the raids.
"If they knew eventually that they were going to have to do that, they should have never let them come over here," she said.
====================================================
This is very much closing the barn door after the horse got out but at least a start.
These people are not going to become legal citizens. It could be possible to drive them back to Mexico like cattle if the whole Country did a concerted effort.
I'm shocked this is a Republican controlled City doing this.
This guy is sure to be re-elected unfortunately.
Kudos to him for knowing how to play Politics.
He may be in fact a Republican President down the road.
6-19-2006 Pa. city poised for immigration crackdown
HAZLETON, Pa. - With tensions rising and the police department and municipal budget stretched thin, Hazleton is about to embark on one of the toughest crackdowns on illegal immigrants anywhere in the United States.
Last week the mayor of this former coal town introduced, and the City Council tentatively approved, a measure that would revoke the business licenses of companies that employ illegal immigrants; impose $1,000 fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants; and make English the official language of the city.
"Illegal immigrants are destroying the city," said Mayor Lou Barletta, a Republican. "I don't want them here, period."
In San Bernardino, Calif., voters will decide whether to adopt a measure nearly identical to the one in Hazleton. An Idaho county filed a racketeering lawsuit against agricultural companies accused of hiring illegal immigrants.
Whites in Hazleton seem to overwhelmingly favor the proposed crackdown. Barletta's office has been flooded with hundreds of approving e-mails and phone calls ? from as far as California and Florida ? and he got a standing ovation when he walked into a Hazleton diner for lunch.
"It's about time," said Francis X. Tucci, 57, who was born and raised in Hazleton and owns a hair salon in the heart of the Hispanic business district. "We were a nice community. You find bad everywhere, I understand that, but we're talking about here and now."
Some Hispanics approve of the measure, saying they are fed up with crime and graffiti. "If I was mayor, I wouldn't let anyone in who had a criminal record," said Rafael Rovira, 69, a naturalized American citizen from the Dominican Republic.
Of course the resident Republicans said it wasn't true that the state is over run by Mexico when I was there.
9-15-2006 Immigration raid cripples Georgia Chicken town
STILLMORE, Ga. - Trailer parks lie abandoned. The poultry plant is scrambling to replace more than half its workforce. Business has dried up at stores where Mexican laborers once lined up to buy food, beer and cigarettes just weeks ago.
This Georgia community of about 1,000 people has become little more than a ghost town since Sept. 1, when federal agents began rounding up illegal immigrants.
The sweep has had the unintended effect of underscoring just how vital the illegal immigrants were to the local economy.
More than 120 illegal immigrants have been loaded onto buses bound for immigration courts in Atlanta, 189 miles away. Hundreds more fled Emanuel County. Residents say many scattered into the woods, camping out for days. They worry some are still hiding without food.
Last month, the federal government reported that Georgia had the fastest-growing illegal immigrant population in the country. The number more than doubled from an estimated 220,000 in 2000 to 470,000 last year. This year, state lawmakers passed some of the nation's toughest measures targeting illegal immigrants, and Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue last week vowed a statewide crackdown on document fraud.
The poultry plant has limped along with half its normal workforce. Crider increased its starting wages by $1 an hour to help recruit new workers.
Stacie Bell, 23, started work canning chicken at Crider a week ago. She said the pay, $7.75 an hour, led her to leave her $5.60-an-hour job as a Wal-Mart cashier in nearby Statesboro. Still, Bell said she felt bad about the raids.
"If they knew eventually that they were going to have to do that, they should have never let them come over here," she said.
====================================================
This is very much closing the barn door after the horse got out but at least a start.
These people are not going to become legal citizens. It could be possible to drive them back to Mexico like cattle if the whole Country did a concerted effort.
I'm shocked this is a Republican controlled City doing this.
This guy is sure to be re-elected unfortunately.
Kudos to him for knowing how to play Politics.
He may be in fact a Republican President down the road.
6-19-2006 Pa. city poised for immigration crackdown
HAZLETON, Pa. - With tensions rising and the police department and municipal budget stretched thin, Hazleton is about to embark on one of the toughest crackdowns on illegal immigrants anywhere in the United States.
Last week the mayor of this former coal town introduced, and the City Council tentatively approved, a measure that would revoke the business licenses of companies that employ illegal immigrants; impose $1,000 fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants; and make English the official language of the city.
"Illegal immigrants are destroying the city," said Mayor Lou Barletta, a Republican. "I don't want them here, period."
In San Bernardino, Calif., voters will decide whether to adopt a measure nearly identical to the one in Hazleton. An Idaho county filed a racketeering lawsuit against agricultural companies accused of hiring illegal immigrants.
Whites in Hazleton seem to overwhelmingly favor the proposed crackdown. Barletta's office has been flooded with hundreds of approving e-mails and phone calls ? from as far as California and Florida ? and he got a standing ovation when he walked into a Hazleton diner for lunch.
"It's about time," said Francis X. Tucci, 57, who was born and raised in Hazleton and owns a hair salon in the heart of the Hispanic business district. "We were a nice community. You find bad everywhere, I understand that, but we're talking about here and now."
Some Hispanics approve of the measure, saying they are fed up with crime and graffiti. "If I was mayor, I wouldn't let anyone in who had a criminal record," said Rafael Rovira, 69, a naturalized American citizen from the Dominican Republic.
