Posted on 12/04/2008 8:02:05 AM PST by RatherBiased.com
Experts say the Washington region’s immigrant population remains stable, even as an economic downturn and tougher enforcement have caused the first recent decreases in illegal immigration nationally.
National organizations have seen the number of illegal immigrants decrease, with estimates ranging from 500,000 to 1.3 million fewer people in the United States illegally. But locally, factors from a high demand for hospitality workers for the upcoming inauguration to the difficulty of returning home seem to be keeping immigrants here.
An October report from the Pew Hispanic Center said there were roughly 11.9 million illegal immigrants living in the United States in March 2008, down 500,000 people from the 12.4 million population estimate it reported in 2007.
The study said it was the first time in a decade that more immigrants were entering the country legally than illegally.
From 2000 to 2004, about 800,000 illegal immigrants a year entered the United States, but now the numbers have dropped to 500,000 a year, the report says. Meanwhile, legal immigration remains steady with about 650,000 authorized immigrants moving here each year.
Leaders of local immigrant advocacy groups such as CASA de Maryland and Virginia’s Tenants and Workers United say they’ve heard reports of immigrants heading home in other parts of the country, but they’re not seeing it here. Neither group checks the immigration status of the people they work with, so they can’t speak specifically about illegal immigrants, but they can discuss trends in the area’s immigrant community as a whole.
“The answer is a lot of people talk about it in a wishful way,” said Mario Quiroz, spokesman for CASA de Maryland. “They say, ‘I’m going to go home to be with my family,’ but in actuality, I have only seen one family who’s actually left.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dcexaminer.com ...
Could it be because the DC area pays people to sit on their ass and be perpetually unemployed, no legal residency requirements or other inconvenient questions asked?
I had occasion to drive an elderly acquaintance to a Social Security office in NoVA recently.
The patrons were 95 percent Latino/Hispanic/whatever, with the balance being a couple Asians and a few Caucasians including my charge.
All on the backs of the tax payers.
If they need help packing, I'm available.
BINGO! We have a winner! That part of the country - and I have friends and relatives there who are in the same business I am, home remodelling - doesn’t suffer the downturns like we do elsewhere just because of the bloated federal government. Those workers always have their money coming in. They have some effect of it all, but not near what we have elsewhere. And it seems the whole D.C. Metro area is a “sanctuary zone” for illegals of al sorts.
I can remember when NoVa was still American. The nearest thing to illegal aliens were the occasional transplants from New York.
>>>>>>I can remember when NoVa was still American. The nearest thing to illegal aliens were the occasional transplants from New York.<<<<<<<
I’ve lived here 10 years, it gets worse every year.
Grew up in Maryland and I recall going to Virginia was like a trip to The Deep South, you could buy hanging smoked hams at gas stations. Not much different from the MD Eastern Shore where my relatives lived for a couple centuries and which in the 60’s and 70’s was like Mississippi.
Even Charlotte is infested with illegals from what I’ve read.
And the new illegal president can bring his illegal aunt to live with his family, and it would boost the count by one..
“I’ve lived here 10 years, it gets worse every year.”
And it will get worse, thanks to the likes of Dubya in the GOP and the open borders comrades among the Democrats. The whole country is getting to be like where I live, in southern California. Which was still part of America when I moved here in the mid 60s. Welcome to post-America, where spanish is now replacing English as the dominant language.
I’m glad I can remember how it was. Something I’ve heard from other NoVa expats of my generation.
DC, like nearly every other state in the union, is flooded with illegals and their “legal” anchor babies. There are hundreds of regulations for taxpayers and citizens, but the ACLU and other ethnic pressure groups have carved out laws that purposely ignore normal ID requirements that your or I would be subject to. (See the Kenyan aunt of Obama in HUD housing, defying a deportation order that no one will enforce, because you cannot ask citizenship status for public housing, as not to “discriminate”). The madness is ongoing and rampant.
The government refuses to protect its people, period as thousands of Americans are killed and their states suffering financially over the millions here illegally, bankrupting the system.
Has anyone ever asked themselves, “How can two illegal aliens make a legal citizen?”
We are truly Alice in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass.”
Our country is floundering under the stress of financial burden and our politicians are too weak to enforce the law of the land.
I was in Berkeley last weekend and literally, there were close to 150 illegals on streecorners, looking for work. In normal times, in that sanctuary city, there are 10-20 people hanging around, being picked up and dropped off, doing odd home and commercial labor jobs in the area...now, they are all hanging out on corners by the hundreds and Berkeley cops roll past, doing nothing.
INS refuses to do anything, even enforce deporation orders...polticians do not want to scare off Latino votes and the system suffers more and more, more gangs, more crime, more drug traffic, more poverty and California continues its ongoing slide to return to a province of Mexico. By 2025, it will be a 3rd World nation, there are many parts of LA, SF, Fresno, SD, Chico, etc. that resemble all of the issues people left down south, all subsidized by the US taxpayer.
When you are getting stuff for free, like Health Care, Education for your third-world kids, food, and social services, WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE?
Remember a few years back when Moron physically manhandled a little kid at an Arlington rec center, because the kid pointed his finger at Moron “like a gun”?
Was Moron prosecuted?
Yea. Right. /sarc
“Even Charlotte is infested with illegals from what I’ve read.”
Charlotte IS infested with them, and their crime levels have gone way up, too.
I was up in Falls Church in NoVA recently; it looks like a third-world country up there. And it ain’t gonna get better, either.
Yep, I remember. I remember his remarks about the Iraq war being fought for Jewish/Israeli interests. In most places, his career would have been kaput. In latte liberal Arlington, most folks didn’t get an eyelash out of joint. He claims he’s a “catholic”. By me, he is a CINO (Catholic in Name Only) big time.
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