http://boztopia.com/?p=147Arlington VA, classism, David Alpert, DHS, Edmundo Rocha, George W. Bush, Greater Greater Washington, Hispanics, housing, ICE, identity theft, illegal immigration, immigration, John McCain, McMansions, NIMBYism, racism, Scholars & Rogues, sexism, Spanish Inquisition, Tom Tancredo, unemploymenthttp://boztopia.com/?p=147#comments

Like the Spanish Inquisition, no one expected this, but they should have:

The slump in the construction industry has hit Hispanics especially hard, causing “a dramatic reversal” in their economic gains as more become jobless while wages continue to drop, according to a study of labor statistics released today. The Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research group in Washington, D.C., found that the jobless rate for Hispanics rose to 6.5 percent during the first quarter of 2008. That’s compared to 4.7 percent unemployment rate for the rest of the country’s population. The national study found that Latinos were hurt by the same housing and construction boom that is credited with helping them improve their earnings and employment levels.

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http://boztopia.com/?p=147Arlington VA, classism, David Alpert, DHS, Edmundo Rocha, George W. Bush, Greater Greater Washington, Hispanics, housing, ICE, identity theft, illegal immigration, immigration, John McCain, McMansions, NIMBYism, racism, Scholars & Rogues, sexism, Spanish Inquisition, Tom Tancredo, unemploymenthttp://boztopia.com/?p=147#comments

Like the Spanish Inquisition, no one expected this, but they should have:

The slump in the construction industry has hit Hispanics especially hard, causing “a dramatic reversal” in their economic gains as more become jobless while wages continue to drop, according to a study of labor statistics released today. The Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research group in Washington, D.C., found that the jobless rate for Hispanics rose to 6.5 percent during the first quarter of 2008. That’s compared to 4.7 percent unemployment rate for the rest of the country’s population. The national study found that Latinos were hurt by the same housing and construction boom that is credited with helping them improve their earnings and employment levels.

Want to know why illegal immigration suddenly became an issue of dire, screaming importance around, say, the 2004 elections? Because it was right about then that the housing market began to tank. From 1999 till 2004, no one gave a good goddamn if the day laborers building the McMansions from sea to shining sea had their papers or not. The economy was booming, people were using home equity like it was an ATM, and the very same day laborers who congregated at 7-11s and on lonely dirt roads and got picked up by developers to build homes for shitty wages often ended up buying those same homes with no-document loans and stolen identities.

Now, though, the well has dried up and housing is in the middle of a years-long crash that has triggered an economic meltdown across the globe. People want someone to blame and demonize, but rather than pay attention to the systemic roots of our overreliance on credit, our consumptive culture, and the Bush regime’s use of debt financing to prop up a moribund economy, they instead suddenly started noticing all the brown people in their midst and decided something had to be done.

Even though immigration as a wedge issue in the elections has proven to be a non-starter on the national level (and may indeed help torpedo John McCain’s electoral chances because of his perceived softness on amnesty), on local levels, it has been tearing communities apart and exposing the ugly face of racism, NIMBYism, classism, and just general crappiness toward other human beings. Yet, not only have Democrats and progressives failed to get out front on this issue as they should, they’ve often proven to exhibit tendencies that would make Tom Tancredo proud. As David Alpert wrote:

Arlington is considering a proposal to allow homeowners to make rental units like basement apartments in their homes. It’s already legal in DC, as well as Montgomery and Fairfax. Today’s Post reports that many citizens are fighting the proposal, concerned that it will bring undesirable immigrants into Arlington…Preserve the architecture and stop McMansions, sure; deal with congestion, yeah (but by adding public transit rather than wider roads). But trying to actually keep new people out, whether motivated by classism and racism or simple fear of more people, should not be allowed for any neighborhood or town.

And this is in the rapidly-turning-blue enclave of Arlington, VA, not far from where I live and work. My esteemed former S&R colleague Edmundo Rocha had a stellar analysis of the situation that explained how the left has let the immigration debate be co-opted by the worst and loudest voices of the nativist wing. That’s not to say that people haven’t spoken out–far from it–but we haven’t done enough, for long enough.

None of the Draconian, jackbooted enforcement measures favored by DHS do anything but put scares into people and cause needless separation of families, often leading to sickness and death in ICE detention centers. We need to reverse course and build a new immigration policy with an eye towards legal entry into the country, job training, keeping mothers and their children together, better protections for laborers and harsher punishments for businesses that hire undocumented immigrants to avoid paying benefits and health care. The alternative is the grim scenario of illegal day laborers building the very wall designed to keep them out–simply because it’s cheaper for business to do so.

We can do better than that.