Doin' Our Civic Duty

[the_gneech]

The Herndon mayoral/town council elections are today. We've made national news in local elections, thanks to the current administration's war on day laborers ("Herndon: It isn't nice of you to call us bigots just because we hate Mexicans."), so this election, even though it encompasses an area roughly five miles across, has got news cameras and reporters crawling all over it. lythandra and I were buttonholed by a plucky young reporter from The Washington Post on our way out and given a very brief interview, so we may or may not end up in the paper expounding on our dissatisfaction with the powers that be.

So, we'll see how it goes. All the people who are annoyed that Herndon doesn't look like a Norman Rockwell painting any more are out in force supporting the incumbents, but there seem to be just as many people out who are annoyed that the situation was so bungled. For myself, I'm certainly not real keen on illegal immigration, but if the matter was as simplistic as "day laborers = illegal immigrants," then the right answer would have been to round up the day laborers and deport them. Since they didn't do that, then it seems pretty obvious that "day laborers =/= illegal immigrants," and therefore the real problem Herndon has is institutional racism.

-The Gneech

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

If the only people being arrested at the Day Labor centers are the illegal aliens, I dont' have a problem with that. Where the law catches a criminal is irrelevant - they caught the criminal is what matters. And if everyone at the center turns out to be an illegal alien, that too is irrelevant, just like the color of the skin of the illegal alien doesn't matter.

You want a colorblind society and end to racism? Fine. Start by saying you don't care what the color of skin is; if you break the law, you pay the consequences.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

They weren't arresting people at day labor centers -- they were shutting down day labor centers all together "because illegal immigrants use them to find work."

-The Gneech

Washington post quote:

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/06/AR2008050601546.html

John Robey, 38, said he voted for Reece. Like many, he said the current mayor has fostered divisiveness and brought disrepute to the town.

"Last time anybody heard of Herndon, they knew it as dot-com central. Today, they know it as this place with all this immigration stuff going on," he said. "Virginia unfortunately has a bad reputation already when it comes to race relations and it doesn't have to get dragged through the mud anymore."

Re: Washington post quote:

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's what I said. :) Thanks for the heads-up!

-The Gneech

I have a unique take on this...

[mammallamadevil.livejournal.com]

due to the fact that my great grandparents probably did not come here "legally" and I've dealt with this type of situation throughout my formative years with the "family business".

I don't have the desire nor the inclination to bean count someone's "legality". I do know that in the family business this has been a line that cannot be crossed, though. You can't prove you're legal? You're gone. We find you forged paperwork no matter how hard you work and how much we like you? You're gone. Call us when you're legal---we will be glad to pick up the phone and discuss the issue.

If someone is willing to work hard, pay taxes, and be a contributing member of society, I personally think they should be given a break even if they did the Mexicali mambo or the Tijuana Twist to get here. If someone wants to come here and leech off welfare benefits they did nothing to contribute to, no matter what their ethnicity, I think they deserve to be deported on the buckboard express to where they came from. It doesn't matter whether you're in Santa Clara, California or Sandy Springs, GA---day laborers are a part of the community fabric and economy.

News to the folks in Herndon, the real world isn't a Norman Rockwell painting...accept it...

MLD

Re: I have a unique take on this...

[laurie-robey.livejournal.com]

We were discussing this before we went to vote. If the immigrants assimilate more into society and become contributors instead of consumers, probably nobody would care they were here. But some of them started congregating on a specific part of Elden Street (one of the main drags through Herndon), waiting for work. Specifically, they would hang out in the parking lot of the 7-11. It became an informal hiring spot. Don't ask me why they weren't shooed off by the police for loitering or trespassing.

They started hanging out in surrounding parking lots, drinking, then the Hispanic gangs started showing up, like MS-13. The previous council voted to create a day laborer center where they could go to find work instead of congregating on Elden Street. Then this whole big flap started with the Minutemen because public funds were being used, and the people running the center didn't check to see if the people using it were legal. So the current council got voted in on the hot button issue back in 2006. They got the center closed down. So now the workers are back congregating on Elden. And now, the business owners where they congregate are being fined for "allowing" the immigrants to solicit work on their property. (Again, don't ask me why the people causing the problem aren't just shooed away by the police.)

It went to the supreme court before the center was shut down and created a nasty atmosphere around here. The way I see it is prosecute the ones causing the problems for the problems they're causing. The Herndon police are empowered to check someone's immigration status if they're arrested for certain offenses. 58 people have been deported that way. That would get rid of the troublemakers, wouldn't it?

Also, there's the issue of overcrowding. Residents got upset because the immigrants were living in informal boarding houses in Herndon's neighborhoods, with too many people are cars crammed in. Again, Herndon's got laws against overcrowding. All they have to do is enforce them. There's just been 2 years of saber-rattling about this whole issue and a lot of ugly attitudes have come to light.

Anyway, I think most people in Herndon are just tired of the constant focus on the one issue. We've got other problems to solve, not just illegal immigrants.