Local Impacts of the Current Immigration Climate; Or, Be Careful What You Wish For!

Two recent news stories reveal some of the negative local impacts of the national craze to rid the nation of undocumented immigrants.

AP reports that the superintendent of the Irving, Texas school district said that some immigrant parents had pulled their children (possibly U.S. citizen children) from school over fears that they or their families would be deported. The Mexican Consulate has advised people to avoid driving through Irving, a Dallas suburb, in response to the Irving Police Department’s participation with federal immigration authorities in efforts to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants. The Irving police have turned over more than 1,600 people to immigration officials since the program began last year.

In Virginia, Prince William County’s home prices and its Hispanic population rose in tandem during the first half of this decade, a result of a home-building frenzy that became a powerful magnet for immigrant laborers. Undocumented immigrants had little trouble finding jobs and not much trouble getting mortgages. According to the Washington Post, Prince William today “has some of the highest foreclosure rates in the region, with a glut of unsold, depreciating homes. And its elected officials have embarked on one of the most ambitious efforts in the nation to drive out and deport illegal immigrants. That combination — an excess of housing and new anti-illegal immigrant policies — is likely to exacerbate the county’s weak real estate market, agents and lenders say. Regardless of one’s views on immigration, they say, simple arithmetic dictates that if a lot of residents leave the county, the housing meltdown will only worsen.”

KJ