Several businesses said that they thought some criminals may be targetting Latino customers because they thought Latino crime victims would be less likely to call the police
I meant to mention this in response to the Vicente Fox visit a few months ago. The most thoughtful, thorough consideration of the problem of illegal immigration that I have seen was on this C-Span Booknotes interview http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1747 with Victor Davis Hanson, author of Mexifornia, a State of Becoming. As Minneapolis becomes more hispanic, we should be aware of the problems that are occurring in California and other states.
An excerpt:
HANSON: Yes. And even more disturbing is that 62 percent of the people in California who were born in Mexico are classified under the poverty level. And after 20 years, it`s not very much statistical difference. And 20 years of being here in America, doing unskilled labor, doesn`t get you out of poverty. How could it, when it`s unskilled labor and you don`t have a redress of grievances? And all the old mechanisms where we increase the power of the unskilled through unionization or legality are not there to help.
LAMB: What`s life like -- take the 18-year-old. He`s illegal.
HANSON: He`s illegal.
LAMB: How does he get here? How does he get to California?
HANSON: He hires a "coyote" for $1,500, $2,000. He gets across the border...
LAMB: What`s a "coyote"?
HANSON: He`s a professional smuggler. Often it`s quite dangerous. But he`ll get across. He usually doesn`t go live near the border, where the jobs really aren`t there. He`ll go up to central California, find construction, which is booming, agriculture, hotels, restaurants. He`ll find other people in a similar circumstance. They`ll rent an apartment, five or six together. They will pay cash for everything because they`re outside of the banking system often. They don`t have legal status, so they`re -- they`re often robbed. They`re beaten up by people. They can`t report these crimes because they`re afraid of endangering their status.
...
Mike Jensvold
East Isles
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