August 19, 2004

"Hillbangers"

Serving as an antidote to their other immigration coverage, the NYT provides a report on gangs that are moving into rural areas to take advantage of the illegal aliens who are going there for jobs:

Gang activity has traditionally been a function of immigration and labor-migration patterns. Today, with those patterns changing -- with unskilled jobs shifting from cities to rural regions, with sprawl pushing suburbs and exurbs deeper into the countryside -- gangs are cropping up in unexpected places: tiny counties and quaint villages, farming communities and cookie-cutter developments, small towns and tourist resorts. In Toombs County, Ga., for instance, 10 Hispanic gangs roam an area marked by cotton, tobacco and onion fields, according to Art Villegas, who tracks gang activity there for the sheriff's office.

The blue-collar jobs that do not require much training or fluency in English are increasingly found in the countryside. Thanks in part to the explosive growth of the fast-food industry and the huge agro-conglomerates that service it, giant food factories now dot pastoral America. The plants actively recruit south of the border and in poor Hispanic neighborhoods on both coasts of the United States, drawing legions of immigrants to places barely big enough to register on state maps.

In 2002, just 13 companies were fined for immigration violations. If that number could be raised back to 1000 or more, these companies would be forced to recruit legal workers and this problem could be reduced before these gangs become a permanent part of rural life. Don't expect the Bush administration to do that any time soon however.

Posted to Immigration2004 at August 19, 2004 12:29 PM

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