Ken Belson/Jill Capuzzo/NYT: corruption, illegal activity are great!

Ken Belson and Jill Capuzzo of the New York Times offer a slab of pro-corruption, pro-illegal immigration propaganda in "Towns Rethink Laws Against Illegal Immigrants".

Apparently, Riverside, New Jersey has suffered economically after enacting an anti-illegal immigration ordinance (which they recently rescinded), and the NYT offers the most dire portrait they can:

With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.

What about those businesses that weren't seeking to profit from an influx of "immigrants"? How are they doing? That's not answered.

And, there certainly is a lot of money to be made off illegal activity, but whether it's good to encourage that is another thing. There are also the other costs that Riverside doesn't have to pay after "so many" people left, such as increased educational and health costs. And, there are the non-financial costs, such as illegal immigration being an indicator of government corruption. Oddly, the NYT's crack reporters didn't factor any of those costs into the equation.

As for the ACLU, PFAW and others seeking to in effect enrich themselves by bankrupting small towns, this is all they have to say:

Meanwhile, the town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town's already tight budget.

Wouldn't real reporters look into the ACLU's activities in this matter in a bit more depth, rather than creating a slanted report designed to apologize for illegal activity?

As for the "victims", they only quote four, all of whom would profit with increased illegal immigration:

Angelina Guedes, a Brazilian-born beautician, opened A Touch From Brazil... Luis Ordonez's River Dance Music Store, which sells Western Union wire transfers, cellphones and perfume... Bruce Behmke opened the R & B Laundromat in 2003 after he saw immigrants hauling trash bags full of clothing to a laundry a mile away... Regina Collinsgru, who runs The Positive Press, a local newspaper, and whose husband was among a wave of Portuguese immigrants who came here in the 1960s.

In her previous report (first link above), Capuzzo spun such wire transfers like so:

[another shop has] a bustling Western Union office, where many of the immigrants can stay in contact with relatives back home...

"Staying in contact" by sending money to their home countries, encouraging corruption in the U.S. as U.S. companies profit from illegal immigration, and incentivizing foreign countries to keep sending us people legally or illegally, that is.

The bottom line is that what Ken Belson and Jill Capuzzo write cannot be trusted; they're simply propagandists for the illegal immigration-supporting New York Times.

Those buying the propaganda include the following:

"Classically Liberal":
freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/09/town-that-threw-out-immigrants-reverses.html

"Thoreau":
highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2007/09/26/7217

David Weigel of Reason Magazine:
reason.com/blog/show/122687.html

UPDATE: From our "self-starters"/reverse assimilation file comes this additional paragraph from the article:

On the town's leafy side streets, some residents admired the pluck of newcomers who often worked six days a week, and a few even took up Capoeira, the Brazilian martial art.

How wonderfully multicultural of them. And in New Jersey too! Compare this snippet from the NYT editorial promoting Mexicanos Sin Fronteras:

You didn't think they [MSF] were just going to roll over, did you? They're immigrants: smart, industrious self-starters, like your grandparents.

Immigration2007b · Wed, 09/26/2007 - 08:51 · · Importance: 1