Debating immigration in Kennett Square
Thursday, September 9th, 2010
By: Elizabeth Fiedler
efiedler@whyy.org
This weekend, mushroom lovers will flock to Kennett Square's 25th Annual Mushroom Festival. Mushroom farming has attracted lots of immigrant workers to that corner of Chester County. Much of the current debate over immigration has centered on Arizona because of it's controversial law SB 1070. Here is how the issue is playing in
Kennett Square.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Juvenal Gonzalez' ice cream shop
The town's mushroom industry draws visitors, but it's also attracted many immigrants looking for jobs.
A recent poll shows Pennsylvania voters approve of the Arizona Immigration Law by a 2-to-1 margin. Nearly half of respondents say they want to see similar legislation in Pennsylvania.
And if the Keystone state adopts a law similar to Arizona's, Kennett Square could be in the spotlight.
Judy Dinning and her grandchildren
Sitting inside the Police station, Kennett Square police chief Edward Zunino says he knows a lot of crimes are not reported by people of questionable status in Kennett Square because they're afraid of having contact with the police – any contact – even if they were crime victims.
Zunino says a law like Arizona's would make some immigrants even less likely to report crime.
"What we find is people in the Mexican community usually are victims of theft and robberies. They're considered easy prey by many criminals because the general feeling is they're probably illegal and not going to report it to police."
Zunino says he's troubled by the Arizona law. He says he would like to see more federal involvement on the immigration front.
A worker at Juvenal Gonzalez' ice cream store
"We have cooperated with immigration officials in the past who have done raids on migrant worker camps and it's worked out fine but we haven't seen that in a few years and. I think it's a problem for the people that are here that have came to this country from Mexico that have gone through the process and all the time, trouble, and money spent to become legal. And then here you have an illegal come up here that would probably offers to do the job for less money. It's not fair to them."
On Main Street, heading home to nearby West Grove with his two young sons, Ed Piskorski seconds that.
"If they feel that they need to check the id of the person that is in front of them – i feel like if they're here illegally then send em back! If they don't do the proper paperwork and they're too lazy to do it or they're here illegally they should go back to their home."
The significance of a law like Arizona's is impossible to ignore for Ice Cream Shop owner Juvenal Gonzalez. He's originally from Mexico and used to work in the mushroom industry.
Standing inside his Kennett Square shop full of sweets, Gonzalez says the influx of immigrants has helped revive the area. He says relations between recent Spanish-speaking immigrants, and other residents are pretty calm. But if a law like Arizona's was passed in Pennsylvania, it won't stay that way.
"It would be frightening – for the business and for everybody here in the area. Here right now it's quiet, nice, everybody free like, which is a good feeling for us to be free. because everybody come to work and i think it's not going to be a good idea for the business and for the community at all."
Gonzalez says people who oppose immigrants need to remember that they travel a long distance to come here to do jobs no one else wants to do – like mushroom farming.
Sitting out front on a bench with her grandchildren enjoying some ice cream, Judy Dinning echoes that sentiment.
"If we didn't have the immigrants, we probably wouldn't have a lot of the labor that we need. Because at least they're willing to work."
A 17-year old Kennett Square resident, who was born in Mexico, stops to say Arizona-style legislation amounts to legalizing discrimination. He says he knows young guys like him: with dark skin and hair, and baggy pants would get stopped and forced to show identification. And he points out, he is in America legally.
Personally, I wouldn't trust any government source as they are already biased? Even the academic signatures on the major problem of illegal immigration are suspect–as colleges and universities are well indoctrinated with the crazy Liberal fringe, made up of Professors who lie through their teeth. Quasi government agencies such as the Council of Foreign Relations, has a formidable role in pushing for open borders and unfettered immigration–legal and illegal. The real Democrats have been infiltrated by mass Liberal progressives, which Conservatives will bring them down in November. Although the main issue is jobs and the economy, illegal immigration to this nation has zipped through every state like an unceasing financial fireball. That burning question hasn't fizzled out and is still reigniting in the great state of Arizona, which now has opened that proverbial Pandora's Box.
This began with the suing of Governor Brewer’s administration as a searing example to other states? In Pennsylvania a small town has been inundated from the illegal immigrant annexation of our country, with not aid from ICE chief John Morton.Fremont, Nebraska, Farmers Branch Texas has also been subdued because they don't have the money to fight off personages like George Soros. There are newspapers like the Huffington Post, that would have better be printed in Cuba or North Korea, completely oblivious to the money spent to give public funds to millions of illegal aliens. Then out-of-control SEIU unions that are in collusion with certain politicians to force through another–AMNESTY, giving the high echelon comrades more power–but no individual choices from the lower ranks. Whoever you vote for in November or the general election had better have an good immigration record, whether a candidates for governor, Mayor or any elected official. As Americans have got beyond furious in paying for all the freebies for people who just stride into our country.
But instead of tampering down the flame the illegal immigration invasion–not LEGAL IMMIGRANTS has enveloped in a conflagration, which cannot be extinguished. Whether it’s the Communist inspired ACLU or in the murky waters of the Democratic leadership proceedings of Senator Harry Reid of Nevada who tried to kill E-Verify. It survived, but only just thanks to moderate Conservatives like Senator Sessions. The second firestorm came to light, when American found out, that Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) authored an revision to the 2006 Secure Fence Act, before the law was even dry to retire the second fence, that would paralleled the first. This first (2) fences commitment would have gone a long way of halting the daily invasion, from across the undermanned border and stopping the suffering of Arizona, Texas, California, New Mexico's true legal population–even Florida far away is overrun with foreign labor and families.
Since the second fence remains just a blueprint, thousands of migrants still cross illegally on our soil. Observe the real reality and consequences to the Liberal aggressive push for open borders at SECUREBORDERINTEL website. Hidden cameras placed by patriotic American continue to show the daily drudge of illegal aliens by the thousands skirting the undermanned US Border Patrol. Not just migrants but incursions by drug cartels managers armed with heavy duty military weapons, alert to any infringement to their cash trains of "drug mules". People intimidated to carry the deadly contraband into America. The politicians on both sides in Washington have decidedly been kept ignorant of the growing border menace or never meant to seal the border. This is the same with entry into America by air travel. ICE or the originator INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) never had any verification method, to know when holders of expired visas had left. Millions of foreign nationals remained and this is a criminal offense.
I suspect the political elites were able to compromise immigration laws, by making illegal entry a civil infraction instead of a felony. MILLIONS OF FOREIGNERS WOULD HAVE HAD SECOND THOUGHTS.ABOUT COMING HERE, IF THEY COULD BE INCARCERATED INSTEAD OF BEING REPATRIATED TO MEXICO OR ANOTHER COUNTRY. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year could be saved for our own benefits, if the second wall had materialized–with unremitting border agent vehicles, patrolling between the two fences on tracks constructed by the Corp of Engineers or National Guard. In many instances expectant females couldn't simply breech both fences, to become a public welfare burden as their hundreds of thousands of babies get instant citizenship. Drug smugglers would not have easy access, with federal watchtowers at interval the whole 1800 miles from one sea to another.
Uncountable numbers would be held between fences and detained. Kay Bailey Hutchinson must take the complete blame, for reducing funding under the 2006 Secure Fence Act and amending the bill. FAIR gives a reasonable but is inclined to give a very conservative dollar amount of $113 billion, for–JUST–federal costs in education, health and incarceration for illegals. Financial institutions offer an estimate of $60 billion dollars for workers transferring money out of the country. In July of this year Los Angeles County alone paid out $52 million dollars for instant birthright children of illegal aliens. One cannot even comprehend the money spent to subsidize the welfare of illegal aliens at the State, county and municipal levels of government? These amounts of expenditures are narrowly focused and don't give a true accounting as the government doesn't want us to know? But look to the costs paid out in your cities and throughout America.
While our country fights bitter battles in foreign land, we have yet to defend our own citizens and legal residents in Arizona or other border states. Bombard lawmakers with your anger and frustration at Washington power brokers at 202-224-3121 NOW– IS THE DAY TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CORRUPTION AND COMPROMISE BY OUR POLITICIANS AT NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIAL WATCH. SAY NO TO ANY NEW AMNESTY, TO OVERPOPULATION IN THE NEAR FUTURE.