Soccer Mom: Unplugged

Heard an interesting bit of news today while shampooing my floors.  Fox news was on in the background and Brian Kilmeade was arguing with a latino about the immigration issue.  I missed the guest's name but here's the essences of what he said:

He was inviting Latinos to boycott all businesses on a certain day - didn't catch that either.  Both Dayside hosts lost their cool and started accusing Sr. Whoever of trying to hurt the US economy. 

So, here's the question:  if it's going to do so much damage to the economy for them to avoid shopping and public transportation for ONE DAY, then how much greater would the damage be if they were rounded up and shipped home to Mexico, Honduras, and Panama. HELLO?!?

Personally, I think this is a great way of reminding the hard liners that these people profoundly impact our economy.  If we could round up every single illegal and deport them immediately - can you even imagine how many apartments and mobile homes would sit empty. How much less would be paid in water and heating bills.  How many fewer boxes of cereal, gallons of milk, packages of chorizo. That's a lot of taxable spending.  When I lived in Georgia, I volunteered among the Latino community and many of these folks were illegal immigrants.  There was a whole barrio (probably 750-1000 people) made up of several trailer parks and small houses that were entirely occupied by these migrant workers.  The men travelled up and down the coast picking whatever was in season or working in factories that had seasonal needs.  They paid rent, shopped, ordered pizza.  I took many of them back and forth to the doctor where I watched them pay in cash for services.  I ran into them at Wal-Mart Christmas shopping and I celebrated baby showers and birthdays with them where many nice presents were exchanged. It wasn't just that. I frequently turned down offers to be taken out to lunch and I often refused gifts offered as a show of gratitude for the times when I carted pregnant wives here or there or dropped folks off at their church services or the market. 

The military tried this same practice once - I can't remember where but the story goes that back before direct deposit when soldiers where getting paid directly, the commanding general of an Army post was frustrated with the complaints of the local community.  "Those soldiers just cause problems!  All they do is drink and keep the prostitutes in business."  The Post comander ordered that all the troops be paid in silver dollars so that the town outside the gate could see the real impact.  He spoke to the complaining civilian community.  "Every time you see a silver dollar in your cash register - you remember a soldier put it there."  It only took one pay period before the compaints stopped.  Water bills were paid in silver dollars, groceries, electric bills, phone bills, everything.  It became clear to all very quickly that in spite of the difficulties of hosting the soldiers - there was a real and positive economic impact.

Many who are taking a hard line approach to the immigration issue have had negative experiences and are all too familiar with the negative press about crime and gangs among the inner city illegals.  But if you reject the bad news coming out of Iraq as filled with bias, how can you accept the news about the Bronx or Chicago's south side without question.  I'm not suggesting that there aren't problems - clearly there are.  But there's a lot of good going on, too.

If illegal immigrants boycott our stores to give us an idea of the real impact they have on the American economy, we shouldn't consider this a vindictive act but an eye-opening experiment.