I used to live near a small (pop. 11,000) Minnesota town, very rural/agricultural and formerly populated mainly by retired farmers, but there's a super Walmart and a meat packing plant, and it's a sanctuary city. The retiring farmers for the most part move elsewhere now. Last time I heard the school district was 63% minority students (how is that a minority?), mostly Hispanic. There used to be more ethnic groups, and before the different factions got it "worked out" amongst themselves there was a lot of gang activity and violence. The Somalis eventually moved to a different town about an hour and a half north and the Asians went who knows where. When ICE raided the packing plant in early December a few years back and rounded up 300 individuals for not having proper documentation and/or identity theft, the mayor of said small town was outraged, carrying on on the radio, tv and newspaper, partly about the "poor families being split up" because Daddy was being deported, but mainly about the $$ that wouldn't be flowing into the local economy, what with it being just before Christmas and all. There are at least 14 places in town where a person can send money to Mexico, Nicaragua, or anywhere else you like, and Walmart certainly doesn't keep the $$ local so I don't know how much of the money stays in the local economy anyway. If law enforcement had arrested 300 drug dealers would the mayor have been outraged about their money not being circulated locally, or would he be crowing about getting a bunch of people involved in illegal activity off the streets? Just for the record, I'm no longer a Minnesota resident. It's looking more and more like CA all the time.
T4TL
ReplyDeleteI used to live near a small (pop. 11,000) Minnesota town, very rural/agricultural and formerly populated mainly by retired farmers, but there's a super Walmart and a meat packing plant, and it's a sanctuary city. The retiring farmers for the most part move elsewhere now. Last time I heard the school district was 63% minority students (how is that a minority?), mostly Hispanic. There used to be more ethnic groups, and before the different factions got it "worked out" amongst themselves there was a lot of gang activity and violence. The Somalis eventually moved to a different town about an hour and a half north and the Asians went who knows where. When ICE raided the packing plant in early December a few years back and rounded up 300 individuals for not having proper documentation and/or identity theft, the mayor of said small town was outraged, carrying on on the radio, tv and newspaper, partly about the "poor families being split up" because Daddy was being deported, but mainly about the $$ that wouldn't be flowing into the local economy, what with it being just before Christmas and all. There are at least 14 places in town where a person can send money to Mexico, Nicaragua, or anywhere else you like, and Walmart certainly doesn't keep the $$ local so I don't know how much of the money stays in the local economy anyway. If law enforcement had arrested 300 drug dealers would the mayor have been outraged about their money not being circulated locally, or would he be crowing about getting a bunch of people involved in illegal activity off the streets?
ReplyDeleteJust for the record, I'm no longer a Minnesota resident. It's looking more and more like CA all the time.