May 3, 2006, on this blog: Getting ugly
The town decided to open a day laborer center — a place where those seeking work could gather to meet prospective bosses and where they could also find help with things like ESL classes.
This idea, evidently, strikes many native-born nativists as nefarious and horrifying. After all, if these people are so desperate to find work and to learn English it must mean that right now, they’re unemployed and can’t speak English. Why should taxpayer money be used to help such deadbeat foreigners?
Tony Perkins believes that such a day-laborer center is — get this — un-Christian.Perkins assumes that all immigrant day laborers — and possibly all people with Hispanic surnames — are illegal until proven innocent. And he is downright gleeful to see that the mayor and members of town council who supported the center were voted out by an anti-immigrant backlash.
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