It's Working Already

Illegals are leaving Arizona ahead of the new law going into effect Thursday.


Migrants sell up, flee Arizona ahead of crackdown
* Tough state immigration crackdown starts on Thursday

* Boom in yard sales as migrants sell off belongings

* Legal residents, US-born children join scramble to leave

By Tim Gaynor


PHOENIX, July 25 (Reuters) - Nicaraguan mother Lorena Aguilar hawks (hocks I suppose?) a television set and a few clothes on the baking sidewalk outside her west Phoenix apartment block.

A few paces up the street, her undocumented (AKA Illegal Alien) Mexican neighbor Wendi Villasenor touts a kitchen table, some chairs and a few dishes as her family scrambles to get out of Arizona ahead of a looming crackdown on illegal immigrants.

"Everyone is selling up the little they have and leaving," said Villasenor, 31, who is headed for Pennsylvania. (Why Pennsylvania, seems weird to me)

The two women are among scores of illegal immigrant families across Phoenix hauling the contents of their homes into the yard this weekend as they rush to sell up and get out before the state law takes effect on Thursday.

The law, the toughest imposed by any U.S. state to curb illegal immigration, seeks to drive more than 400,000 undocumented day laborers, landscapers, house cleaners, chambermaids and other workers out of Arizona, which borders Mexico. (Really, that is what the law seeks to do? This Journalist??? is really showing his stuff isn't he? Oh it gets better.)

It makes being an illegal immigrant a state crime (Yes you read that right! Doing something Illegal usually is a crime. I know, I know he said State Crime) and requires state and local police, during lawful contact, to investigate the status of anyone they reasonably suspect of being an illegal immigrant.

Some are heading back to Mexico or to neighboring states. Others are staying put and taking their chances. (Well sounds like Phoenix won't be the kidnapping capital of the USA anymore, it will just be Albuquerque New Mexico)

Arizona straddles the principal highway for human and drug smugglers heading into the United States from Mexico.

The state's Republican governor, Jan Brewer, signed the law in April in a bid to curb violence and cut crime stemming from illegal immigration.

Polls show the measure is backed by a solid majority of Americans and by 65 percent of Arizona voters in this election year for some state governors, all of the U.S. House of Representatives and about a third of the 100-seat Senate.



http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2514063220100725