"Illegal home ownership"

[SoCalDem]

Apparently this is the NEW and Improved wrinkle in the saga of Xenophobia. The snaggle-toothed lady who fills in for Lou Dobbs just interviewed a rightwing immigrant-hater who is suggesting that HUD should be taking a "closer look" at illegals who buy homes here..

What these nutcases do not relaize is THIS.. At least here in CA, "illegals" who buy homes usually pool their money with family members and PAY CASH.. They are by nature, UNDERGROUNDers. They try anything and everythiing to AVOID paperwork that could trip them up.

So if you have a HUD home and have a "hispanic-sounding last name", don't be surprised if someday when you LEAST expect it, someone will be snooping around to "check your status"..

The house across the street from us is a prime example. There are SEVERAL adults who come and go daily.. at least 4 cars..all are hispanic men (there is one woman and a small child). They speak NO English, play mariachi music full blast, and totally stay to themselves. Probably some/most of them "could" have odd documents, but they bought that house, fixed it up, and bother no one.

[gizmo1979]

1. How the heck can an illegal afford a house in california?

[meisje]

3. They save every penny and work long hours

[LeftyMom]

7. Work your ass off

buy a fixer in a marginal to bad neighborhood, pack people in like sardines. Or get a girlfriend with legal residency and keep everything in her name.

[gizmo1979]

12. I suppose in a really bad neighborhood but aren't bottom prices

Like 150,000 bucks.I couldn't even afford the taxes.

[Warpy]

9. Four to a room

80 hour weeks, live in a car until they can buy in. When they want to leave, they sell their inflated share to someone else. It's really not that bad a deal for them; the housing bubble is helping them build paper equity that will translate into enough pesos to buy a business in Mexico.

What people forget is that these illegals still pay property taxes, a considerable sum in California.

(after over 10 years in New Mexico, I'm developing a taste for mariachi music. It beats the hell out of loud top 40 or "adult" pop)

[SoCalDem]

13. When these people bought that house it was a fixer-upper

and housing prices were a bit down due to a base closure here. No doubt, they pooled their money and bought it that way.. It's a bit smaller than ours, and ours appraised last month for $280K..(we paid $82K in '81).. I'm guessing that when they bought theirs it probably sold for $150K....so if you have 4 or 5 guys and a couple, all putting cash together, they could have swung it.

[Neecy]

2. I know, I know...

Dobbs has a lot of fans here, but I can't stomach his constant xenophobia. It goes beyond reason - he demonizes people, accuses them of being responsible for every social ill possible, and acts like a goddamn crusader about it. I call him Lou Le Pen.

Why doesn't Dobbs address the real reason that people come across the border illegally? The corporate farms and slaughterhouses that refuse unionization and encourage the flow if immigrants so they can abuse fair labor practices, avoid liability for wrongful death and worker disability, and pay slave wages. He never demonizes them, though - just the poor suckers who labor for them with almost no reward.

[laura888]

10. Exactly! I just finished reading "Fast Food Nation"...

...in which it describes the meat-packing industry as basically running on cheap, illegal immigrant labor. Companies post ads on the radio in Mexico to convince Mexicans to come up to Kansas and Colorado.

Once they're here, they work long hours and have little recourse if they're injured on-the-job. High turn-over means that the company does not have to pay any health insurance or vacation.

I'm with you - the fault is that of corporations AND the government - which winks at the flow of immigrants coming over.

[Neecy]

17. yep

The slaughterhouses are the worst - crippling work, poor conditions, low wages. The meatpacker's union has been destroyed by this, as well as the great stockyards of the midwest.

Lou Le Pen should let us all know just how high food prices would be if we threw everyone out today. California's economy would be destroyed without immigrant labor. Illegal immigration could be stopped in a second - but it's too profitable to the huge corporate farms. For Le Pen to only attack them and turn a blind eye to the system that expoits them is sickening.

[laura888]

18. Absolutely - whole industries are run on their labor!

If we suddenly decided to send them all back, corporations would go under.

Who is "Le Pen"? (sorry - I'm a little dense)

[Neecy]

19. Le Pen

He's a far-right politician in France who's run for years on a platform of xenophobia. A real nutter, full of hate and vitriol.

[SoCalDem]

20. He does not demonize them because he IS one of them

His show used to be called MONEYLINE..

Employers hire illegals because it's a quick(and cheap) way to line their wallets with CASH.. You can bet that they know which ones are using fake SS numbers, so when they withhold the FICA from their checks, I bet they kjust keep it AND the amount they would be forwarding to FICA of their share. They start out paying these people less and then withhold another 12.4% MORE.. The "illegals" who get hurt usually don't dare to file workers' comp, so they just hit the nearest ER and we all pick up the tab, because the employers offer them nothing in the way of benefits.

[Blue_Tires]

4. doesn't the onus fall on the person selling the home?

[havocmom]

5. Back in the 80s I got a close up look at how a particular RW cult

abused HUD and their members to make a shit-load of $$. Brainwashed young, childless couples into getting HUD homes, then had 4 to 8 couples live in one big house, rent the HUD homes and give the $$ to the cult-Meister. THAT was illegal. If you get a HUD home, YOU are the one to occupy it.

Someone I knew closed escrow on one of the homes and worked with the woman who bought it. When he found out she was living in a communal home and renting the HUD home, he tried real hard to explain that SHE was breaking the law and might face jail time while her 'church' got the $$.

HUD, FBI and everybody else got involved in the case, something like 35 counties, it was a real racket they had going and when they were finally prosecuted, they screamed and hollered that they were being PERSECUTED for their faith.

Now the wingers wanna go after brown skinned people who have HUD homes? Dollars to donuts the whiners are the same crew who tried to use HUD for profit in the 80s. That or slum lords pissed when people manage to swing their own homes. They hate it when the poor slip through their greedy fingers.

[SoCalDem]

8. The thing is.. most of the "illegals" don't finance their homes at ALL

they pay cash.. They are the ultimate cash-society. they do not want undue attention at all.. They like being invisible.

[Hugin]

6. It's guys like, "right wing immigrant hater", who make me wish...

... that the Native Americans had had stricter immigration policies.

;)

[Swamp Rat]

11. Do you know her name? Is she a regular?

Shit like this makes me figtin' mad! :mad:

[Neecy]

14. Kitty Pilgrim

[SoCalDem]

15. Kitty Pilgrim.. just remembered.

Every time I see her I wonder just how bad the dental plan at CNN must be :)

[Swamp Rat]

16. Thanks, now I need to look for photos of Kitty Pilgrim AND Nancy Grace.

:evilgrin: