Coast citizens, like myself, may find it more difficult to harbour ill will towards the many undocumented Hispanic workers on the Coast. In addition to the church groups, they have played an incredibly helpful role in our recovery efforts.
Roof work is hard work as any roofer will tell you, but just days after the Hurricane hit there were crews repairing roofs from a place south of Texas. We were happy to have them. Now that more people are back others want to do those jobs and they should be allowed to, but we should not demonize the illegal immigrants.
My father made an observation about new immigrant workers, legal or otherwise, and local reaction to them. In Texas, where he worked in the grocery business, the most frequent complaint he heard about Mexican workers was that they worked too hard and made local employees look bad. He heard the same complaint about the Vietnamese when he moved here.
When I hear politicians attack illegal immigration, it often sounds awful close to attacking illegal immigrants. It is not right. They come here due to economic opportunity to make life for them better back home. They don't intend to stay. We do need to strengthen our security, but we needn't do so by sacrificing our humanity and attacking people who are only doing what many of us would do under the same circumstances.
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