April 15, 2008 6:26 PM
David Verduin is describing Riverside, a 1-square mile town in New Jersey. His town had a small minority of bigots, but stressed small. When the bill was passed he saw many people from out of town come to advocate for the bill. One of the reasons people gave was over-crowding of houses. Many people wandered why there were so many people living in New Jersey with Pennsylvania plates. The new law stated that anyone that rents to or gives work to or helps an illegal immigrant in anyway could be fined upto $2,000.
Most of the town is made up of small mom-and-pop stores. David asked the mayor of the town if he cared about what would happen to the local businesses, who were already competing for business from large chain stores. The mayor said he didn't care. Business dropped 50% after the bill was passed. A local hardware store that had been business 107 years had to go out of business.
This small town suddenly became the highlight on international news. He stressed this bill brought in skinheads with confederate flags. A pagan motorcycle gang came through town to protest. This also brought Geraldo Rivera to town to do a story.
He now spends a lot of time working with other towns to urge them not to pass anti-immigration laws...it brings unwanted attention and it hurts the economy. He urges elected officials to work with leaders in the immigrant communities and find out what services are needed.
He reminds people that there are bad apples in every bunch. We can not stereotype an entire group of people because of the deeds of a few. But most immigrants are good hard-working people.
The reason he became involved in this is because it was just bad business. He saw an element of fear in the town from the skinheads that came to town, so many citizens didn't visit the stores either. He also cares about people very much. He told the Mayor that he would take people to the hospital whether they were documented or undocumented and he didn't care if he was fined $2,000.
He is hoping after the elections, people sit down and work towards fair immigration solutions that are just and fair.
there were NEVER skin heads or Pagans, the owner of the hardware store retired as he had planned for a very long time. The businesses that closed are the ones that catered to the illegal immigrants and had signs in the windows stating "americans not welcomed". (they were made to take these signs down, but the LEGAL citizens remembered and did NOT patronize these stores) It is now clear why someone like verduin was so involved, he now apparently gets paid to speak and spew lies. Was the law "unfair?" maybe it was, but the illegal immigrants were destroying the town. They were straining the local services (ie sewage, garbage collection etc) by overcrowding, a town of about 8000 quicly approached 12000 with no new construction.
By bill May 9, 2008 11:12 PM