Apparently Businessweek has even heard of Prince William County’s dirty little secret. In a March 6 article entitled, “ Signs of Life from the Real Estate Market,” Prince William County is highlighted as being abuzz with real estate buyers. That was the good news. Read on hear the bad news:
Across the country in Prince William County, Va., outside Washington D.C., buyers are out in force. The market, where subprime loans and boom-time construction were rampant, was badly damaged in the downturn. Making matters worse, a controversial law in Prince William County that allowed police officers to enforce immigration laws helped drive out many of the Central American immigrants who came in to work on building the new homes during the boom. Many of those immigrants who moved to neighboring Fairfax County allowed their Prince William County homes to go into foreclosure, said John McClain, senior fellow at George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis.
Proximity to D.C. Helps
The good news now is that inventories of unsold homes are shrinking because of the accelerating sales, though homeowners who could afford to have also likely taken their properties off the market, McClain said. In January, 3,346 homes were on the market compared to 5,355 in January, 2007, McClain said. In January, 647 homes sold in Prince William County compared to 312 a year earlier. Home prices, however, fell 34%.One factor that could help Prince William County toward recovery is its proximity to Washington D.C., one of the few local economies with relatively good prospects thanks to its federal government and defense contractor jobs. Woodbridge, Va., in Prince William County, came in at No. 14 in our ranking. Woodbridge sales jumped 32% in the fourth quarter while median home prices dropped 18% to $215,500, according to First American CoreLogic.
The drop in inventory and the rise in sales are “good signs” for Prince William County, McClain said.
“We are at that point with that trend [in Prince William County] where the economics have to kick in,” McClain said. “Prices have to stabilize and then start up again.”
Erick Blackwelder, associate broker with Exit Realty in Woodbridge, said buyers have flocked to the market and have already bought many of the foreclosed homes that were in good shape. The remaining foreclosures are largely “junk,” he said.“It started in April 2008,” Blackwelder said. “It was like all of a sudden, somebody flicked on a light switch and there were buyers galore.”
How many people would find Prince William County an attractive place to relocate after reading an article like this one? “To make matters worse….” seems to say it all.
Have prices bottomed out? Will they start to go up soon? Is this phenominom going to spread to other areas of the county or just be localized in Woodbridge because of the “rock-bottom” prices? Will an improvement in our reputation (abolish the Resolution) bring people back? Would some people be happy with the current status quo despite the economic consequences? Just a few questions to ponder.
It was expected that we should have experienced a downturn just like everyone else, but the resolution magnified the damage exponentially.
All those hard working immigrants took their money to surrounding counties. So we lost people who paid their rent and mortgages and the surrounding counties won people who pay their rent and mortgages.
Additionally, families of color looking to move here will be more likely to choose one of the other counties if they can afford it. So there is the drain we can’t see or track because those people never come here.
One interesting thing to note is how the immigrant bashers love to blame the mortgage crisis on all these immigrants who secured loans under false pretenses (i.e. BVBL posts). If that’s the case, then the resolution must have been crucial to destroying our own economy. When you point that out, the response is interesting.
So, someone finally reports on it.
I don’t see how HSM’ers can enjoy seeing their neighborhoods bought up by investors. It’s well known that someone who owns a home will care for it better than a renter.
Have we hit rock bottom? I suppose that would be good news. But from what I hear next year’s budget will be worse than this. With much less social services to cut, then what’s next on the chopping block?
County Finance people say we have not yet hit bottom. According to the Washington Post and Potomac News articles from late last week, they expect a further decline in real estate values to the grand total of 32% from top prices. They expect this decline to continue through 2009 and perhaps a stablization in 2010, according to the article.
One comment was very interesting, when talking about price or value increases, Finance was stressing that increases will be very, very small, 1 to 2% in value. The glory days of 7 to 10 % annual increases seem to be finished.
Ivan, you ask some good questions. And I forgot to thank you for bringing this article to my attention.
I don’t know how one gets rid of that perception regarding the police. I think that might have been the game plan all along. The stay out of dodge mentality brought along some unintended consequences it seems.
This is a classic case of the kind of “truth” that everyone wants to ignore, that I’ve been talking about all along, and this article is just one more piece of evidence of the hugely negative and detrimental effects of “illegal” immigration to our ecomomy.
Let me paint you the entire politically incorrect but true story from its beginning to its final destructive finale.
As I have said so many times before, we have allowed “illegal” immigrants to come into our country for 25 years and not enforced the law. Our economic collapse started back in 1986, with the passage of “amnesty” for 10 million “illegal” aliens who overnight became “citizens”. The large majority of these illegal aliens made very low income (in the lowest 10% income levels), had very low skills (labor only) and limited education (poor international schools and few advanced degrees), and did not contribute much wealth to our country (as the lowest 10% income level), but significantly increased its social services and educational burden (10-15% of the free services paid for by our government taxes by only 5% of the population, and significantly increased our health care and educational expenses). Those 10 million formerly illegal family members brought into the country an average of 3.5 more people from their native countries (also illegally in most cases), who also did not have much wealth to contribute to the US, who also did not add much to its GDP/GNP and who also significantly increased
our social services, health care and educational costs. Over 25 years roughly 75% of the formerly illegal families found creative ways to get green cards (given out like candy in pre-9/11 days), and by 2000 represented some 35 million additional people in the US who had been in the country less than 10 years, but were in a financial position to be new home buyers under very liberal HUD and 8A racially and ethnically based/targeted lending practices that encouraged the lowest income families in America to purchase homes using the sub-prime lending concepts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government sponsored and HUD approved lending agencies. In addition by 2005 some 12-15 million NEW “illegal” immigrants were evading law enforcement and boldy defrauding America, obtaining driver’s licenses and other fraudulant documentation to lie, cheat and steal their way into the US, forge mortgage documents and obtain those same 8A targeted loans, by illegal means (that is how “migrant workers” or “immigrants” as you all like to call them as mentioned in the above article who worked in the construction industry could buy homes they later defaulted on in HUGE numbers (some 4.5 million homes throughout the US).
Here’s the rest of the dirty little secret that caused our devastating US economic collapse….I personally saw this happen in my own neighborhood…
Back in 2000, Prince William County residents began to notice something wrong was happening to their neighborhoods. The average income level was rapidly declining, and the neighborhoods were starting to look disheveled, dirty, overcrowded and rapidly deteriorating. Multiple families were starting to move into new single family homes rather than rented townhomes or apartments, and multiple renters/ethnic-centric independant investors were converting single homes they purchased or moved out of into apartments (renting primarily to their own ethnicities through inside networks obtained from church or labor business contacts (construction and landscaping start-up companies that hired “illegal” immigrants), renting to “illegal” immigrants primarily through personal private networks rather than traditional mortgage companies. A lot of “unreported rental income” was not being claimed on tax returns and is furthur evidence of defrauding the government. The change to rental status and change in income level of the people moving into these homes were causing those homes in those neighborhoods to deteriorate in external appearance, and later in actual value around 2006/2007. Home values were still rising up to 2006/2007, but only in areas where “illegals” had not yet been the dominant income level of the community. At first it was a trickle, then by 2005 a flood of foreigners began spilling out of the most impoverished parts of Manassas City and PWC, with ground zero for Manassas being the Georgetown South community. They were enabled to do this by wide availability of cheap, sub-prime loans, obtained from mortgage brokers typically owned and operated by their own ethnic group and ethnic-centric brokerage advocacy organizations. These brokers were willing to accept fraudulant documentation, not verify income to debt ratios, and coach “illegal” immigrants on how to defraud the mortgage banking system to obtain homes and payments they could not otherwise afford. As each community became a center for ethnic migration, that community was almost completely ovetaken by “illegal” immigrants and families of former illegal immigrants. I know because I was one of the census takers in many of these areas, and although there is no block for “illegal” or formerly illegal on the census there should be. (This is a political fight in the Census Bureau by special interest ethnic groups protecting their own through ethnic political advocacy and elected ethnic-centric leadership). “illegals” began as early as 2000 to take over formerly “legal” neighborhoods, and in so doing began to ignore the local zoming laws and other laws of the community designed to keep home and properrty values from declining. HOAs began to stop enforcing architectural covenants and began to ignore violations by people who had lower community values ansd standards, and people who had lower ethics who ignored the HOA provisions and local/county ordnances. Home values in 2006/2007 began to drop, and people (primarily “illegals” and formerly illegals) began to default on their mortgages, even before there was a PWC resolution to check the status of “illegal” immigrants on our communities at traffic stops. I know because I personally saw that people in my neighborhoods who had “illegal” labor business, who thought they were going to make a killing off of stupid homeowners by charging high labor rates for home repair (landscaping, painting, driveway tarring, home remodeling, maid services) all of a sudden saw their $100/hour labor demands be “competed” on the open market for $10/hour labor jobs. These “illegal” labor “entreprenuers” discovered they could not longer charge 250% small business ovderhead fees, and had to lower their bids. That bid lowering for unskilled labor (no college degree) caused them to have insufficient money to pay rising ARM mortgage rates, so they simply left these homes since as “illegals” no-one could trace them or hold them accountable, and they simply defaulted on the loans and left (no concept of bankruptcy to them). Those homes were trashed, dirty, converted to apartments and essentially left as “junk”. They have still not sold, and are the last of the junk foreclosures still on the market in 2009.
And there is another dirty little secret that caused our ecominic collapse….
The US government in its infinite wisdom (including the efforts of our current president, during his Fannie Mae days), began to compile statistics that would support “racial balancing quotas” and to “level the playing field” between income levels of one racial, and ethnicity group on par with the income levels of other racial and ethnic groups. These racial numerical balancing concepts took on monikers of “diversity”, or “assistance to the poor”, but in reality were not targeting all “poor”, especially the rural poor, but only specific “classes” of poor, defined in HUD policy and 8A policy as “protected classes”. These protected classes became “privileged” and were given opportunities that not all “individuals” were given ENTIRELY based on their RACE, ETHNICITY, GENDER and RELIGION. In other words, people who did not belong to this “protected” class, especially the old and the poor who did not belong to these “protected” classes were left to fend for themselves in rural America. These political ethnic group advocates created a concept of a NEW World ORDER, that would remove ALL barriers to trade, would remove all borders and would promote the wealth and welfare of only their preferred ethnic “classes” in small business ventures, HUD benefits, housing and educational benefits, health benefits and foreign investment benefits. Rural America was left to collapse, and become the NEW POOR in a class warfare coup.
The GDP/GNP of the nation grew, the richest 1% of the nation became 28% richer, but the average median income of the middle class and the rural poor declined by 18%. The average single earner wage declined by almost 50%, but was kept from completely collapsing into poverty wages, by the massive rise in female workers entering the labor and services markets, and industry in general as factory workers, small business owners and non-technical sectors in general (WHY?). Simultaneously young boys in schools across the nation were ignored as social programs focused on “women as a protected class”, funding for gender focused educational programs, and funding for female government, educational and worker benefits programs massively increased for young women. The average income of young males, especially in the lower income areas declined in purchasing power over the past 20 years, eaten up by rising cost and family income expectations for food, rent, education and health care primarily in rural America. Free trade helped the richest 1% in the nation living in the cities get 28% richer, but it also helped the impoverished in America get 18% poorer than 1980 purchasing power levels. Unions were regarded as hostile, and only special interest groups were allowed to have employment advocacy, based on gender, race, ethnicity and religion. Free trade incresed the average value of foreign income levels by 200%, especially in countries like China, India, Mexico, and other nations where US corporation moved their industrial operations. This made the CEOs and the shareholders of the companies 28% richer from the period 1980-2000. Then the larket collapsed as the dot com boom collapsed, the saving and loan scandal took its toll, and the richest 1% in the nation artificially inflated the value of the stock market from 1980-2000 by advocating for government 401K concepts (a fund raiser for US tax income payback), and creating new security concepts that artifically inflated capital value on the books of corporations and banks (vapor paper called hedge funds, credit default swaps, and other complex securities. Large corproations like ENRON and other oil and land industry created shell companies and fradulent accounts in foreign banks in order to evade us taxation, and US legal requirements. Corruption and vaper paper complexity was pervasive in the financial sector in order to make the upper 1% of the nation (shareholders in companies) ever richer as the average American bcame poorer and the middle class disappeared. Then the credit industry began its dirty little secret that led to our complete ecomonic collapse, using the “protected class” policies of HUD and 8A small business policy to lead the way to our global economic meltdown that began in the decline of the stock market in 2000, emerged as a warning signle when Bear Sterns got into trouble in March 2008 and reached a peak with Lehman Brothers sollapse, and AIG troubles in Sep 2008. The credit industry used ethnic centric loans, sponsered bu HUD and 8A policy, made to the poorest of America as an ethnic class “entitlement” to families that could otherwise not afford the mortgage payments on homes in an effort to get specific ethnicities into homes and level the income playing field in America through “illegal” diversity concepts. Here is the credit industries contribution to our global meltdown….
michael,
wow, there’s so much mis-information there. It’s hard to know where to start.
Did your wife come to the United States to destroy this country? Or did she come because she saw the United States as a place of opportunity?
So business week has an article that also demonstrates how the immigration resolution impacted a bad situation worse, making us on the verge of a real estate catastrophe. I hope that someone out there is “listening” to our failed experiment by FAIR.
Elena, I’m sure there are local townspeople all over the country sitting down with FAIR for a sales job. But instead of admitting the destructive impact on our crime rate and our local economy, they’ll just lie like Corey Stewart does about our crime stats, and they’ll blame the economic destruction on Bush.
Let’s face it. Most of these people would rather live in the last place county of the DC Metro area live in a first rate county with a rapidly diversifying community, including neighbors who look, speak, or act like people from (gasp!) another country.
Because everyone knows assimilation is either instant or it never happens at all. If they didn’t learn our customs before they got here, they never will. Better just to frighten everyone away by telling them the police are after them.
In other words, the destruction of our local economy and our housing market, and making our county less safe was worth it to FAIR (because they don’t live here), worth it to HSM (because they fear immigrants and people who look like immigrants), and worth it to Corey Stewart (because it made him famous for a while).
If that’s the type of customers FAIR is finding, and if they don’t do any research of their own, I’m sure this will happen to other counties as well.
Banks as credit lending agencies, around 1990 advocated for more lax legislation and got that would allow them to no longer function as banks with accounts that primarily focused on SAVINGS. They became a new type of bank that made profits on CREDIT paper. This was a new type of paper, highly leveraged paper that had very little capital under-pinning the credit account. To enable this the insurance industry and large brokerage firms lobbied for and obtained legislation that would allow them to create new creative derivatives and concepts such as “mark to market” (a concept that enabled Enron to defraud California and other investors, shelled to dubius off-shore companies hiding the debt, and illegally reporting false earnings. New funds emerged known as hedge funds to balance this capital loss risk with insurance concepts. Banks became investment companies, brokers became insurance companies and insurance companies created artifical vapor paper (credit default swaps) that guaranteed a certain percentage of BAD LOANS made to HUD sanctioned and 8A protected classes, “illegal” immigrants and formerly illegal immigrants, could be “covered” if some 10-15% AAA rated mortgaged packed securities defaulted. (This made companies and CEOS rich beyond their highest dreams with 50% or better returns on investment (get the clue here that if it seems that good it must be illegal?) These hedge fund and CDs concepts were just one legal step away from pyramid schemes (As some investors later defrauded by these schemes discovered).
When “illegal” immigrants and former illegal immigrants in HUGE numbers began to simply move away from their homes and thier finaincial obligations made possible by “protected class” HUD and 8A loans, made possible by ethnic centric brokerage firms that encouraged HIGH RISK mortgage loans to their own ethnic class clients, colluding with them, helping them to file false morrgage applications, did not comply with federal laws, or check income to debt ratios DESIGNED to ptotect banks from DEFAULTS and DESIGNED to RATE AAA lending securites as LOW RISK, when the brokers (who followed ethnic centric business practices and preferrential treatment policies), help them to defraud the banks and lending agencies who purchased them, packaged them, sold them to international investors, international banks and brokerage firms (Bear Sterns, AIG, ING, Leighman, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, etc.). So the credit default swaps underwritten by AIG, Leighman, etc) promised to pay banks back if lenders defaulted, and allowed this vapor paper to exist (with hish risk), to make high returns, artificially inflating capital and the stock market with no underlying collateral (a home with steady income payment). The banks then felt safe to become investors, and sold those secutities worldwide with no worries to unsuspecting international investors AND KEPT NO CAPITAL RESERVES ON THEIR BOOKS TO COVER THE DEFAULT THEMSELVES. THIS IS SOMETHING BANKS CAN NOT BE ALLOWED TO DO AND BE A BANK.
They also had been charging 34% interest and high FEES on revolving credit limits as the other large income source (again something they had never been able to do before, cheat the middle income family out of even more capital savings by allowing them to run up $25,000.00 per family in consumer credit. Credit CARDS became the new GLAMOR STATUS SYMBOL.
When in droves (like in PWC), “illegal” immigrants, and former illegal defaulted on their loans, the banks went into a panic in 2007 as income dried up, credit card owners and ARM mortgage owners defaulted, declared bankruptcy and stopped making payments. The banks began demanding payment of those Credit Default SWAPS (but insurers could not pay the 50% of foreclosures that “illegals and formerly illegals defaulted on, and as investors panicked, sold short these Bank and Brokerage securities, gambled with hedge funds, and got out of the STOCK market in 2007 (the smart ones did), they left middle America 401K holders holding on to the debt (the government won’t let you get out of a 401K), the unsuspecting 401K holders went to Money Markets (if you were smart enough and quick enough), and every 401K still in the market suffered the losses and the huge loss on the stock market that began in 2000, ending in total collapse in Sep 2008, and will not likely recover until 2010 when the market corrects to its uninflated “vapor paper” underlying capital value.
Greed, and ethnic centric “protected classes” collapsed America and vaporized the American Dream for middle class America. Today our new President continues to advocate for specific ethnic groups to become the new middle class, by providing those “classes” with special entitlement benefits, and educational, health care and housing opprotunities basecd on what ethnic “class” you belong to as a “class that has been left behind. I heard him say this today as he was addressing the “X Ethnic Group” Chamber of Commerce. He did not offfer this hope to “low income families” especially in rural America, but he offered his stimulaus and educations package to improves the wealth of the “X ethnic class” he was addressing as if their was nothing wrong with that “protected class” and privilege concept at all. That is his AGENDA, transfer wealth to specific ethnic and racial classes, not just “individuals” with low income, I heard this loud and clear in his speech to this ethnic advocacy group today.
Many “Illegal” immigrants have moved away from Prince William county to apartments. The mess they left behind will recover, but will become a new mess for the single family homes in Fairfax county or Montgomery county where ethnic-centric elected leaders promote advancement and welfare of only their own ethnicity (like Alexandria), and these “illegal” families have increased the burden on social services and educational services in those counties, while still not contributing to the GDP/GNP as the lower 10% of the income level, and are still looking for HUD and 8A benefits to bail them out and give them more money with new bailout and economic stimulant funds in “infractructure”, health care, and educational funds and food stamps that supplement their income and allow them to continue to exist as “illegals” in the US.
They don’t care that they caused a global economic collapse.
Alanna,
Poor form and inconsiderate to address my family in this way. Prove to me any of what I said is wrong and I will then agree with you. Until then that is my research and new evidence is emerging about this truth all the time.
My wife came here because her former husband was killed in a military airplane accident when his student stalledd his aircraft. She never intended to remain in the US.
Elena, the “failed experiment” is allowing “illegal” immigrants to come into our country and continue to wreck our economy.
There you all go again down that “assimilation path”. This is NOT ABOUT ASSIMILATION of specific ethnicites, it is about “ILLEGAL” behavior, regardless of what ethnicity you are. The preferential treatment of ethnicities is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG…
The solution is to let the people who defrauded the rest of us, fail as a business and become poor, so NEW Companies sgtarted by people with better ethnics and a sense of honesty can start NEW BANKS, NEW INSURANCE COMPANIES and NEW BUSINESSES with no dirty little secrets we as taxpayers have to pay for (Like Credit defaut Swaps Held by AIG, that the investors in AIG want you to pay off for them so they don’t become like the rest of you, poor middle income America. They get a bailout that could pay ALL of you, each and every houshold $198,000.00 Now why are we keeping these credit default swap holding companies from failing because they are TO BIG TO FAIL NOW? Whose friends are Geitman’s friends or Berneke’s friends on WALL STREET? (AIG, Goldman, Bear Strns perhaps?) Who has government friends at Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac?
Ethics, not ethnics obviously, that would be a real problem if that were advocated, only businesses with specific “ethnicities” are allowed to start new businesses, sounds like 8A “protected class concepts, huh?)
Michael, when you write this many comments and make them so long, it’s really hard for us to have a conversation. To be honest, I sometimes skip over your comments unless they are more brief, and then assume that the brief ones give me an indication what the novel-length ones are about. Just thought I’d let you know that.
Michael, I hear you when you say the root of our problem in PWC was behavior. That’s why I never understood why they wanted to target a specific ethnic group. If it’s a behavior that is bothering you, then just ask police to enforce the laws that apply to that behavior. Simple. That just tells me that the whole thing was based on race and prejudice. The majority of Latinos in PWC are here legally. But people assumed the opposite, rushed to judgment, passed a law without any research or facts to back it up, and the entire county suffered as a result. The article above is exhibit Z. We’ve known this for ages.
You can go back a read them later ShellyB. I’m trying to fill in the missing pieces for everyone that has been hidden from everyone as accurately as I can. This is a huge mess and the crime of the century hidden from the American public. If you find something inaccurate, call me on it, that is what bedate is for. (I can’t get every detail 100% right, but it is in the ballpark). The FBI will have more accurate figures, but they are not published yet.
You are exactly right ShellyB, my issues has never been with ethnicity, it has always been about ethical behavior, and lack of it that destroys economies, and causes a loss of suitable oversight regarding the law. “illegal” immigrants are a visible element of this unethical behavior, and a large part of this “unethical” behavior that collapse our entire economy. I only target the “illegal” people, NEVER the ethnicities or legal people who I desire to treat fairly and the same as anyone regadless of race, religion, ethnicity or gender. I only get upset when a specific ethnic group is using its ethnicity to gain illegal advantage over all other “individuals”. The supreme court has ruled this “behavior” or racial income balancing concept as “illegal too”.
I do not support those who make this an “ethnic” issue. They are wrong. I also do not support those who ignore the unethical behaviors of “illegal” immigrants, and those who unethically help them, that caused the global collapse of our entire ecomomy.
Many of those immigrants who moved to neighboring Fairfax County allowed their Prince William County homes to go into foreclosure, said John McClain, senior fellow at George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis.
=====================================================
Why did the ‘immigrants’ allow their properties to go into foreclosure? Because either a.) they were in the country illegally and untraceable, or b.) they had nothing invested in their properties to lose.
As a general comment, there are alot more serious issues facing my country than immigration.
It is amazing me to that such a poor and powerless group of people caused a global collaspse. Now THAT is ridiculous!
TBD, a lot of people, not just undocumented, let their houses go into foreclosure. One big reason is when the house becomes worth LESS than you owe. You may as well start over.
Also, a lot of the people who left were renters. So the owner of the house was a legal citizen, and he or she suddenly lost the income from the renters, and then found out it was worth less than he owed, and let it go into foreclosure.
I think rather than trying to blame anyone in particular, we have to look at policies, such as deregulation at the federal level, and the Immigration Resolution at the local level, that made things especially hard on those of us who decided to stick it out in Prince William County.
As the article says, in general it is a good thing to live near Washington DC. Because federal government and defense will always keep the economy going here. The question is, do we want to be perpetually in last place in comparison to our neighboring counties? That’s where the Immigration Resolution has put us. Everyone is suffering from the federal government’s mistake of letting corporate executives get rich by defrauding the nation and leaving taxpayers with the bill for the companies they run into the ground. But PWC is suffering an EXTRA amount because we also had the Immigration Resolution.
That’s what this article is pointing out.
Michael, I appreciate the invitation, but honestly I won’t be able to go back to catch up on reading your posts. I don’t have time. I just wanted you to know that I, and many others who are too polite to say it, am forced to size up what you are all about based on your shorter posts. So, if you want to be fully integrated in the conversation, maybe either use only shorter posts, or make sure your main points are in the shorter posts. Just a friendly suggestion. Honestly, I hope the people who see this as a demographic issue will read what you are saying because they need to stop seeing it that way.
Elena, there ARE SO MANY more serious issues, globally, nationally, and locally. But because Corey Stewart, Greg Letiecq, and John Stirrup have all hitched their “rising stars” to the immigration issue, our county is mired in the muck, not only of a bad reputation, but also a horrific drop in property value, and compromised public safety. To top it all off, there is the COST of the Immigration Resolution. An entirely uneccessary waste of taxpayer money.
Think of the distraction and the drain of hours and energy from our police department alone. Instead of keeping us safe, they spent a year of their lives trying to learn about federal immigration law and how to avoid racial profiling! Now to find out that unreported crime is skyrocketing, and reported crime is going up too?!?!?
Yes, it’s sad that we all are suffering from the economic impacts, but I worry most about the public safety impact. That’s me personally. And when you combine those two things, it IS an important issue to discuss.
TDB,
Ahh. The undocumented had everything to lose. If they were discovered they’d be caught up in the system and lose their home to boot. Seems like they leaving the home was a necessary evil in order to survive.
Let me also just remind people that Lending Tree is still offering home sales to people, ‘no ssn required.’
ShellyB I write short paragraphs when I can. When there is a lot to say I can only break it in to pieces. It is your choice to read it or not, believe it or not, based on your own research. As time goes on you will see that my information sources are accurate enough to paint the overall picture now, the specific details will be filled in later by deeper researchers into the problem and a commision by the President to study “what actually went wrong” and WHY DID IT ALL COLLAPSE and WHERE DID IT START?. They will find the mortgage applicants and the people who helped them fill them out, especially the “illegals” who defrauded on the requirement of the law. I suspect then you will see lawsuits by those who have been harmed, as this mess unwinds.
I would be very wary of using mortgage brokers now who are sanctioned by HUD policy, and who do not do income verifications, credit checks or require SSNs. That is the kind of risk creating behavior and even unethical behavior than got us into this mess in the first place.
So Alanna, are you advocating that “illegal” immigrants have no legal obligations even though they are here “illegally” in this country? Are they to be encouraged to be “illegal” and “unaccountable”?
Even “illegal” people in other cojuntries are bound by those countires laws as long as they are on foreign soil or given diplomatic immunity. I doubt the “illegals” in this country are going to get diplomatic immunity from the law.
Wow Michael. So you really do think the global recession was caused by poor people and illegal immigrants. I thought Elena was joking.
It’s a lot more work to figure out, but I suggest you look into the deregulation of the derivatives market for the actual cause of the housing collapse. People made big profits, got their bonuses, and retired early, leaving banks that are “too big to fail” to collapse and/or be propped up by taxpayer money.
ShellyB, the documentation of mortgage fraud and the extent of that fraud to misrepresented income to debt ratio, and the extent of the mortgages obtained “illegally” as an “illegal” immigrant or as a former “illegal” immigrant created an overpopulation bubble and high demand in the housing market in 2000-2005. The percentage of “illegal” people or formerly “illegal” people who obtained HUD 8A loans targeted as “protected classes”, were the bulk of the 50% of the sub-prime mortgage market that DEFAULTED on those sub-prime loans. That DEFAULT from 2006-2007 caused the mortgage securities market and specifically the Credit Default SWAP securities that underwrote those mortgages as AAA rated securities when legally they were not, were required by contract to be activated and the insurance paid. The mortgage insurers (AIG, etc) had only planned to cover 10-15% of those losses, and could not pay back the 50% that actually defaulted. This put their earnings into the negative, put them into bankruptcy status, and left the banks holding bad debt with no capital to back it. THAT ENTIRE PROCESS IS WHAT CAUSED THE GLOBAL MARKET COLLAPSE. Since you did not read my dissertation, you did not get this critical truthful information upon which to base your shock and dis-belief. This will all come out in FBI reports on fraud in the mortgage industry, and future investigation panels created to investigate WHY the entire US economy and world-wide economy collapsed. I have listened to EVERY congressional panel and talked to everyone in the government I know for the last two months, even following the USB Swiss bank fraud by investors trying to escape US tax and others who have defrauded the government and the US citizens over the last two years of the crime of the century.
The answer to your question is YES, and their is enough proof to back it.
your version is partly right, but incomplete and very simplified as to WHY IT ALL Collapsed. I suggest you read my comments if you want to understand the truth in more detail.
Michael, why don’t you research whether the people who got ripped off by Bernie Madoff can be blamed for making fraudulent investments?
It can’t be Madoff’s fault right? He’s one of the good guys.
Talk about a BAAAD reputation-
– Percent of births out of wedlock in 2008 – PW (31%), Manassas (48%)
and Manassas Park (42%).
Source: Greater Price William Community Needs Report 2009 issued
by the Coalition For Human Services
Michael,
In asking about your wife, my point being is that people do come here for the opportunity. To say they are immoral humans is absurd. 40% of today’s immigrants INCLUDING your wife were once undocumented. Now, just because your wife can’t balance her checkbook don’t transfer that onto everyone else who might have at one time been out-of status.
I would say if your wife’s husband was US Service and lost her status because her husband died then that is another example of what’s wrong with the system.
Poor Richard,
Does anyone know if people who are undocumented can still legally marry? I know there was some discussion about this before but I don’t know if it applied here or somewhere else?
Hi Alanna, I think that one of the main problems is that is seems as if most people here illegally don’t seem want to change their status. If they do want to change their status then for some reason or anther never dont. Take this story for example: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/08/AR2009030801619.html?sub=new
“said that Martinez likely would be deported after serving her time and that she had lived in this country illegally for 20 years without a prior brush with the law.”
She was here illegaly for 20 years. It seems like when ever you read a story like this you find out the person was here for 10, 12, 15 years illegally. I’ve got friends here on green cards and one of them just became a citizen last week. I’ve always been told how hard it was to do, how long it takes and how much money is costs. So, I asked him how many years it took him to finally get his citizenship. His reply shocked me, “4 months”.
As for the “BAAAAD Reputation”, I would have to say being a safe haven to illegal immigrants for so long gave us a BAAAAD Reputation. Then when you do something about it, anything, you get a BAAAAD Reputation in the Washington Post and other left leaning media. Mostly from people who don’t even live or may have never even set foot here. This semi-opinion peice is a good example:
“Making matters worse, a controversial law in Prince William County that allowed police officers to enforce immigration laws helped drive out many of the Central American immigrants who came in to work on building the new homes during the boom.”
Uh, how do they know that? Can someone show me the numbers that reflect this as being fact?
Another gem is “Many of those immigrants who moved to neighboring Fairfax County allowed their Prince William County homes to go into foreclosure, said John McClain, senior fellow at George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis.”
How does John McClain know that? Are there any racial stats on home mortgages and foreclosures? If so where do you find this information? Anyone?
I love how even Businessweek can pass an opinion piece off as fact when they throw some facts in with opinions.
Hello, hello and hello; this is going to be the world record of efficient delivery from the Federal Government. I want to see and talk to your friend to believe the “4 months” that you say. I go to church every Sunday and some times on Saturdays too. This is a miracle itself; we need to check this out. The federal government gave citizenship after application in “4 months!” It is record we need to make this public!!!
I know thousands of legal immigrants that have applied for citizenship and I have never heard of such of efficiency!!!
Hello, listen to some of the stories here. You will find out that it is not all that easy. These people know first hand.
Also, Red Dawn and I corresponded with a young woman named Millie who had been brought here as a very young child. She married a US serviceman with several tours of Iraq duty under his belt. When she went to adjust her status, she was told to deport.
She left her husband and went to Mexico and waited over 2 years to have her status adjusted. She is now in the Marines along with her husband. Why is this?
I am sure our bloggers who have more personal experiences with immigration laws and policy can tell you more than I.
hello,
yeah, kind of the same way supervisors had no empirical evidence when they determined ‘economic hardship and lawlessness’? There is plenty of empirical evidence.
Also, there seems to be some misinformation about what it takes to ‘change your status’.
Hello, I’d bet that some immigrants who have been here a long time without becoming citizens are like my grandfather. He was brought here as a child, had only an elementary school education, and was test phobic. He went to work in a steel mill at the age of twelve. As WWII approached, his family nagged and nagged him to take the citizenship test because they feared he’d be deported. He finally took the test, passed, and became a citizen. My mother said that he was afraid of failing the test.
That’s exactly my point Alanna. If jails refuse to keep records on who has been arrested that is here illegally and local governments ban asking legal status, even if it’s just for record purposes, then both sides are opinion based. Why do you think most big cities like refuse to so? You would think that they would want to so that the can shoot down the myth of illegal immigrant crime. There must be another reason no records or stats are ever kept… I wonder what it could be.
Also, you may be right about what it takes to ‘change your status’. Ill be the first to admit that I don’t know what it takes. But you would think after being here 20 years like the woman in the article you would figure it out (this is just one example). I think she never tried to ‘change her status’ because she never had to.
Censored, never thought about that before and you could be right. There may be a bunch of people who are just afraid of failing the test or come from countries that are not well educated.
HELLO, HELLO, AND HELLO. I will give you $1,000.00 dollars if you PRODUCE EVIDENCE and PROOF to me in person that your friend got the citizenship in “4 months” after application.
Alanna, the report doesn’t provide a breakout on documented and
undocumented as it relates to unwed motherhood. That would be
an interesting statistic.
(It also notes infant mortality rate per 100 lives in 2008 was
PWC (7.2%), Manassas (7.6%) and Manassas Park(12.8%)– the latter
would shame many third world countries.)
Michael,
Are all our social and economic ills attributable to undocumented people?
If so that’s pretty incredible considering they are such a small percentage of our overall population.
Poor Richard,
My question is does anyone know if an undocumented person can still legally marry?