Nut 'grafs from Jennifer Anderson's piece:
Back in June and July, the center attracted about 70 to 80 workers each morning and found employment for about 25 to 30 of them, organizers said. Now, about the same number of workers show up but only 15 to 20 of them get hired each day.But the operators of the facility, the Rainbow City Council's proxy, Voz, has a ready answer to that: The slow economy. Apparently Ignacio Paramo believes this slow economy is the reason people don't want to hire illegal aliens at a cut rate wage. It couldn't be that it's illegal or anything:
The lackluster numbers are not a fault of the center itself, but a combination of the slow winter months, the sinking economy and the fact that day labor centers need more time to establish themselves in any community, said Ignacio Paramo, director of Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project, the nonprofit hired by the city to run the center.And all he needs? More money for advertising:
"We need constant advertising."Any suggestions for what their advertising should say?
Of course this was sold by Mayor Moonbeam and the Rainbow City Council as the way to help out businesses which were being overrun by illegal aliens on a daily basis and scaring the customers.
Dick Wentworth, who's Wentworth Chevrolet dealership backed up against 6th and Ankeny/Burnside where dozens of illegals congregated every day, offered up a lot he was leasing up the street (NE Everett and MLK) to establish the illegal alien day labor center. His customers are STILL scared by the dozens more illegal aliens who congregate there every morning. Good going, Dick, you actually believed the city's promises? What were you thinking? Did you honestly believe that a city unwilling to bust people for being here illegally, which then opened a center celebrating their illegal status to set them up with employers who illegally hire them, would come back and clean out the guys hanging around your place? In your dreams.
Mayor Moonbeam was accused of defying federal law to which he said sometimes you have to enforce the law with your heart and not your head.
That explains everything.
Meantime, Portland taxpayers, who are seeing higher taxes and fewer jobs, watch while the city siphons their tax dollars to attract people who have come here illegally, 'jacked someone else's ID and stolen social security numbers. Don't we bust people for identity theft anymore?
Ironically, these are the same members of the Rainbow City Council who now say they won't declare the city as a sanctuary for AWOL deserters because it would be against federal law.
