“The Family That Planted Corn In The Front Yard Of Their $500,000 Home Is Gone” [Reader Post]

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It has been one year since Prince William County, Virginia began its crackdown on illegals. Many have fled to Maryland, a very Blue sanctuary state. Though Marylanders don’t like it, their lawmakers refuse to respond to the problem. The self-deportation by Hispanics from the “Devil’s County,” or as they call it in Spanish, Condado del Diablo, was noted back in March by the Washington Post in a series of stories.

Today’s Washington Post gives us an update in an article entitled “A Hispanic Population in Decline.” Gotta love this first part. It seems not all people fully appreciate the great multi-cultural influences that diversity brings to a neighborhood.

The family that planted corn in the front yard of their $500,000 home is gone from Carrie Oliver’s street. So are the neighbors who drilled holes into the trees to string up a hammock.

Oliver’s list goes on: The loud music. The beer bottles. The littered diapers. All gone. When she and her husband, Ron, went for walks in their Manassas area neighborhood, she would take a trash bag and he would carry a handgun. No more. “So much has changed,” she said in a gush of relief, standing with her husband on a warm summer evening recently outside a Costco store.

Corn stalks and handguns. What a neat blending of cultures.

One thing is clear though, Hispanics are leaving.

Anecdotes of the trend outstrip hard statistical evidence, yet there are clear signs that the county’s Latino population has reversed its pace of rapid growth. County officials said there are 4,000 to 7,000 vacant homes in the county. Trustee notices fill the classified section of area newspapers, chronicling the steady, staggering forfeiture of properties by homeowners with Hispanic surnames such as Mendez, Lozano, Medina and Rodriguez.

While this is causing a drop in home values, some people think that quality of life is paramount to home values. After all, no home is worth its former value after the neighborhood goes to hell in a handbasket.

That decrease — home prices in some areas have fallen by half — is well worth the improvement in quality of life, according to the most ardent supporters of the county’s get-tough approach.

“We have far less residential overcrowding, and that was driving people crazy,” said Greg Letiecq, a blogger and president of Help Save Manassas. He helped write the county’s policy and has been its most vocal champion. “We’d much rather live next door to a vacant house,” he said, speaking for his members at a recent Help Save Manassas meeting.

“With an empty house, there’s hope that the house is going to have somebody move into it that’s going to be a good neighbor, rather than an overcrowded house that is a neighbor from hell,” Letiecq said, adding that his Manassas area home has dropped $100,000 in value in the past year.

Another big factor is law enforcement’s focus on catching illegal immigrant criminals.

While some Hispanic immigrants have walked away from their homes, others have left the county in the custody of federal agents. County jail officials have turned over 757 illegal immigrant inmates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the past year through an agreement that county supervisors approved as part of the crackdown.

Police have referred more than 300 additional suspects to the immigration and customs branch since March, when the county’s patrol officers began screening for residency status.

Catching illegal immigrants has made Prince William safer, said Corey A. Stewart (R-At-Large), chairman of the board of county supervisors said. Stewart also said the county’s policies have led to “a plummeting of the crime rate.”

When Prince William County’s program levels off, and the illegals have largely relocated to Fairfax, Arlington, and Alexandria, or to Maryland (all controlled by Democrats), the quality of life will improve, property values will rebound, and maybe folks won’t have to watch their neighbors harvest corn from the front yard.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

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goes to show ya,ya plant in the back yard,not the front dummie.

Trustee notices fill the classified section of area newspapers, chronicling the steady, staggering forfeiture of properties by homeowners with Hispanic surnames such as Mendez, Lozano, Medina and Rodriguez.

So have the claims for the housing slump being because of the crackdown on “undocumented immigrants” begun yet or is that still in the pipeline waiting to come out?

As a resident of Fairfax, I couldn’t be more worried by this trend. 😉

while i think that all residents here should be legal, i think this sounds a bit racist. my neighbers are hispanic and are the best people i have as a neighber. i am learning about their culture and traditions, teaching them ours, we cook together and have gatherings together. i have learned alot from my new hispanic friends and they have learned alot from me also.

luva –

Great. Come and learn about MS-13 in MY hometown in a border state! They have a cool culture. One so violent it makes the Crips and Bloods look like kindergarden pay groups.

Idiot.

Luva

I appreciate the sentiment that it could sound racist. It can, and that is ultimately the problem that an adult discerning mind must wrestle with in order to realize that there is appearance and then there is truth. After all, in WWII it probably seemed racist to fight the Germans, when in reality it was only the Nazi’s we had a problem with. And just because Imperial Japan attacked us, it didn’t mean that we shouldn’t trust and embrace out Japanese Americans. It is true that these things can sometime seem so much like racism that it allows, and maybe even incites some people with lesser minds or experience than yourself, to become racist. But the hard cold reality doesn’t really give a damn about appearances. A neighborhood full of illegals who are predominately of any one specific culture is pretty much always going to be a problem. They have too much of the wrong thing in common. They all know that each of them have broken and are continuing to break the law and they all more related to each other than their host culture. It means they will tolerate conduct from each other that they would not tolerate in their home land, for fear of being turned in, and also for fear of being ostracized by their fellow countrymen on whom they will most certainly be most inclined to align themselves with.

I have no idea, but from your self described experience I would suspect that your Hispanic neighbors are probably a very small minority in your neighborhood, or you are. In such a setting they will either need to integrate or they will allow you to integrate.

You can tell me I’m wrong, and I might even be wrong, but my life’s experience says I have pretty good odds of being right.

Respectfully

Sounds like them Mexican immigrants are as dirty as the them Italian immigrants and German immigrants were. Least they’re not as bad as the Irish.

Fit,

You beat me by a mouse click.

Luva,

I appreciate your effort to prevent legitimate concern about illegal immigration from shading over into racism toward Hispanics.

Robo,

In line with Fit’s comment:
Judging Hispanics by the MS-13 is like judging the Italians by the Mafia.

BillC,

Thoughtful post, Bro.

i know better than to let my kids walk and play in an unsafe area, i have seen hispanic gangs. all i was saying is that my very close experience with them has not been negative, it has been very positive. i wouldn’t hang a broad blanket on any race, i think there are good and bad of every race and color, but as i said my neighbers have been next door for a year and a half and there hasn’t been a single problm.

The loud music. The beer bottles. The littered diapers. All gone.

What a shame that Fit Fit and Dave Hussein Noble didn’t have the opportunity of that multicultural experience to bless their neighborhood.

Well, no matter. Perhaps Dave and FF can offer a room in their home to the GITMO terrorists once they are released. One warning: make sure your daughter’s have a good lock on their door.

Hey, Mike,

Be man enough to aim your childishness at me. Leave my daughters out of it.
I’m sure glad we live in country like ours where red-blooded patriots like you would never stoop so low as to take a shot at somebody’s daughter.

One warning: make sure your daughter’s have a good lock on their door.

No matter what age.

David Noble

Just like a liberal to twist a statement for his own advantage. Mike makes the comment the terrorists are rapists and you take it as an insult to your daughter. And you wonder why we don’t take you liberals seriously.

I thought the dirty Mexicans were the rapists… there’s no need to “twist” that comment to make it offensive anyway.

I live in a pretty muticultural neighborhood already. I would guess one of the reason Mike has such a myopic view of America is that he probably lives in one of those gated golf course communities that are so popular on Hilton Head.

“[Mike] probably lives in one of those gated golf course communities that are so popular on Hilton Head.”

Jealous FF?

After years of being subject to the crime of the inner city in Washington, DC. and New York City before that I am glad to say I DO live behind the gates of a community with our own private and ARMED security. And we have TWO golf courses!

And as for Dave Hussein Noble: Your overreaction is emblematic of your sensitivity to endangering your family by being so cavalier to the negative aspects of unregulated immigration.

You’re becoming a joke!

Jealous? No, not really.

I live in a nicely sized, beautiful house that I largely built with my own two hands. Depending on when it was built, your house was probably built by dirty Mexicans.

as dirty as the them Italian immigrants and German immigrants were. Least they’re not as bad as the Irish.

Generally speaking, immigrants in those other groups came to the US legally (not too surprising since it’s hard to sneak your way across the Atlantic).
In any case, a hundred years ago we had robustly pro-assimilation politicians. See here for some excerpts of Teddy Roosevelt’s opinions on the matter (shaped, at that time, by the existence of a large German-language population in the US). If we had similar policies today, then you could fairly say that anti-immigration sentiment was racist rather than merely an objection to the importation of other, relatively unsuccessful cultures.

Depending on when it was built, your house was probably built by dirty Mexicans.

There are lots of benefits to having ten million extra people to work in the US. I don’t doubt the total amount they (illegal immigrants) produce is enormous. But there are also costs associated with their presence: some estimate that about 4000 people are murdered every year in the US by illegal immigrants, and that a similar number are killed by illegals driving drunk. There can also be a strain on social services if a lot of poor people come into an area.
In general, if there is no assimilation you can assume that a large influx of Mexicans will result in an area becoming more like Mexico. I like the USA enough to assert that that is not a positive thing. And Mexican immigrants have been slow to assimilate (do some googling on the academic performance of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation hispanic immigrants and you’ll see what I mean). German, Italian and Irish immigrants have a much better track record in terms of 2nd-generation (and onward) assimilation.

Mike,

Besides being melodramatic and rude, your problem is that you can’t stay on point. How you went from illegal immigrants to GITMO terrorists living in our houses and raping our daughters may make sense to your fevered imagination (and Barbara’s it seems), but it doesn’t make sense to anyone thinking calmly and rationally.

I thought living in a gated community made one feel more secure, not more frightened. The GITMO terrorists are not moving into anyone’s house and raping their daughters. Dude, you scare me sometimes.

BTW, I have never expressed a view on illegal immigration or the release of GITMO detainees on this blog, so you make an unwarranted assumption regarding my view on those issues.

“Judging Hispanics by the MS-13 is like judging the Italians by the Mafia.

BillC,

Thoughtful post, Bro.”

Hey, in my life I’ve had many Italian friends but you have to admit that with the Iralians we did get the Mafia, with the Russian’s we got the Russian Mafia, and along with the Mexicans we got MS13. Add in several hundred ‘Americans’ that have been murdered by criminal Mexicans and those killed by Mexican drunk drivers. 99% of those killed by Mexicans would be alive today if the criminals had been stopped at the border. Why can’t people understand the word Illegal, and know it’s the same as criminal. Just the facts, mam, just the facts.

“The only thing standing between you and lower gas prices is a Democrat”

The family quoted in the article are the in-laws of the one of the nativists organizations core group and are not reflective of the average County citizen.

This issue has been spun by local officials and has not been given fair coverage in the MSM. Prince William County residents continue to dispute that there has been any real benefit to this policy. The Chairman attempts to make connections between drop in enrollment of ESOL students and crime statistics when in fact neighboring jurisdictions have lost a greater percentage of ESOL students without having to spend $4 million dollars! In term of crime statistics, we have been on a downward trend since 2004 and the police department doesn’t attribute the recent decrease with the “Immigration Resolution.” In fact, after the passage of this policy, in the second half of 2007 the County experienced greater numbers of murders, burglaries, auto thefts, assaults, etc… than they had in the first 6 months of the year.

Glad to know there are blogs out there where the truth can be told. Keep up the good work.