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About a year ago, Riverside, New Jersey, passed a law forbidding owners from employing or renting to illegal immigrants. And, whoops!
With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again. [...]
Numerous storefronts on Scott Street are boarded up or are empty, with For Sale by Owner signs in the windows. Business is down by half at Luis Ordonez’s River Dance Music Store, which sells Western Union wire transfers, cellphones and perfume. Next door, his restaurant, the Scott Street Family Cafe, which has a multiethnic menu in English, Spanish and Portuguese, was empty at lunchtime.
Riverside rescinded the law, but they already spent so much money defending the law in court they had to delay road repaving. But, hey, the Brazilian flags that “rankled more than a few longtime residents” are gone, so huzzah!
Towns Rethink Laws Against Illegal Immigrants [NYT]
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