Tijuana Escorts: Illegal immigrants plan to leave over Ariz. law
… We want to drive day labor away,” says Republican Rep. John Kavanagh, one of the law’s sponsors.
An estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants have left Arizona in the past two years as it cracked down on illegal immigration and its economy was especially hard hit by the Great Recession. A Department of Homeland Security report on illegal immigrants estimates Arizona’s illegal immigrant population peaked in 2008 at 560,000, and a year later dipped to 460,000.
The law’s supporters hope the departure of illegal immigrants will help dismantle part of the underground economy here and create jobs for thousands of legal residents in a state with a 9.6 percent unemployment rate.
Kavanagh says day labor is generally off the books, and that deprives the state of much-needed tax dollars. “We’ll never eliminate it, just like laws against street prostitution,” he says. “But we can greatly reduce the prevalence.”