"When they left, crime actually went up. You see, it�s mainly apartments in this town, and you gotta rent to someone. When the good guys got pushed out, the bad guys moved in. And they were good guys, hard working community-minded people. And they say the immigrants don�t pay taxes, but I know at least 20 people working off the books, and they�re not immigrants, so I don�t want to hear that. I went to all the meetings, I told them they�re gonna mess things up [if they pass this law], I told them be careful what you wish for. And now it�s a ghost town."
--a shopkeeper in Riverside, NJ, telling us about the fallout from the ordinance Riverside passed in 2006 that made it illegal to hire or rent to undocumented immigrants. A little more than a year later, the ordinance was rescinded, after city officials saw how it had caused the local economy to dry up as immigrants left for friendlier climes.
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