OPINION:
There’s this 7-Eleven in Northern Virginia where scores of illegals hang, waiting for day work that may or may not come — staring at and intimidating women who cross the parking lot.
Perhaps you know of it. It’s not exactly a secret.
Perhaps there’s more than one in the area.
But now, thanks to federal immigration officers and the get-tough-on-borders approach of President Donald Trump, there are 98 fewer 7-Elevens across the nation Thursday morning that are facing this same issue.
That’s because feds in 17 states and Washington, D.C., raided nearly 100 7-Elevens, and arrested 21 on suspicion of being in the country illegally.
They went after the actual workers, not the parking lot would-be day laborers. But no doubt, those gathered outside the building fled.
No doubt, for a select span of time, at least, women at these 98 7-Elevens around the nation were able to cross the parking lot without harassment, or pay for their gas without the creepy stares of gaggles of seedy men standing just a few feet away.
Yay. It’s a good day to get coffee at 7-Eleven.
“[These] actions send a strong message to U.S. businesses that hire and employ an illegal workforce: ICE will enforce the law and if you are found to be breaking the law, you will be held accountable,” Thomas Homan, ICE’s deputy director, said in a statement.
Quite right.
Let’s set the businesses on notice that the days of cheap labor — cheap labor that drove down the wages of actual citizens, for that matter — is no longer to be tolerated. The left-leaning line is that these illegals work jobs the American citizen doesn’t want.
But that’s bull. And even if it weren’t — that’s irrelevant.
If businesses need labor, they can compete for labor. They don’t have to support law-breakers, and a system of law-breaking, in order to enrich their own pockets.
The sweeps are increasing under this president. Between late January and August 2017, “arrests were up more than 43 percent since the same period in 2016,” NPR reported.
Kudos to that.
Let’s keep the 7-Elevens clear of illegals — and all the other businesses in America, as well.
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