Inland Empire residents sharply divided over illegal immig in rapidly changing region

Inland residents sharply divided over anti-illegal immigration measures amid demographic changes in area | Inland News | PE.com | Southern California News | News for Inland Southern California

The above link is a long look at divergent views on illegal immigration & Arizona's crackdown from the rapidly changing Inland Empire(Southern California), which is the western settled portions of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. I exclude the high and low desert communities in my commentary because they are a whole new subject.

My own comments:

The IE has gone thru rapid changes since yr 2000. This region is marked by rapid growth and decline, wrenching economic/demographics shifts, stark unforgiving landscape, tottering RE values, impoverished districts, foreclosed blighted properties, ect. The landscape is generally harsh, brown, dry, scorched, and barren 8-9 months of year, and the former pleasant shady orange groves and irrigated green pastures of the past have all been bulldozed into endless IE malls and cookie-cutter housing tracts, many of which have become foreclosed or shuttered.

IE was for a long time conservative and Republican, a region where mostly white city dwellers of LA & OC fled the crowded SoCal coast to find cheaper & larger IE homes on ample rural lots. They were the earlier settlers of the mostly rural,rustic IE back in 60's to 80's. Lots of retirees fled to the IE as well to live in cheaper retirement homes & trailers in places like Hemet and Lake Elsinore.

Beginning in the first decade of the 21st century came waves of immigrants & other minorities, who purchased cheap IE homes during the great IE real estate(RE)boom of this decade. The minorities included immigrant illegals, who despite their illegality were able to obtain low-cost scam RE loans to buy IE RE . Then the boom went bust in late 2000's and RE values plummeted. IE collapsed both in RE and economically, and the IE became basically a dead zone. The illegals and legal immigrants became a surplus population as the Unemployment rate(UE)went up to 15-20%. That's the 'official' rate : real U-6 UE is likely close to 30% in most parts of IE.

Now we are here in mid-2010 and the IE is still A RE dead zone and economically shattered : more so than rest of CA and USA because IE depended upon only 2-3 industries and one of those, building & construction, has become completely devastated during this great recession/near depression.
The UE illegals/green carders in the IE are now a surplus population and a welfare burden. I have seen the devastation of the IE caused by large influxes of illegals in Hemet, Riverside, lake Elsinore, Rubidoux, Corona, Rialto, Highland, Colton, inner San berdardino City, Ontario, and a dozen other IE communities. The illegals/ green carders brought homes, then abandoned them when their mortgages payments went up due to so-called teaser loans, leaving abundant foreclosed Properties in their wake.

The illegals were swept and caught up in the wake of this devastating depression along with the older native long-time IE inhabitants. Now, they are competing with the IE's older established citizens for the few available lower-level wage jobs, and the natives are none to happy about it. Thus we see 5 IE cities(and counting)voting for rule of law resolutions (ROL) in support of AZ. In short, the original IE denizens are none to happy about these illegals competing with them for lower-wage jobs in a depression economy.