Coast Would Shut Down Without Illegals

SERIOUSLY, THE WHOLE S.C. TOURISM ECONOMY WOULD GO UNDER

FITSNews – July 24, 2007 – Reflections of the early morning sunlight glinted off the windows of the three large buses making their way up Ocean Boulevard, slinking through Myrtle Beach’s famous “Golden Mile” at 7:00 A.M. en route to the massive hotel and condo complexes that start popping up out of the South Carolina beachscape at around 70th Avenue North.

Packed inside of them – and swarming all around them, for that matter – were dozens of female hospitality workers decked out in their hotel uniforms. Some road the buses, others buzzed along behind them in scooters or on bicycles. All of them were Hispanic.

Headed in the opposite direction towards one of the dozens of construction sites along the Grand Strand were truckloads of Hispanic men – their sunglasses on, hard hats at the ready and energy drinks in hand as they prepared for another day stacking bricks on the gargantuan tourist-housing edifaces their mujeres will one day turn up the sheets in.

But it’s not just Hispanics. Up and down the strand at Burger Kings, Shoney’s, Krispy Kremes and thousands of other establishments, the counters are filled with European immigrants.

At the Krispy Kreme on 20th Avenue North, “Xena” (the “Doughnut princess”) packs boxes full of the delicious chocolate-glazed confections for a steady stream of hungry tourists with Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois license plates. As she works, she barks orders in her native tongue to three other Slavic girls – each sporting the trademark white Krispy Kreme doughnut-baker hats.

Even at upscale restaurants like the Sea Captain’s House, attractive Russian women wait on tourists and elderly couples enjoying an ocean-view seafood dinner.

Everywhere you go on the Grand Strand these days are immigrant workers.

How many are legal? How many aren’t?

According to Wharton economics professor Bernard Anderson, two-thirds of America’s 12 million illegal immigrants are concentrated in four industries – farming, food service, hospitality and construction.

Take away the farming, and you’ve pretty much got the Grand Strand tourism economy, which accounts for approximately 15% of South Carolina’s total economy.

We’re not human resource experts or anything, but our guess is if the Mitt Romney-Jim DeMint “deport ‘em now” crowd had their way, this state’s most important economic subsector would literally grind to a halt …

Comments