Hmm… Seems that xenophobic racists on the right wing of the political spectrum aren’t the only ones who have a problem with the behavior of illegal immigrants. Even enlightened lovers of diversity and openness are drawing the line with Rosita Lim Ong Chang.
The 66-year-old woman was arrested Friday and sent to jail for contempt of court, according to Amy Gardner with the Washington Post. She had been cited for illegally boarding tenants in her single-family home near George Mason University, and had failed to comply with court orders to move an illegal kitchen in her basement and notify the county when she leased a room to a new tenant. County officials said she had carved up her four-bedroom home into as many as seven bedrooms, charging up to $800 per month each.
I’m of two minds on this issue. On the one hand, I’m sympathetic to the neighbors, who have complained about noise, upkeep and the number of cars parked out front. I would not like a noisy, unkempt house with cars parked all over located next door to me, not in my quiet, well-tended neighborhood. These are not frivolous nuisances — unlike the flap-doodle here in Henrico County, where Jimmy and Alicia Fox have been convicted of a misdemeanor for using an old metal bathtub as a back-yard flower planter. (See Bart Hinkle’s column skewering the county for trampling on property rights.)
On the other hand, why shouldn’t an elderly woman be allowed to take in boarders to supplement her income? What right does Fairfax County have to tell Ms. Chang, whose property taxes have probably escalated way beyond the point where she could pay for them otherwise, to confiscate her income-generating potential?
As the blogger Freedom Works, who brought this article to my attention, notes: “Every American should be outraged at this assault on private property rights and the dignity of the working poor. We have now officially criminalized providing housing for poor people.”
Yeah, I kind of agree with that. While I don’t think illegal immigrants ought to be here in the first place, that doesn’t mean we should abuse them while they’re here. Illegals need somewhere to live, and it’s not easy finding a place in Fairfax County when you’re working for $10 an hour.
To sum up the theme of previous posts: The issues surrounding illegal immigration are complex and cut many ways. People concerned about illegal immigration cross the political spectrum. Not everyone is a racist or xenophobe. Maybe we should update the old joke, “The definition of a conservative is a liberal who’s just been mugged” to “the definition of a conservative is a liberal whose next-door neighbor opened a boarding house for illegal immigrants.”
