Since Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has seen an influx of new residents, many of whom are here illegally. There are many gas stations where you can take part in the new slavery by "hiring" an illegal day laborer. You can pay them next to nothing for a one-day job with no benefits and no future and giggle over the fact that not only do you not have to pay employment taxes, the government further subsidizes this ripoff by providing social services including medical care in the local emergency room. Or let them work all day and don't pay them at all.

However, many local companies have re-established themselves, to the point that the shifty contractors who hire these men are unable to fully employ the continually growing crowd. It's been clear for a long time that President Bush agrees with Mexican President Vincente Fox on the need for completely open borders and is stealthily working toward that goal. President Bush aided and abetted this illegal immigration when he approved suspending "provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act that would have required government contractors to pay prevailing wages in Louisiana and devastated parts of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. And the Department of Homeland Security has temporarily suspended sanctioning employers who hire workers who cannot document their citizenship."

The wage-depressing results of that are also clear:

The Latino influx has rankled many longtime residents, who say the arrivals have depressed wages in some sectors. "I'm working for $6 an hour!" yelled one African-American man at Mayor Ray Nagin's first town-hall meeting last month. "They're bringing in Mexicans and expecting us to work for the same money. Is slavery over, or what?"

But now that so many illegals are here with more arriving daily, they need to earn something to subsist. This was just sad - Richard over at Metroblogging New Orleans noted in Trabajo -- and I DO mean "HO" that you can hire someone from the Exxon/Day Labor Center to do more than just your drywall.

We certainly needed to bring in illegals for this - after all, Katrina just decimated the local gay prostitution industry. Yet another case of illegal undocumented immigrants doing the work no one else will do.