CarolinaStompers.com posted the letter from Asheville City Councilman Carl Mumpower, who took some credit last year for the biggest immigration raid in Western North Carolina – the raid of Mills Maufacturing. That raid, if I recall, resulted in some 50 arrests or so:
February 22, 2009
Agent Delbert Richburg
Immigration and Customs Enforcement ~ Charlotte District Office
6130 Tyvola Centre Drive
Charlotte, NC 28217Subject ~ Leisure Craft (Henderson Co.) and Mills River Elementary School (Henderson Co.)
Dear Agent Richburg:
A manufacturing plant in Henderson County (Leisure Craft, 940 Upward Road, Flat Rock, NC 28731 – 828 693-8241) has a large concentration of Hispanic workers at the plant-few of whom speak English. This may speak to exceptional success in hiring legal workers without English language skills or the intentional employment of illegal workers.
McCarroll Construction Company (39 Loop Road, Arden, NC 28704 – 828 684-0010) is building the new Mills River Elementary School in Horse Shoe, NC. The super-majority of the workers on the site are also of Hispanic origin and do not speak English. McCarroll Construction and the Henderson County school system may have also had tremendous success in hiring legal workers without English skills or be demonstrating indifference to the job crisis for WNC citizens by hiring illegal immigrants.
In Buncombe County, your visit to Mills Manufacturing has probably created more jobs for WNC than the City’s economic development efforts for the entire year. Arvato, formerly Sonopress, may be known to you as the company down the road from Mills where 50+ employees left the plant during your Mills raid. That company is to be commended for their subsequent efforts to hire legal citizens and authentically credentialed workers. Others have followed suit.
Sincerely,
Carl Mumpower
Asheville City Council
6 Comments
The only "credential" that Mumpower uses to distinguish between these two groups is U.S. citizenship. That’s not a credential at all; for most of us, it’s an accident of birth.
I’m all for encouraging businesses to pay high wages. I’m also for living wage legislation (but Carl probably isn’t).
Somebody must be driving around looking for brown faces at construction sites.
Thank you Carl for taking action as any responsible citizen should.
Oooo, I can’t wait ’til Friday.
Hey, what gives. Do you think us hill billy white folk will really do the jobs that the hispanics do. You got to be kidding your self Mumpower. All you will do is hurt the revenue for small businesses in the area by playing these games. The hispanic workers don’t send all their money home like they used to, they spend it at Ingles, local gas stations, Walmart etc. Mumpower is not hurting anyone but himself and the small business owner just to get a few votes from people that all ready retired.
Good grief. What an arrogant, narrow-minded, presumptuous freak. I’m continually amazed by the fact that this man is a psychologist.
Henderson County? Horse Shoe? Are these places in your constituency and perceived area of "domain" Carl? Why don’t you stick to destroying lives closer to home.