Foreign Service

Is America ready to cash in on immigrants?

by Brian Howard

When City Paper photographer Mike Regan and I headed out for the 5900 block of North Fifth Street for this week's cover story, we thought we were setting out to do a photo essay on Little Korea. He and I have both traveled a bit abroad and as a result are fascinated by the pockets of foreign intrigue that dot the Philadelphia landscape. Of course, as we poked around the upper reaches of North Fifth, we discovered that Little Korea remains in the form of a hard-to-miss business district, but many of the Korean residents have moved just across city limits into Elkins Park. There, you'll find Korean churches, a Korean-language daily newspaper and a branch of the hulking Korean grocery chain H Mart.

On Fifth, though the juxtaposition of Korean signage and European architecture is still an apt representation of the forces at work in the Olney neighborhood, what we found is that the Korean influence is just one of many, many in the area. Olney has become something of a magnet for immigrant groups. Unlike, say, South Philly and its distinct Mexican and Vietnamese strongholds, or West Philly and its African and South Asian flavors, Olney, it seems, has got a little bit of everything.

I spoke to a lot of people for this story, and some I was able to work in to the cover package more than others. My conversation with Don W. Pak, the immigration attorney whose office at North Fifth and Nedro streets sits at the foot of the remaining Korean business corridor, quickly turned from Olney to immigration reform to economic stimulus and, as a result, ended up mostly on the cutting-room floor. As a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Pak is passionate about comprehensive immigration reform and, specifically, the impact it would have on the economy.

The simple breakdown, as he explained it, is this: Let's say there are between 12 million and 15 million illegal or "out of status" immigrants in the United States. None of them are eligible to apply for a driver's license, own a car, buy car insurance or open a bank account and yet they, according to the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, represent 5 percent of the American work force. And deporting them all would be ridiculously expensive and time-consuming.

The idea, according to Pak, is that if all those immigrants are suddenly granted some kind of amnesty and allowed to apply for identification cards and/or driver's licenses, there are three distinct advantages.

First, you know who's in the country, which would be good for national security.

Second, multiply a $35 application fee by, say, 10 million applicants, and you're looking at a $350 million wad in Uncle Sam's pocket. And 10 million new residents who can pump money into the auto industry, the insurance industry and elsewhere. (And probably new jobs created to process these applications.)

Third, you've now got 10 million new residents who can save money in a bank, adding liquidity to the credit market. These are 10 million new residents who previously couldn't buy homes, etc.

I'm obviously not an economist, and I'm sure there are a boatload of wrinkles in the legalizing immigrants=money theory, but these are tough times, and it's my understanding that we're in the market for some creative solutions.

About Broad and Olney

In the wake of the tragic murder of officer John Pawlowski last Friday, and given that at least one TV report showed a graphic identifying the intersection as being in the Olney neighborhood, I wanted to take a second to specify that the Olney neighborhood doesn't run farther west than Eighth Street and that the Broad and Olney intersection lies near where the Fern Rock and Logan neighborhoods butt up. Not that it much matters; a tragedy's a tragedy. But that's why there is no mention of it in this week's cover piece. Please read Mike Newall's Dispatch column and Andrew Thompson's examination of the criminal justice system for more on Pawlowski.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)