Are you trying to tell me that immigrants spend money?
In a 2008 study, she found that Arizona immigrants contributed $29 billion annually to the state economy, representing about 8% of its activity.
When immigrants leave, Gans said, “stores experience dramatic drops in sales. Apartment owners who rent to immigrants have high vacancy rates and risk losing their buildings. Legal workers or renters or consumers don’t generally step in quickly enough to prevent these businesses from experiencing real additional hardship.”
At 43rd and Thomas, such short-term economic perils are no abstraction.
“If people don’t come here, I don’t make money and I don’t pay taxes,” Katchi said.
[…]
merchants say the repercussions are clear — not just in how it’s prompted many families to leave the state, but scared others enough to curtail their regular activities.
“The economy’s already bad, but on top of it [SB 1070] is like a bullet in the head to us,” said Osameh Odeh, 35, whose Eden Wear clothing store was empty one recent afternoon. “People don’t come out of their houses anymore.”
Odeh has laid off workers and doesn’t pay his utility bills until the day they come due. He’s not sure he can stay open and notes that the effect spreads well beyond the rough-and-tumble streets of Maryvale. A resident of the middle-class suburb of Gilbert, Odeh has cut back his purchases at home.
Lemkin 