Deporting Illegals: “Who Will Mow The Grass?” Cry NY Billionaires
When the left says the quiet part out loud, it’s time to listen.
And that’s just what The New York Times did Sunday with an unintentionally revealing story headlined “They Help Make The Hamptons The Hamptons, And Now They’re Living In Fear.”
It’s meant to be a heart-tugging piece about the plight of illegal aliens (or “undocumented worker” as The Times politely calls them) who work as servants to the very rich, live in tents in the woods and who may now be deported.
“WHO WILL MOW THE GRASS?” the billionaires cry.
These two paragraphs are very telling:
Wealthy residents of the Hamptons demand perfection. Now, many of the people who make it so — Latino immigrants, some of them undocumented — are panicking about President Trump’s deportation orders.
The fear is on display outside a convenience store where day laborers sprint into a nearby field when a stranger approaches. It is present in the nervous apologizing of a longtime housekeeper when she interacts with the police after a minor automobile scrape. And it courses through a small encampment in the woods where a landscaper is awaiting warmer weather so he can start cutting grass again to send money home to his family in Mexico.
Right away you get a glimpse of the life enjoyed by the servants who work 12-hour days and are paid under the table. They’re essentially homeless, living in forest encampments.
You didn’t Think the uber-rich would allow their gardeners in their homes, did you?
During the summer, they arrive for day labor in beat-up pickup trucks, jokingly referred to by locals as the daily “trade parade.”
What would these folks do without their lovable Mexican servants who arrive in wheezing jalopies?
For those of us who have never visited the playground of the some of the richest people in America at the eastern end of Long Island, The Times graciously paints us a picture.
In the Hamptons, with miles of privet hedges and luxury homes, Latino immigrants make up the bulk of the work force, logging 12-hour days flipping mattresses, scrubbing toilets and hanging drywall, and in the summer tending vineyards and assembling patio furniture under the hot sun…
To most of the world, the Hamptons are best known for celebrity-studded parties and mega-mansions that dot the seashore, such as one house in Sagaponack that has been valued at $425 million and has 29 bedrooms and 39 bathrooms. It’s a community where diner patrons wear Balenciaga booties and Aston Martin sports cars cruise past strip malls. On sale at one popular grocery store: an 18-ounce tin of caviar for $1,300.
Panic has apparently struck the Hamptons. Not just in the illegal community. But in the folks who wring their hands about overgrown lawns and dirty dishes.
Some of the wealthy are quietly beginning to make calculations about what it would mean if their undocumented workers were deported. Who would mow the lawn?
“Everyone relies on housekeepers and carpenters and tree cutters and grass cutters,” said Marit Molin, founder and executive director of Hamptons Community Outreach. “People come to the Hamptons to enjoy their houses, and who is going to take care of their houses?”
I dunno. Maybe the man of the house could learn to start a mower. Maybe the spoiled nepo kids could help out with bed making and chores. Maybe Mom could learn to cook.
A sense of entitlement oozes from every word of The Times story.
A poll released this week shows that 52% of Americans believe the last administration allowed illegal immigration to swell on purpose.
Rich Americans in search of cheap help are just one reason.
