Busted City

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I’m not going to even pretend Buffet City is one of Springfield’s finer eating establishments, but for what it is, an all-you-can-eat restaurant, it is pretty good. I’ve eaten there many times. So I’m kind of hoping the immigration raid there yesterday and sudden closing of its doors doesn’t mean it’s out of business permanently. Shame on the owners if they were knowingly employing illegal aliens but I’m thinking they could still make a go of it following the law. I hated that Cancun (on Sixth Street) was forever shuttered after their little run-in with immigration officials back in 2000. I hope history doesn’t repeat itself.

I am intruged by one item in the SJ-R story though:

One man who drove by said he lives near Chatham Square Center, where the restaurant is located.

"If that's true," the man said of the raid, apparently targeting illegal aliens "then a lot of these stores around here would go out of business."

I guess I assumed there probably were some, but very few, undocumented workers in Springfield but is it a more significant “problem” than I am aware of? I mean, there is no way of knowing who is and isn’t an illegal just by looking at a person but I haven’t had the sense that the city is being overrun by them. And the man quoted above seems to thing these folks are being employed by “stores”. While I’m sure nationally there are lots of illegal immigrants working all kinds of low-end jobs, are our local illegals only working in food and retail? I’ve not heard of any cheap manual labor pool of these guys working in landscaping or construction. Just wondering.

Update: I just noticed Buffet City won Best Buffet in the Illinois Times Best of Springfield survey. Hmmmm...now if I can only prove Rich Miller is employing illegal immigrants...