St. Louis CofCC Blog

Biloxi Sun-Herald:

The owner of Tarrasco Steel, a company that supplied workers on the Biloxi Bay Bridge, was arrested and charged with hiring illegal immigrants on projects in three states. Some had improper welding certification.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Jose S. Gonzalez, 32, at his office in Greenville Thursday, according to a news release. Tarrasco Steel was hired as a subcontractor for rebar installation services to major bridge projects in Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. The federal government considers those bridges as critical infrastructure, and they were part of routine inspections of facilities that if damaged could pose a threat to national security and public safety.

“There is a serious public safety concern when illegal aliens, who are not authorized to work in the country legally, and who do not possess valid welding certifications, are employed in the construction of bridges in our communities,” said Michael A. Holt, special agent in charge of the Customs Office of Investigations in New Orleans, in a news release.

Like the lemon houses that are partially the fault of firms hiring illegal alien labor on the cheap, it now appears that we have some lemon bridges.

Today:  254,700
Yesterday:  253,400

Business Week:

The outside of Susan Sabin’s house in Lenexa, Kan., is covered with lemons: lemon-shaped foam cutouts, twinkling lemon Christmas lights, and a lemon-adorned wreath on the front door. If you go to her Web site, you can see for yourself. You’ll also see photographs of splintered beams, bowed floors, and a graphic that declares: “Pulte Homes sold me a lemon!”

(snip)

As home values decrease and home sales slow in many parts of the country, construction problems seem to have become an even bigger concern for homeowners. “I notice the traffic has definitely picked up,” says Andy Martin, a longtime consumer advocate who runs three sites: www.FightPulte.com, www.FightDiVosta.com and www.FightDelWebb.com. The three sites serve as national clearinghouses for those who think they may be victims of shoddy construction. During the housing boom, builders were working fast to keep up with all the people gobbling up new properties, and Martin believes the quality of building suffered as a result. “The pendulum swung too far in (the builders’) favor,” he says. “The Internet now is rising to level the playing field.”

The white elephant in the crumbling and moldy living room: Illegal alien labor from Latin America.

…is responsible for one of the many assaults on Metro bus drivers as of late. Then again, he might not be primarily responsible for the assaults; after all, he was a good boy, an honor roll student, an aspiring rapper, and a three-sport athlete, that just happened to fall in with the wrong crowd, and was victimized by all the guns, drugs, abandoned buildings and derelict buildings out there on the streets.

Then again, men who look like that are responsible for a whole lot of crime.

Two killed and two wounded in city shootings overnight — notice that one of the kills and one of the shots were in south city.  Just about half the shootings and stabbings are in south city these days.  It might have something to do with the “graying” of south city.  Though the kill on Dresden near Bevo Mill might have been done by the newer white ethnic minority in the neighborhood.