A Day Without an (Immigrant) Agent

I had one escrow that I couldn't open and another that I couldn't close today because both buyers' agents/lenders are Latinas, and their companies are completely shut down. Wow. After fielding desperate phone calls from clients and a non-boycotting agent, I gave up and went home.

I actually should have been out marching today. My mother's father was an illegal alien his entire time in the U.S. He was a merchant marine who jumped ship in Seattle in the '20's. My father's mother never became naturalized. Since her husband became a citizen, it wasn't really an issue, and some years after my grandfather's death, we realized that no one had gotten around to registering grandma for a while. Luckily, the INS never came after her.

Anyway, I do hope these agents and their coworkers are out demonstrating today and making a powerful statement, at least for their clients' sakes. A majority of the San Bernardino and Moreno Valley buyers that I've been seeing in the past year, along with their agents and their lenders, is Latino, and it would definitely cripple the U.S. real estate market if these immigrants were to disappear.

Press Enterprise article about immigration protest in Riverside today:
http://www.pe.com/breakingnews/local/stories/PE_News_Local_D_web_boycott2.10020631.html