Many immigrants survive at poverty level by selling flowers on streets

[Kajikit 65]

Many immigrants survive at poverty level by selling flowers on streets

By Joel Hood

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Posted February 14 2006

West Lake Worth · Battered but not beaten, Nemer Morales is living his American dream on a crowded, noisy intersection in western Palm Beach County.

It's a few minutes past 5 p.m. on a recent Wednesday. A stiff breeze whips over the pavement, bringing the sharp smell of burnt rubber and diesel fumes. Cars and minivans rush by.

"It's not easy to be out here," Morales said. "Only the poor man does this, sells flowers this way."

The street light above his head flashes red and Morales hoists four bouquets of roses into the air. He wades across five lanes of frenzied traffic, cars screeching to a halt around him. After two hours on this corner, Morales has yet to sell a single rose.

"What can you do?" he said. "They don't buy, they don't buy."

Most days, flower vendors such as Morales are largely invisible in the larger picture. But on Valentine's Day, demand blossoms and they find themselves on the front lines of commerce.

An immigrant from Nicaragua, Morales, 34, is one of probably thousands in South Florida who make a living selling flowers, food and other items on street corners. The true number is unknown because nobody keeps track of them. Most are immigrants from Latin America. Many do not speak English.

One way or another, they carve out lives here at or below the poverty line, sending whatever extra money they make to their fractured families back home.

- two more pages of article at http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/pal...=sfla-news-palm

[peejay 327]

About six years ago, Morales and Rodriguez said they left their wives and children in Nicaragua to come to Miami on working visas.

It smells kind of fishy to me. Sounds like more propaganda that uses the facade of mixing illegal aliens and legal immigrants together to gain sympathy for illegal aliens. If they came here legally on a "work visa"...who signed the I-864 to bring them here? Who sponsored them? Who pays when they show up sick at the emergency room at the hospital? The USA doesn't have an official "guest worker" program. Our present unofficial "guest worker" program is basically illegal immigration.

They (Morales and Rodriguez) are in Palm Beach county because...

Each municipality sets its own rules regarding roadside sales. For example, it's illegal to sell flowers on the side of the road in Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade, but not Broward, said law enforcement officials with each county. While Miami-Dade officials say roadside vendors are routinely cited, facing jail time and fines up to $500, that's not the case in Palm Beach County, where they're typically left alone unless they're a danger to themselves or others, sheriff's spokesman Paul Miller said.

Anyway...why sell flowers on the street corner for poverty wages when they could buy fake documents like the illegal aliens that get caught working US military bases through contractors. The illegals get deported and the contractor gets away free because the illegals had fake documents.

Maybe Morales and Rodriguez are keeping a low profile selling flowers for poverty wages until George Bush, Teddy Kennedy, and John McCain push through their illegal alien amnesty and then they can get a real job.

I am very skeptical of this story.