Immigrants taking jobs?

The other day I went walking around D.C. taking photographs. Most of the time I spent was in the Shaw neighborhood.

Shaw, as the picture illustrates, has traditionally been a depressed neighborhood. This is, however, increasingly not the case with much development taking place and housing prices shooting up. What I noticed while walking around this area were two things: that an overwhelming number of the construction workers on the building projects were Hispanic and that many of the local males were sitting around idly, either on the front stoop of a house or congregated around a liquor store.

Now, some people argue that illegal immigrants are taking jobs from U.S. citizens. While my experience in Shaw is anecdotal, I find this hard to believe. What I saw on display was a lot of hard work from immigrants and very little ambition from the locals. Half the battle in gaining employment is actually looking for it. Seems to me that the jobs are out there but that the commitment to finding work is not.

The unemployment rate is 4.7 percent. The jobs are out there. Immigrants aren't the problem, lazy Americans are.