Outside Phoenix store, border debate rages on

On East Thomas Road in Phoenix, the national shouting match over immigration unfolds week by week in a neighborhood that has changed in the same ways Arizona has.

Sheriff’s deputies patrol the parking lot at M.D. Pruitt’s Home Furnishings each Saturday, ensuring that no day laborers trespass on the property. Day-labor advocates mount protests nearby, blaring Mexican folk music while children dressed in traditional garb dance on the sidewalk.

Pruitt’s opened 57 years ago, but only recently did day laborers gather in large numbers to seek work on the sidewalks and parking lots of nearby businesses. The subdivisions that stretch back from Thomas Road have seen more and more Hispanic families arrive, changing the character of the neighborhood. “*

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