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http://www.reuters.com/article/marke...14063220100725

Migrants sell up, flee Arizona ahead of crackdown

Sun Jul 25, 2010 1:38pm EDT

* Tough state immigration crackdown starts on Thursday

* Boom in yard sales as migrants sell off belongings

* Legal residents, US-born children join scramble to leave

By Tim Gaynor

PHOENIX, July 25 (Reuters) - Nicaraguan mother Lorena Aguilar hawks a television set and a few clothes on the baking sidewalk outside her west Phoenix apartment block.

A few paces up the street, her undocumented Mexican neighbor Wendi Villasenor touts a kitchen table, some chairs and a few dishes as her family scrambles to get out of Arizona ahead of a looming crackdown on illegal immigrants.

"Everyone is selling up the little they have and leaving," said Villasenor, 31, who is headed for Pennsylvania. "We have no alternative. They have us cornered."

The two women are among scores of illegal immigrant families across Phoenix hauling the contents of their homes into the yard this weekend as they rush to sell up and get out before the state law takes effect on Thursday.