It must be a shock indeed to liberals like Adriana Garcia that America’s housing woes are in part the result of having a large unassimilated population that are willing to falsify documents to get what they want and at the same time lack the ability to communicate effectively in the language of the nation. These two factors make them both more likely to commit fraud and more likely to be defrauded. Add to that the irresponsible sense of entitlement that the left encourages among immigrants (illegal or not) and you have a recipe for financial disaster:

Both legal and illegal immigrants joined Americans in buying homes they could barely afford when the market spiraled upward and many have been caught with mortgages higher than the value of their homes as prices have slumped in the past year.

Just as subprime mortgage payments rose and house prices fell, the economy’s slowdown has hurt the construction sector, which employs large numbers of Hispanics and other immigrants.

Unemployment among Hispanics in the United States jumped to 6.3 percent in December, up from 5.7 percent the previous month and well above the national average of 5 percent, U.S. Department of Labor statistics show.

And almost half of the mortgage loans in the hands of Hispanics are subprime, making them especially vulnerable to the housing downturn.

That sense of entitlement, combined with a lack of financial literacy that is appallingly common in our nation, play a big part in the story of one legal immigrant that makes me shake my head ruefully:

Nelson, a 29-year-old legal immigrant and construction worker from El Salvador, had a miserable run of luck in November, when he lost his job and his subprime mortgage bills jumped $650 to about $2,650.

He says he now has to sell the home he bought in Maryland in 2005. If he is unable to sell in the next four months, he will have to foreclose, meaning an even bigger financial loss and a damaging black mark on his credit record.

“I have to practically give it away,” he said.

Like many caught up in the crisis, the father of three said he had no idea his monthly payments would soar two years into the mortgage when he closed the adjustable-rate subprime deal.

“You have to sign a lot of things when you buy a house, so I didn’t read, I just signed. I think it was the anxiety, the happiness of buying my house,” he said. “I feel a bit betrayed.”

Betrayal is something that happens between close friends, Nelson was suckered. He’s a sucker for signing a contract he didn’t read and sucker for not planning for his adjustable rate mortgage to go up. He did this to himself and his money would have been better spent taking a few classes in economics before signing a mortgage he knew nothing about. Of course it’s the rest of us that are holding the bag.

Nelson didn’t do anything illegal however, others have contributed to the crisis by engaging in criminality:

Illegal immigrants were able to buy U.S. homes during the boom years, either by showing evidence that they pay taxes or by simply presenting false documents.

Those false documents would include bank statements and proof of employment, all the things that would have been checked by lenders to ensure that they would get their money back. The illegal immigrants doing so knew that they were probably unable to afford the mortgage, but jumped in anyway because they don’t have a stake in the economy. If they default on a loan they simply change identities and move on. Again, it’s the rest of us left holding the bag.