Selected Readings on Immigration
Handouts? Go Beyond the Usual Scapegoats
Steve Lopez
Los Angeles
Times
August 27, 2004
Picking up where we left off, I said in my last column that I can't find anybody
who can prove whether the costs of illegal immigration outweigh the benefits.
This, of course, was like throwing red meat to a pack of wild dogs.
Aside from the social costs, readers screamed, illegal immigrants drive down
wages for everyone. And besides, a study has just been released saying that
illegal immigrants are a $10-billion annual drain on the federal budget alone.
Yeah, I know. I had seen the report from the Center for Immigration Studies, but
didn't entirely trust it.
Why?
Same reason I wouldn't trust a report from the petroleum and coal lobbies saying
global warming doesn't exist.
CIS is on the warpath to stamp out illegal immigration, which is certainly a
defensible position given undeniable social and economic costs, as well as the
fact that it is illegal, after all.
But even if the claim is completely true, let's keep in mind that $10 billion is
less than one-half of 1% of the federal budget. And considering this outfit's
agenda, only a fool would accept its findings as the whole truth and nothing but
the truth.
CIS claims illegal-immigrant households cost the federal government $2,700 more
a year in services than they pay in taxes and that legalizing undocumented
immigrants would triple the drain from $10 billion to $29 billion. That's
because more immigrants, ostensibly, would take advantage of more government
services.
But before the ink on the study was dry, it was being shot full of holes by
other organizations.
Yes, poor people pay less in taxes than rich people, said the National
Immigration Forum. But that's an incomplete measure, because illegal immigrants
make a huge contribution to the world's most dynamic economy.
You don't have to trust the forum, which has its own ax to grind in favor of
legalization for some undocumented immigrants. Daniel Griswold, an economist
with the libertarian Cato Institute, agrees that the study's analysis is
incomplete.
"It doesn't take into account the broader economic context, which is the ability
of employers to hire workers who are important to broad sections of the economy,
from hotels to construction to retail, and agriculture as well," he said.
At the Urban Institute, researcher Michael Fix also has some problems with the
CIS numbers. For one thing, he points out, CIS counted the U.S.-born children of
illegal heads of households in its analysis, but not older siblings who have
become taxpayers.
"They're counting people when they're kids and not adults, or when they're tax
eaters and not taxpayers," said Fix.
Fix and others challenged the notion that legalization would triple the cost to
taxpayers. They argue that a legalization program under President Reagan made
immigrants more productive and raised their salaries, making them less of a
drain.
This still leaves us with the question of whether illegal immigrants drive down
wages for legal residents.
"Not for everybody," says the Urban Institute's Fix. "They've driven down wages
for people without a high school education, and that number is dwindling."
Ruben Beltran, Mexican consul general in Los Angeles, noted that illegal
immigrants often do jobs that others aren't dying to do. Come to think of it, I
don't know a lot of native-born Californians of European descent who are
clamoring for a chance to pick strawberries.
"One thing people don't think about is the cost of consumer goods if these
immigrants weren't working in certain sectors," Beltran said. "For the sake of
discussion, if you have an iceberg lettuce on the shelf right now for 95 cents,
what would the price be" if cheap labor were unavailable?
It might be two bucks. It might be three.
Would we pay that?
Americans love bargains above all else. We crave cheap, which is why Wal-Mart is
the Church of State.
Does our lust for the 95-cent head of lettuce make us responsible for illegal
immigration?
I wonder if those who complain about illegal immigrants driving down wages are
also shopping at the store that exports jobs, chases dirt-cheap labor around the
globe, and makes huge profits while being stingy with its U.S. employees.
So with all that, I'm still not sure anyone has proved whether illegal
immigration leaves the average taxpayer ahead or behind.
But if you've got a problem with questionable handouts, don't limit yourself to
illegal immigrants. American taxpayers shell out billions in farm subsidies,
including $34 billion to corn farmers alone between 1995 and 2002.
And the result?
Thousands of Mexican farmers, unable to compete, have been driven off their
land.
They climb fences, cross deserts, and head north, where they find no shortage of
employers.
Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com
and read previous columns at latimes.com/lopez.
**********
Illegal, Yes, but He Dislikes the Label
Steve Lopez
Los Angeles Times
September 15, 2004
In my Sunday column, a business owner in Fullerton laid out her case against
illegal immigration, saying it drives wages down, overwhelms schools and
hospitals, and costs us all in the end.
When I left her printing shop, I drove to the two-bedroom Whittier apartment of
an illegal immigrant. Carlos, 30, lives with his wife, who's also illegal, and
their three children, who are citizens because they were born in the U.S.
I visited Carlos because I couldn't possibly not. It isn't every day you get an
e-mail from an illegal immigrant. Especially one who defends his cause, but also
thinks the country needs tougher immigration laws.
"Some of them risk their lives to come here and then mess around and do
nothing," Carlos carped in his well-appointed living room, which has a stereo, a
big-screen TV and one of the family's two computers. "People who aren't
productive shouldn't be here."
Carlos, a welder by day and a night watchman after dinner, earns $30,000 to
$40,000 a year. He said he reads the L.A. Times every day and watches C-SPAN.
When I asked what he was doing with textbooks on trigonometry, technical drawing
and geography, he seemed insulted.
"Enriching myself," he said.
Immigrants who don't learn the language get under his skin, Carlos said, because
they end up being a drag on society and inviting the stereotypes all immigrants
suffer under. But he thinks the vast majority of illegal immigrants break their
backs, help drive the economy, and barely eke out a living.
Carlos, for his part, doesn't like being called "illegal." After 13 years in the
U.S., he said, he's made enough of a contribution to earn a little respect.
I told him I don't see any point in sugarcoating it. He is what he is.
His 7-year-old daughter told me she wants to be a doctor and police officer. Why
the latter? So that if she pulls over her father, she'll know not to ask him for
a driver's license, because he doesn't have one.
"I'm un-doc-umented," Carlos argued. Not illegal.
I rolled my eyes.
"Look, it’s wrong," Carlos said. "I know it's wrong. But do you think I want to
be in the United States? I love this country, and I have a better life than if I
still lived in Mexico. But if the better jobs were in China, I'd be in China."
The United States has used globalization to monopolize wealth, Carlos argued,
often at the expense of other countries.
True, though Mexico has created many of its own problems, thanks to
institutionalized corruption and an elite class that pays to keep it that way.
Subsidies to American and European agribusiness interests have helped put Third
World farmers out of business, sending some of them to the U.S., argued Carlos,
who may be the first illegal immigrant who's watched too much C-SPAN. "They
can't compete," he said. "When you have big winners, you have big losers."
Feeling a need to prove his worth, Carlos retrieved a manila envelope and opened
it to show me several years' worth of tax returns.
"So you pay taxes?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "A lot of undocumented people pay taxes."
In fact, Carlos said he prepares tax returns for other illegals, charging them
$20.
"I learned how to do it on the Internet," he said.
His boss either doesn't know Carlos is illegal or doesn't care, so Carlos pays
the same payroll taxes as the other employees. I went through the returns, which
indicate that he has paid several thousand dollars a year.
Next Carlos showed me a series of annual letters from the Social Security
Administration informing him his number does not match his name, so his
deductions will not be applied to his retirement. The Social Security number he
uses is a fake he bought at MacArthur Park, where I recently found that it was
relatively simple to buy my own fake driver's license.
The government happily pockets his Social Security deductions — more than $1,000
each year, but Carlos will never see any of it.
"I'm paying for your retirement," he said, elbowing me as we sat on his couch.
Maybe, but let's factor in the cost of educating his children, who wouldn't be
here if he hadn't crossed the border illegally. And his medical plan at work
doesn't cover his kids or his wife, although Carlos claims he pays cash when
they see a doctor.
They'll finish school, though, Carlos argued, and make their own contribution
one day.
"And if there's a war when they get older," he said, "they'll go to war."
I looked again at his Social Security and IRS files and realized the government
has to be on to him.
"They know," Carlos agreed. "They know!"
Then why don't they do something about it?
Carlos grinned. Maybe they want him here, he said.
Or maybe they're too inept to ask the obvious.
His brother-in-law came in while we were talking. Carlos said he lives in a
garage and comes by to use the bathroom.
"He's a welder too," Carlos said. "But they work him overtime and don't pay.
They take advantage because they know he doesn't have papers. I'm thinking of
calling the IRS."
Would they even care? Maybe they're in on the big lie, along with agribusiness,
hotel and restaurant operators, household employers and the politicians who
produce immigration policies so hypocritical and dishonest, they're perfectly
meaningless.
As Carlos led me out to my car, he said that even after 13 years, he lives in
fear he'll be found out. To beat the stress, he's developed a sense of humor.
He offered me proof:
Four heads of state are on an airplane, he told me: Fidel Castro, Vladimir
Putin, Vicente Fox and George W. Bush.
Up in the clouds, Castro opens the window and tosses out a handful of cigars.
When the others ask what's up, Castro says his country has way too many cigars.
Next Putin opens the window and throws out several bottles of vodka. My country
has way too many bottles of vodka, he tells the others.
Fox looks at Bush. Bush looks at Fox. Then Bush opens the window and throws Fox
out.
"What are you doing?" Castro and Putin ask.
"My country has way too many Mexicans," says Bush.
**************
New York Times
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Since illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States six years ago, Ángel Martínez has done backbreaking work, harvesting asparagus, pruning grapevines and picking the ripe fruit. More recently, he has also washed trucks, often working as much as 70 hours a week, earning $8.50 to $12.75 an hour.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Martínez, 28, has not given much thought to Social Security's long-term financial problems. But Mr. Martínez - who comes from the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico and hiked for two days through the desert to enter the United States near Tecate, some 20 miles east of Tijuana - contributes more than most Americans to the solvency of the nation's public retirement system.
Last year, Mr. Martínez paid about $2,000 toward Social Security and $450 for Medicare through payroll taxes withheld from his wages. Yet unlike most Americans, who will receive some form of a public pension in retirement and will be eligible for Medicare as soon as they turn 65, Mr. Martínez is not entitled to benefits.
He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.
While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus - the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it doles out in pension benefits. Moreover, the money paid by illegal workers and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections.
Illegal immigration, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University, noted sardonically, could provide "the fastest way to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security."
It is impossible to know exactly how many illegal immigrant workers pay taxes. But according to specialists, most of them do. Since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act set penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, most such workers have been forced to buy fake ID's to get a job.
Currently available for about $150 on street corners in just about any immigrant neighborhood in California, a typical fake ID package includes a green card and a Social Security card. It provides cover for employers, who, if asked, can plausibly assert that they believe all their workers are legal. It also means that workers must be paid by the book - with payroll tax deductions.
IRCA, as the immigration act is known, did little to deter employers from hiring illegal immigrants or to discourage them from working. But for Social Security's finances, it was a great piece of legislation.
Starting in the late 1980's, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the "earnings suspense file" in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.
The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's, two and a half times the amount of the 1980's.
In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.
In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2's with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages.
Social Security officials do not know what fraction of the suspense file corresponds to the earnings of illegal immigrants. But they suspect that the portion is significant.
"Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes," said Stephen C. Goss, Social Security's chief actuary, using the agency's term for illegal immigration.
Other researchers say illegal immigrants are the main contributors to the suspense file. "Illegal immigrants account for the vast majority of the suspense file," said Nick Theodore, the director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Especially its growth over the 1990's, as more and more undocumented immigrants entered the work force."
Using data from the Census Bureau's current population survey, Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, an advocacy group in Washington that favors more limits on immigration, estimated that 3.8 million households headed by illegal immigrants generated $6.4 billion in Social Security taxes in 2002.
A comparative handful of former illegal immigrant workers who have obtained legal residence have been able to accredit their previous earnings to their new legal Social Security numbers. Mr. Camarota is among those opposed to granting a broad amnesty to illegal immigrants, arguing that, among other things, they might claim Social Security benefits and put further financial stress on the system.
The mismatched W-2's fit like a glove on illegal immigrants' known geographic distribution and the patchwork of jobs they typically hold. An audit found that more than half of the 100 employers filing the most earnings reports with false Social Security numbers from 1997 through 2001 came from just three states: California, Texas and Illinois. According to an analysis by the Government Accountability Office, about 17 percent of the businesses with inaccurate W-2's were restaurants, 10 percent were construction companies and 7 percent were farm operations.
Most immigration helps Social Security's finances, because new immigrants tend to be of working age and contribute more than they take from the system. A simulation by Social Security's actuaries found that if net immigration ran at 1.3 million a year instead of the 900,000 in their central assumption, the system's 75-year funding gap would narrow to 1.67 percent of total payroll, from 1.92 percent - savings that come out to half a trillion dollars, valued in today's money.
Illegal immigrants help even more because they will never collect benefits. According to Mr. Goss, without the flow of payroll taxes from wages in the suspense file, the system's long-term funding hole over 75 years would be 10 percent deeper.
Yet to immigrants, the lack of retirement benefits is just part of the package of hardship they took on when they decided to make the trek north. Tying vines in a vineyard some 30 miles north of Stockton, Florencio Tapia, 20, from Guerrero, along Mexico's Pacific coast, has no idea what the money being withheld from his paycheck is for. "I haven't asked," Mr. Tapia said.
For illegal immigrants, Social Security numbers are simply a tool needed to work on this side of the border. Retirement does not enter the picture.
"There will be a moment when I won't be able to continue working," Mr. Martínez acknowledges. "But that's many years off."
Mario Avalos, a naturalized Nicaraguan immigrant who prepares income tax returns for many workers in the area, including immigrants without legal papers, observes that many older workers return home to Mexico. "Among my clients," he said, "I can't recall anybody over 60 without papers."
No doubt most illegal immigrants would prefer to avoid Social Security altogether. As part of its efforts to properly assign the growing pile of unassigned wages, Social Security sends about 130,000 letters a year to employers with large numbers of mismatched pay statements.
Though not an intended consequence of these so-called no-match letters, in many cases employers who get them dismiss the workers affected. Or the workers - fearing that immigration authorities might be on their trail - just leave.
Last February, for instance, discrepancies in Social Security numbers put an end to the job of Minerva Ortega, 25, from Zacatecas, in northern Mexico, who worked in the cheese department at a warehouse for Mike Campbell & Associates, a distributor for Trader Joe's, a popular discount food retailer with a large operation in California.
The company asked dozens of workers to prove that they had cleared up or were in the process of clearing up the "discrepancy between the information on our payroll related to your employment and the S.S.A.'s records." Most could not.
Ms. Ortega said about 150 workers lost their jobs. In a statement, Mike Campbell said that it did not fire any of the workers, but Robert Camarena, a company official, acknowledged that many left.
Ms. Ortega is now looking for work again. She does not want to go back to the fields, so she is holding out for a better-paid factory job. Whatever work she finds, though, she intends to go on the payroll with the same Social Security number she has now, a number that will not jibe with federal records.
With this number, she will continue paying taxes. Last year she paid about $1,200 in Social Security taxes, matched by her employer, on an income of $19,000.
She will never see the money again, she realizes, but at least she will have a job in the United States.
"I don't pay much attention," Ms. Ortega said. "I know I don't get any benefit."
*****************
Immigrant Pleas Crushing Federal Appellate Courts
As caseloads skyrocket, judges blame the work done by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
By Solomon
Moore and Ann M. Simmons
Los Angeles
Times
May 2, 2005
Immigrants fighting to stay in the United States are flooding the federal
appellate courts with cases, creating huge backlogs and fundamentally changing
the character of the second-highest courts in the nation.
The deluge reflects growing dissatisfaction with the nation's immigration
courts, and attorneys representing asylum-seekers and others say they have
little choice but to appeal to the federal judiciary.
The trend is nationwide, federal records show, but bearing the brunt of this
sudden surge is the San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In
the year ending June 30, 2001, the immigration caseload was 965. It skyrocketed
to 4,835 cases in the year ending in June 2004.
"Three years ago, immigration cases were 8% of our calendar," said 9th Circuit
Judge Michael Daly Hawkins. "Today, as we speak, that percentage is 48%."
The 9th Circuit is the nation's largest federal appellate court and has long had
a liberal reputation, but its immigration caseload is largely driven by the
region it serves: California, eight other states and two territories. The
court's 24 judges consider myriad cases that must now compete with the
ever-growing immigration backlog.
"There are only so many judges available to hear and decide cases," said 9th
Circuit clerk Cathy Catterson, adding that appellate cases used to take about
six months to complete; now they can take about nine months.
"We feel overloaded by this problem," said Dorothy Nelson, another 9th Circuit
judge. "It's just extraordinary. I've been on the court for 25 years, but I've
never seen a rush … overwhelming us like this. Frankly, the immigration system
needs to be reformed."
The cases inundating the circuit courts are coming from the Board of Immigration
Appeals, a quasi-judicial body appointed by the U.S. attorney general.
The mounting workload has prompted federal judges to criticize the BIA's work in
uncharacteristically blunt terms.
"The BIA's decision was nonsensical," a 9th Circuit panel wrote in March of an
asylum case. "Not only was the BIA's opinion an example of sloppy adjudication,
it contravened considerable precedent."
Many people caught entering the country illegally never appear in the nation's
53 immigration courts, which primarily deal with those hoping to obtain asylum
or avoid deportation.
In those courts asylum-seekers testify about persecution they suffered in their
home countries, hoping a judge will allow them to stay here. Other immigrants
fight to remain in the United States after a criminal conviction makes them
eligible for possible deportation.
Still others petition immigration courts to change their residency status from
temporary to permanent. Petitioners who disagree with an immigration judge's
ruling may appeal to the Virginia-based BIA.
The sharp rise in BIA decisions being appealed to the circuit courts has been
triggered by several factors:
• Overall immigration is up, increasing the pool of potential petitioners.
According to an analysis of census figures by the Washington-based Center for
Immigration Studies, the immigrant population, both legal and illegal, reached
more than 34 million in March 2004 — an increase of 4.3 million just since 2000.
• Tougher enforcement of immigration laws has also funneled more cases into the
system.
• The BIA's duties were curtailed and its size halved, from 23 to 11 members,
as a cost-saving measure in 2002.
The caseload now clogging the federal courts was, in large part, an unintended
consequence of attempts to ease a backlog at the BIA, which had 57,200 cases
pending in 2002.
That year, then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft issued policies intended to clear the
logjam, saying the backlog "gravely undermines the enforcement of our country's
immigration laws."
To speed up the process for certain cases, Ashcroft directed the BIA to either
approve cases or send them back to immigration courts outright. In the past, the
BIA often researched and wrote new opinions.
This "streamlined approach" was designed to expedite matters for aliens entitled
to stay in the country, said officials at the Executive Office of Immigration
Review, a unit of the Department of Justice.
The officials, who responded to questions in writing, added that the reforms
also hastened the deportation of illegal immigrants, "some of whom posed a
threat to our nation."
In the wake of Ashcroft's reforms, the BIA increasingly issued one-sentence
rulings endorsing or remanding immigration judges' decisions. These "affirmances
without opinion" made up 6% of the board's decisions in 2001 and a third of all
decisions three years later.
At the BIA, the reforms are indeed speeding up the disposition of cases, but the
faster pace has been accompanied by more decisions siding with the government,
records show. Five years ago, the BIA ruled in favor of immigrant appeals 9% of
the time. By 2003, immigrants won their appeals 6% of the time.
Critics say the BIA reforms have hobbled the agency and eroded an important
level of review for immigration cases.
"Why even have a BIA? You might as well go from the judge to the [circuit] court
and save the person the money of having to go to the BIA," said Los Angeles
immigration lawyer Carl Shusterman.
One statistic sums up the growing dissatisfaction with the BIA. Before the
reforms, about 5% of board decisions were appealed to circuit courts, according
to immigration officials. Now 25% reach the federal courts.
Raul Godinez, chairman of the Southern California chapter of the American
Immigration Lawyers Assn., echoed that view. "Individuals want to know that
they've had their day in court, and they want to make sure they've been
understood," he said.
Some immigration attorneys acknowledged that the generally liberal reputation of
the 9th Circuit and its willingness to challenge rulings by immigration judges
and the BIA often influenced their decision to appeal to the court.
But more important are a case's merits, a client's willingness to continue a
legal fight and the 9th Circuit's expertise, said Edward W. Pilot, a Beverly
Hills-based immigration lawyer.
"I have much more confidence in the wisdom and decision-making process of the
9th Circuit justices than I do in the Board of Immigration Appeals judges,"
Pilot said.
Jurists, legal scholars and immigration lawyers interviewed argued that the BIA
reforms have come at the expense of the nation's circuit courts.
The Executive Office of Immigration Review acknowledged that view:
"Some have argued that the Board's use of affirmances without opinion is the
cause of the increase in the rate of appeal, because aliens are not satisfied
with those decisions and feel they have been given short shrift in the
administrative review process," wrote agency officials.
Recently appointed Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales acknowledged that immigration
cases were beginning to bog down the federal judiciary. In a speech before
Stanford University's Hoover Institution in March, he said federal courts were
"straining under the weight of an immigration litigation system that is broken."
Gonzales urged Congress to propose legislation to address the problem — a remark
that prompted a rebuke from Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking
Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
In a written statement, Leahy said the problem was caused by Ashcroft's
"misguided restructuring of the Board of Immigration Appeals."
One result of the changes, according to circuit court officials, is a new role
for the appellate courts. The BIA's reliance on one-sentence opinions has forced
circuit courts to spend more time researching and deliberating the immigration
cases that come to them, court officials say.
"The BIA used to set forth reasoning as to why they affirmed the immigration
judge," said Catterson, the 9th Circuit clerk. "Now if they affirm, you often
don't know what the grounds are. Basically, the appeals courts now have to serve
in the role of the BIA."
That practice has laid bare the deficiencies of immigration courts, where
overloaded administrative law judges often serve as their own clerks — recording
their own hearings, doing their own research and often ruling from the bench.
"Immigration judges have begun to look really bad in the circuit court decisions
because the BIA used to review things. We were encouraged to do things in a
short-and-dirty manner, knowing that the BIA would return them if we went too
far," said San Francisco-based Immigration Judge Dana Leigh Marks, president of
the 220-member immigration judges union.
"Now, the BIA is issuing all of these affirmances without opinion and we have no
resources to do a top-notch job from the beginning," Marks said. "We're like the
guy behind the curtain in 'The Wizard of Oz,' for God's sake."
Several circuit courts have departed from their usual decorum to blast the BIA
for failing to explain decisions or correct mistakes by immigration judges.
A ruling by a 9th Circuit three-judge panel in March had this to say about a BIA
ruling involving a man who claimed he fled ethnic persecution in Guatemala:
"When the agency's only explanation of its final action is incoherent, we may
not substantively review it without violating basic principles of judicial
review."
At a conference attended by federal appellate judges, BIA members and other
immigration law officials last year, Hawkins, of the 9th Circuit, suggested that
judges in his court had become so frustrated with the poor quality of many
immigration judge decisions that they had considered shaming them into better
practice.
"The largest applause line I got the entire time I spoke was when I said our
circuit was considering identifying [poor performing] immigration judges by name
in our opinions," Hawkins recalled.
Circuit court and immigration judges interviewed estimated that the appeals
courts are now reversing a greater proportion of cases than before the BIA
restructuring, although statistics on the issue have not been compiled.
"The conventional wisdom is that the elimination of one level of review has
resulted in more remands," said Mary Schroeder, chief justice of the 9th
Circuit.
The BIA, however, is cutting back on its workload.
That 57,200-case backlog faced by the BIA a few years ago was reduced, as of
March, to 32,100. It's a workload the agency views as manageable.
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Immigration appeals soar
Since reforms to the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2002,
appeals to the U.S. Circuit Courts have greatly increased. The U.S. 9th Circuit
OF Appeals bears the biggest burden.
--
Immigration appeals
More than a third of the 13,682 appeals filed at the 9th Circuit Court between
June 2003 and June 2004 were from the BIA. The BIA caseload is even higher now,
officials say.
All other appeals 65%
BIA appeals 35%
--
Moving through the system
The steps a case takes as it moves through the immigration appeals system:
1. Immigration court
Many people go to immigration court to seek asylum or to avoid deportation.
Others hope to change their visa status so they can stay in the United States
longer. If judge rejects claim, applicant is ordered deported.
2. Board of Immigration Appeals
Immigrant can petition the BIA to review case. If BIA agrees with judge,
immigrant can appeal the decision.
3. U.S. Court of Appeals
If court decides to hear case and rules in immigrantŐs favor, case is sent back
to immigration judge to make corrections and issue a new ruling.
Sources: Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Executive Office of
Immigration Review,
http://www.uscourts.gov .
Graphics reporting by Solomon Moore
*********
The Truth About Illegal Immigrants
Michael
Hiltzik
Golden State
December 15,
2005
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden15dec15,0,2079870.column?coll=la-home-business
No issue jerks the knees of Californians — indeed, all Americans — as much as
illegal immigration and its effect on the state and the nation. One reason that
it tends to elicit pre-programmed responses across the political spectrum is
that the information available on the subject has traditionally been of two
kinds: bad and nonexistent.
The slack is normally taken up by cant and supposition: Illegal immigrants take
jobs from native workers, drive down or hold down wages, impose a uniquely heavy
cost on society and so on. For the most part, these are perceptions masquerading
as conclusions, which is not to say that they should be lightly dismissed. They
drive the politics of immigration, after all, and thus influence the prospects
of immigration reform.
So it's encouraging that a panel of state economic officials and other leaders
is about to receive a dose of actual facts about illegal immigration and its
effect on the state. The instrument is a report prepared by the Center for the
Continuing Study of the California Economy, an independent think tank in Palo
Alto, which will be presented today in Sacramento to the state's Economic
Strategy Panel. This 15-member group is appointed by the governor and
legislative leaders and chaired by Victoria L. Bradshaw, secretary of the state
labor and workforce development agency.
What's important about the report is that by deflating numerous myths about
illegal immigration it underscores the genuine issues and points us toward the
best policies to address them. Chief among its findings is this: Immigration,
legal or illegal, while imposing net fiscal costs on this state, produces a net
economic benefit for the country.
The imbalance between national economic gains and local fiscal costs reminds us
that the federal government's evasion of its responsibility to help states and
municipalities with the staggering costs of hosting illegal immigrants —
especially in the education, healthcare and criminal justice systems — is
inexcusable. There has always been an abstract recognition of this
responsibility in Washington, but until federal lawmakers understand that the
nation genuinely benefits from immigrant labor, it will always remain abstract.
(In other words, underfunded.)
The center's report is not a brief for illegal immigration. "As an economist, I
have nothing to say about the argument that 'illegal is illegal,' " Steven Levy,
the center's director, told me this week. On the other hand, he says, the report
"repudiates that there are wide pockets of poverty and imbalance in the
California economy due to immigrants. They're fitting in."
The study focuses largely on the California economy since 1990. The date is
significant because it marks the beginning of the illegal immigration flood
tide; just over half the state's legal immigrants arrived before 1990, but about
86% of the 2.4 million illegal immigrants living in the state today have arrived
since then. (They're currently arriving at a net rate of 75,000 to 100,000 a
year, mostly from Mexico and other Latin American countries.)
The researchers looked at several economic trends in that period. They found
that California unemployment, which was as much as 3% higher than the national
rate during and after the recession of the early 1990s, largely closed the gap
after 1994. By this year, it was nearly identical to its rate in 1990.
Average wage levels in the state, in contrast with those in the nation, have
soared. In 1990, the report says, the average wage was 10.9% above the national
average. By 2004 it had moved to 13.4% above the average. Meanwhile, job growth
has remained strong — exceeding the national rate from 1994 to 2000 and pacing
it since then.
Clearly, California has remained an impressive economic engine throughout the
period of heavy illegal immigration. It's worth noting that the period includes
two major economic setbacks — the aerospace-driven recession of the early 1990s
in Southern California and the 2000 tech bust in the Bay Area — without which
California might well have had the rest of the country eating its economic dust.
Of course, neither bust can be remotely traceable to immigration.
What about whether illegal immigrants are displacing native-born Americans in
the job force? The arriving workers are concentrated in a few low-wage sectors —
although they comprise 4.3% of the U.S. workforce, in 2004 they held 19% of jobs
in farming, 17% in cleaning and 11% to 12% in food preparation and construction.
But there's no evidence that they've increased native unemployment or
significantly suppressed wages in those trades. A 1997 study by the National
Academy of Sciences cited by the new report found only a "weak relationship"
between the number of immigrants and native wages. A report this year by the
president's Council of Economic Advisors placed the effect at less than 1% in
wages for every 10% increase in the number of immigrant workers. In any event,
California's minimum wage ($6.75 an hour) sets a floor on how much an unskilled
worker can be paid.
The virtue of the center's analysis is that, unlike most other surveys, it's not
a snapshot of immigration's near-term effect. It shows that, on average,
immigrants rise on the socioeconomic scale the longer they're in the country, as
do subsequent generations. The more successful they are, of course, the better
it is for the general economy.
Implicitly, this calls for a realistic immigration policy — not necessarily a
full amnesty for those who came here illegally, but some recognition that their
presence sets the groundwork for a fuller contribution to the economy, such as a
guest worker program with the promise of a green card under certain
circumstances — very like the Bush administration's proposed temporary worker
program, but perhaps more generous.
In the long run, won't that be more profitable than trying to corral them all
and ship them home, only to wonder once they're gone how to fill the jobs they
were doing while they were here?
**************
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
New York Times
February 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/national/04halliburton.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary immigration detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been criticized for overcharging the Pentagon for its work in Iraq.
KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space, company executives said. KBR, which announced the contract last month, had a similar contract with immigration agencies from 2000 to last year.
The contract with the Corps of Engineers runs one year, with four optional one-year extensions. Officials of the corps said that they had solicited bids and that KBR was the lone responder.
A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jamie Zuieback, said KBR would build the centers only in an emergency like the one when thousands of Cubans floated on rafts to the United States. She emphasized that the centers might never be built if such an emergency did not arise.
"It's the type of contract that could be used in some kind of mass migration," Ms. Zuieback said.
A spokesman for the corps, Clayton Church, said that the centers could be at unused military sites or temporary structures and that each one would hold up to 5,000 people.
"When there's a large influx of people into the United States, how are we going to feed, house and protect them?" Mr. Church asked. "That's why these kinds of contracts are there."
Mr. Church said that KBR did not end up creating immigration centers under its previous contract, but that it did build temporary shelters for Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
Federal auditors rebuked the company for unsubstantiated billing in its Iraq reconstruction contracts, and it has been criticized because of accusations that Halliburton, led by Dick Cheney before he became vice president, was aided by connections in obtaining contracts. Halliburton executives denied that they charged excessively for the work in Iraq.
Mr. Church said concerns about the Iraq contracts did not affect the awarding of the new contract.
Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, who has monitored the company, called the contract worrisome.
"With Halliburton's ever expanding track record of overcharging, it's hard to believe that the administration has decided to entrust Halliburton with even more taxpayer dollars," Mr. Waxman said. "With each new contract, the need for real oversight grows."
In recent months, the Homeland Security Department has promised to increase bed space in its detention centers to hold thousands of illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. In the first quarter of the 2006 fiscal year, nearly 60 percent of the illegal immigrants apprehended from countries other than Mexico were released on their own recognizance.
Domestic security officials have promised to end the releases by increasing the number of detention beds. Last week, domestic security officials announced that they would expand detaining and swiftly deporting illegal immigrants to include those seized near the Canadian border.
Advocates for immigrants said they feared that the new contract was another indication that the government planned to expand the detention of illegal immigrants, including those seeking asylum.
"It's pretty obvious that the intent of the government is to detain more and more people and to expedite their removal," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami.
Ms. Zuieback said the KBR contract was not intended for that.
"It's not part of any day-to-day enforcement," she said.
She added that she could not provide additional information about the company's statement that the contract was also meant to support the rapid development of new programs.
Halliburton executives, who announced the contract last week, said they were pleased.
"We are especially gratified to be awarded this contract," an executive vice president, Bruce Stanski, said in a statement, "because it builds on our extremely strong track record in the arena of emergency management support."
***********
The Onion
MEXICO CITY—As dozens of major American corporations continue to move their manufacturing operations to Mexico, waves of job-seeking Mexican immigrants to the United States have begun making the deadly journey back across the border in search of better-paying Mexican-based American jobs.
"I came to this country seeking the job I sought when I first left this country," said Anuncio Reyes, 22, an undocumented worker who recrossed the U.S. border into Mexico last month, three years after leaving Mexico for the United States to work as an agricultural day laborer. "I spent everything I had to get back here. Yes, it was dangerous, and I miss my home. But as much as I love America, I have to go where the best American jobs are."
Reyes now works as a spot-welder on the assembly line of a Maytag large-appliance plant and earns $22 a day, most of which he sends back to his family in the U.S., who in turn send a portion of that back to the original family they left in Mexico. Like many former Mexican-Americans forced by circumstance to become American-Mexicans, Reyes dreams of one day bringing his relatives to Mexico so that they, too, may secure American employment in Mexico.
Despite the considerable risk illegal immigrants face in returning across the border, many find the lure of large U.S. factory salaries hard to resist—at 15 percent of the pay of corresponding jobs in America, these positions pay three times what Mexican jobs do.
Still, the danger is very real. When 31-year-old illegal Arizona resident Ignacio Jimenez sought employment at an American plant in Mexico, he was shot at by Mexican border guards as he attempted to illegally enter the country of his citizenship, pursued by U.S. immigration officials who thought he might be entering the country illegally, and fired upon again by a second group of U.S. Border Patrol agents charged with keeping valuable table-busing and food-delivery personnel inside American borders.
"It was a nightmare," Jimenez said. "Many became disoriented and panicked, and some were mixed in with immigrants going the other way across the Rio Grande and ended up swimming to the wrong country."
He added: "My cousin almost drowned. They fished him out and sent him back to wash dishes at T.G.I. Friday's."
Many say the trip across the border as illegal Mexican-American emigrants offers them a chance to land the American jobs in Mexico they never have been able to get as illegal Mexican-American immigrants in the U.S.
"It has always been my goal to have a good American job," Johnson Controls technician Camilla Torres, 27, said. "Many Mexicans now see Mexico as the land of opportunity. Mexicans will not stop trying to get here, no matter how much the Mexicans wish we would not."
Indeed, the trend of illegal re-emigration is causing great resentment among the local Mexican population, and tension between Mexicans and illegally re-entered Mexicans—dubbed repatriados—continues to build.
"I hate these Mexicans, always coming back here to Mexico from America and taking American jobs from the Mexicans who stayed in Mexico," said 55-year-old former Goodyear factory manager Juan-Miguel Diaz, who lost his job to a better-trained repatriado last March. "Why don't they go back to where they went to?"
Still, Jimenez, Reyes, and hundreds of others say they have no choice.
"The American Dream is alive and well in Mexico," Reyes said. "If I work hard, save my money, and plan well, I will be able to send my children to a good school—and who knows? If they study hard, perhaps they will get jobs someday at the new plant General Motors is building in China."
**************
Dehumanizing the Undocumented
By TANYA MARIA
GOLASH-BOZA
and DOUGLAS A. PARKER
May 15, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/golash05152006.html
Increasing numbers of undocumented people are entering the United States and other western countries. During a recent France Deux evening newscast, a Haitian who had entered that part of France (Guyane) which is in South America, declared, "I have children. I need to work. Do you want me to steal?"
In European France, a debate has started concerning the "selected immigration" bill introduced by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. The bill would make it easier for scientists and other skilled workers to enter France and make it harder for less skilled workers to do so. The bill would also overturn or reduce the existing rights of immigrants in France; for example, other family members might not be allowed entry.
In the United States, current House and Senate proposals to stem the tide of immigrants and thereby fix the immigration "problem" either criminalize undocumented workers or transform them into temporary workers. This dehumanizes undocumented immigrants and creates a more racist society. Both congressional proposals are flawed and fail to recognize immigrants' human rights.
The US needs an immigration reform that both takes into account the country's role in encouraging migration and assumes responsibility for that role by granting immigrants legal status.
The current flows of immigration into the United States are a result of the actions of the US government and US-based corporations. As Midnight Noters and Friends point out, US neoliberal policies open the global economy "to the free entry and exit of foreign capital" which results in the decline of income for most workers and the use of force and repression, especially in some countries where the workers are already impoverished (See: midnightnotes.org/). Blau and Moncada note that, "Multinationals such as Wal-Mart, Sears, and Tarrant Appeal Group first set up operations in Mexico, where workers are paid $1.00 per hour, then moved to China, where workers make $.50 an hour, and then to Bangladesh, where workers make $.30 an hour, and then to Mozambique, where they make even less" (Human Rights; Beyond the Liberal Vision, 2005, p. 102). Each time a transnational corporation moves its factories from one country to another, a displaced worker population is created, which is more likely to become transnational itself.
Over half of the immigrants who legally entered the country in 2003 came from just ten countries: Mexico, India, the Philippines, China, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Colombia, Guatemala, and Russia. These are all countries with which the U.S. has had important relationships, either through foreign direct investment or military intervention. One of the main reasons that foreign direct investment increases emigration is that it either forces or promotes migration from the rural areas to the urban areas. People who previously survived as subsistence farmers are drawn to the cities to work, and then eventually enticed or forced to emigrate by changing economic or political conditions. The top three countries sending unauthorized immigrants were Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala; the four principal sources of refugees were Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Cuba. These flows are also due to US military intervention, direct foreign investment by US corporations, and the presence of people from those countries already residing in the United States (Sassen, Globalization and Its Discontents, 1998). It should be noted that neither of the US congressional proposals to reduce illegal immigration suggest changing or limiting US involvement in the global economy or US intervention in foreign countries.
There are at least 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Any plan as to what to do about this special population must take into account its sheer size.
The Sensenbrenner bill--HR 4437--proposes that these 11 million people be converted into felons, and detained or deported. That is simply not realistic and it is not going to happen. Undocumented immigrants make up nearly 15 percent of the workers in a number of industries, including farming and food services. The removal of 15 percent of the workers in any industry would have serious consequences for the economy and for daily life. If there is any group that should be criminalized, it is the employers who exploit and endanger workers and who do not provide a living wage.
The McCain-Kennedy bill proposes a "path to citizenship," which, although it sounds better than a massive detention or deportation, constructs a treacherous path. Under this plan, undocumented workers can apply for a temporary work visa that is valid for six years. If they qualify, they will receive a work and travel authorization. After six years, they have to reapply in order to qualify for permanent status. At that point, they will have a security background check, pay substantial fines, and must meet English and civics requirements. (The immigration bill recently introduced by Sarkozy would require French language skills.)
The McCain-Kennedy proposal would cause people to live in uncertainty and fear for several years. It also could put immense stress on families. Suppose, for example, the immigrants' children, who have been attending school, pass this requirement, but the parents, who live in an immigrant enclave, fail to pass the test. Or, as another potential example, a father who works outside the home passes, while his wife, who works in the home fails. This sort of program would deny people the basic human right of being with their families. Alternatively, it would force children who have lived their whole lives in the US to be transplanted to Mexico.
What these reform bills are missing is a recognition that undocumented immigrants are not in the United States simply because they chose to break US law and cross borders. The idea that undocumented immigrants are criminals is a pernicious one; it portrays US citizens as dignified human beings with full political and economic rights, and immigrants as undignified others who do not deserve very much at all. Of course, entering the country without proper documentation is against the law, but so is jaywalking or driving without a license in one's possession. The question of how serious a crime it is to cross the border without permission or to overstay your tourist visa is highly subjective, and the criminalization of this particular law-breaking behavior is unwarranted. It is telling that the employers who employ undocumented immigrants are also breaking the law, but they have not been portrayed as criminals.
Another portrayal of undocumented immigrants is as people "willing to do jobs that Americans do not want." This, too, is dehumanizing and fails to hold employers accountable for low wages, bad working conditions, and the lack of benefits. This portrayal also characterizes undocumented workers as lesser beings who have lower standards for their jobs than people with proper documentation. A more appropriate description would be that the lack of proper documentation allows employers to abuse workers, to pay them lower wages, and to keep them in unsafe working conditions.
Take the meatpacking industry, for example, where at least 15 percent of the workforce consists of undocumented workers. Up until the 1990s, employees in the meatpacking industry were primarily US born white and black Americans. Over the past 15 years, the workforce has shifted to being primarily made up of Hispanic immigrants. It is hard to imagine that there have been fundamental changes in the US born population that would suddenly render them unwilling to work in the meatpacking industry. It is less hard to imagine that there have been fundamental changes in the industry itself. The trend in the meatpacking industry has been to close plants where workers had organized into unions and won higher wages and benefits, and open up new plants and recruit a more vulnerable workforce. When Human Rights Watch conducted a study of the meatpacking industry they found that workers who tried to form trade unions and bargain collectively were "spied on, harassed, pressured, threatened, suspended, fired, deported or otherwise victimized for their exercise of the right to freedom of association"
They also found that many companies took advantage of workers' immigration status and lack of knowledge of their rights in the US to deny them their rights as workers. Overall, they found that the meatpacking industry is characterized by unsafe working conditions, very high rates of injury, and constant abuse from superiors.
Some of the US government proposals being debated suggest extending the guest worker program, which has a long record of violations of labor rights and standards, including blacklists and deportations of workers who protest. Guest worker programs and temporary worker programs create a vulnerable workforce that allows companies to keep wages low and to break union organizing efforts. These programs extract labor from immigrants without regard to their human rights. Temporary workers are prevented from putting down roots and becoming full and equal members of our communities.
These immigration programs are fashioned and implemented to create a reserve army of low-wage laborers without rights. While this sort of labor immigration is extremely beneficial economically for employers which are constantly seeking cheap labor, it tends to hold down and reduce the wages for all workers. Although clearly it is the case that immigrant labor is needed in order to sustain the US economy, immigration reform must be accompanied by labor reform. Both workers who can work legally and workers who are undocumented need a living wage, safe working conditions, and pension and health benefits, and they need to be treated with respect and dignity.
From a human rights perspective, all human beings should have the right to food security, to decent health care, to safe working conditions, to education, to a family, to their cultural identity, and to fight and organize for their rights. The creation of a temporary worker program that permits workers to come to the US only to work for low wages and no benefits, and does not permit them to bring their families, to send their children to school, and to form communities is not a program that should receive our support.
Blau and Moncada comment that "American leaders have always drawn on the exceptionalist argument, which is rooted in the idea that America has a unique mission to inspire and transform the world" (Justice in the United States; Human Rights and the US Constitution, 2006, p. 61). We need to advance another exceptionalist argument: that the national borders of the US and other western countries should be open to people who are without rights in their own countries in part because of the neoliberal economic and military interventionist policies and practices of western countries. As the SSF website states, many of the problems people in other countries face "were created by colonialism and capitalism, and aggravated by globalization." This new kind of "exceptionalism" would mean that national sovereignty in terms of setting rules about borders should be limited given the history of the United States, France, Spain, Portugal and other western countries. The US, for example, has a history of slavery, genocide, and internment where African-Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans are concerned, in addition to its history of colonial acquisitions in the Pacific Ocean, and its long history of interventions in Latin America. An alternative term to exceptionalism would be "reparations" but one notable shortcoming with the use of this term is that it tends to shift attention from the political and economic systems which created the problems to the recipients of the reparations and thus tends to be divisive for many people.
This is not to say that there is not an issue of border security. There is. As much as the US and other western countries are responsible for the hatred which Islamic terrorists have for us because of the ongoing efforts to maintain some control over oil in the Middle East and for other reasons, the terrorist groups are sending their warriors to western countries to inflict harm on civilians. New York, London, Madrid and other locations have already been attacked by terrorists. There is a need for defense systems against those who would smuggle in through ports or land borders dirty bombs, chemical or biological weapons or hydrogen bombs. Fences will not keep terrorists or other well-organized groups out; they can fly planes over them or dig tunnels under them.
But poor immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, or other countries in the Global South that walk across deserts, swim across rivers, or climb over fences are a different population. They have families, they need jobs, and they do not want to steal. Very few of them, if any, are terrorists. We do ourselves as well as the immigrants an incredible disservice if we allow western governments and their corporate sponsors to portray them as inferior and inhuman. We must go on record as being against all efforts to denigrate undocumented immigrants.
Migration is a phenomenon that affects people both in sending and receiving states, and therefore must be part of an international forum, an international and borderless movement. Consequently, discussions about migration should not be restricted nor controlled by States, but by civil societies where "membership" would mean different transnational solidarities such as social movement global networks (and not those from Multinational Corporations, International Agencies and Banks).
The current US and French immigration proposals are a threat to human rights and promise to create a more racist society. In France, the far right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has announced that he will compete with Sarkozy in the 2007 Presidential election. Le Pen, who has been found guilty of inciting racial hatred by telling a newspaper in 2003 that Muslims would someday run France and cause fear and trembling among the non-Muslim population, may not draw off enough votes from Sarkozy in the Presidential election to keep him out of office. If Sarkozy wins the election, we can expect a continuation of what Bourdieu called the Neoliberal Utopia (Becoming a Reality) of Unlimited Exploitation--a continuation of state and corporate policies that keep reducing labor costs and withdrawing the state from a number of sectors of social life for which it was previously responsible such as social housing, public service broadcasting, schools and hospitals (Acts of Resistance, 1998, pp. 2, 95).
If we ask ourselves why undocumented workers are so easily dehumanized in the US, we can remind ourselves of the legacy of racism of this country. Although undocumented workers are of many colors and creeds, and, although more than half of the undocumented workers in the US are not from Mexico, and about a quarter are not even from Latin America, the image that is most often portrayed in the media of an undocumented worker is that of a brown person. By criminalizing and dehumanizing undocumented workers, we are creating a society in which all brown people will be seen as potential criminals, as not worthy of the same rights as other Americans. In the US, just as the post 9-11 legislation in the US made it almost a crime to look like an Arab, the current US proposals could make it almost a crime to look Mexican.
Tanya Golash-Boza is an Assistant Professor Department of Sociology and Program in American Studies at the University of Kansas.
Douglas A. Parker is a professor of Sociology at Cal State University at Long Beach. Both are members of Sociologists Without Borders.
They can be reached at: Tanyaboza@gmail.com
***********
A town that wants illegal immigrants
A California citrus town hit hard by cold whether badly needs labor -- legal or illegal.
Gregory
Rodriguez
Los Angeles Times
February 11, 2007
Lindsay, Calif. — THE IMMIGRATION debate can get pretty sloppy and emotional in
the abstract, but not here in this Central Valley town that can't afford to let
simplistic rhetoric overshadow facts. Last month's devastating citrus freeze has
put Lindsay, population 11,185, in dire economic straits; but its pragmatic
response to the crisis sets an example for the rest of the nation.
The packing houses here in the heart of California's citrus belt are generally
hopping the first week of February. In a normal year, the two LoBue Bros. plants
would be open 50 to 60 hours a week, employing 230 workers and processing up to
7,000 bins of oranges. But after last month's freeze, the third since 1990,
LoBue is operating at quarter speed. One plant is shut down, and the other is
running just 20 hours a week. About 60% of the employees are off work.
After the first of March, there will be a brief spurt of activity, when
agricultural officials determine which remaining oranges are frost-free and good
enough to go to market. But by mid-April, when the good fruit runs out, all
activity, from picking to trucking, will stop, and there will be no more work
until late October. If workers leave town — and if those who stay are jobless —
the city's economy will collapse.
Seeking to avert an economic meltdown, officials have come up with an innovative
plan to not only address joblessness but to keep the workforce from abandoning
the town. Invoking the memory of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Depression-era Works
Projects Administration, the city's elected officials — all of whom are
Republicans — are seeking federal aid to put the idle labor force to work on
local improvement efforts.
The fact that a large-yet-undetermined percentage of farm laborers —
particularly pickers — are illegal immigrants does not deter local officials
from seeking aid for them. Unlike other parts of the U.S. where undocumented
immigration is a divisive issue, in Lindsay it is a matter of economic survival.
In a city-owned youth club on Sweetbriar Avenue, officials and local nonprofits
have set up the Lindsay Freeze Relief Center, where displaced workers can apply
for food, clothing, rental and utility assistance, as well as for temporary
employment. In its first week of operation, more than 1,200 workers applied.
Last Tuesday afternoon, I watched a stream of Mexican immigrants stroll into the
center, some with children in tow, looking for assistance.
Longtime Lindsay residents who have raised children here were likely to say that
they would weather the hardship no matter what. But recent immigrants said they
would leave if they didn't find work soon. "I'm thinking of leaving," said
27-year old Maria Cisneros from the Mexican state of Michoacan. Where to?
"Wherever there's work," she replied.
Growers and labor contractors will tell you that the area can't afford to lose
more workers. Some say that the current farm labor shortage — of as much as 50%
— made the effects of last month's freeze worse than it otherwise would have
been. The recent crackdown on the border is being felt in this corner of the
Central Valley.
"If we had more workers, we could have picked up to 75% of the crop," said
Lindsay-born labor contractor Alice Gutierrez. Growers had a week's notice that
the freeze, which caused an estimated $418 million in damage in Tulare County
alone, was imminent.
Lindsay Mayor Ed Murray says the worst-case scenario is that the town could lose
up to 30% of its labor force. "Regardless of whether they're legal or illegal,
it's imperative that we have workers here for next year's harvest," he said.
Murray hopes that the federal government will find a way to not only aid his
town's residents in the short term but to legalize the undocumented.
Given the divisiveness of the national debate, it is remarkable how many people
here recognize the need for the workers who have come to this country illegally.
Perhaps not surprisingly, business people, who already are feeling the pain of
the freeze, are most likely to make the case.
"It helps all of us," said 71-year-old Bill Martin, who owns a tire shop in
town. "I don't particularly care for illegal people in the U.S., but if they
come in and want to buy a tire, I'll accommodate them. If you don't have people
come, you won't get the fruit picked. And if the fruit doesn't get picked,
nobody will have money to buy anything."
Of course, Lindsay is not the only town to try to soften the blow to
farmworkers. But what makes its response extraordinary is that city officials
are not just looking to solve residents' or employers' immediate needs. They
have identified seven public works projects that could benefit from temporary
labor — from building a new soccer field to clearing alleyways and constructing
a library.
"We're trying to be farsighted about this and improve the community in the long
term," said Kindon Meik, the city's personnel director. "When people invest
their labor, they are more vested in the town."
I suspect that much of Lindsay's innovative spirit comes from the knowledge that
it has survived much worse. In 1992 — two years after a catastrophic freeze —
residents gathered in a local park to bury a coffin containing symbols of the
town's financial troubles.
That decade, Lindsay saw its share of white flight and the complete ethnic
transformation of the population, which is now 78% Latino. But today, it is
clear that the town has thus far survived the transition, and three of five City
Council members are Mexican American. Consequently, race doesn't appear to play
a big role in the city's approach to issues, including immigration. And so,
stripped of the racial and broader ideological implications of the problem
before them, Lindsay officials are free to do what they think is right for their
little town. Or as citrus grower and Tulare County Supervisor Allen Ishida put
it, "We don't have the luxury of not being practical."
***************
Border Crossers Rarely Prosecuted
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press
Mar 22, 2007
Guidelines issued by U.S. attorneys in Texas showed that most illegal immigrants crossing into the state had to be arrested at least six times before federal authorities would prosecute them, according to an internal Justice Department memo.
The disclosure provides a rare view of how federal authorities attempt to curb illegal immigration. The memo was released this week in response to a congressional investigation of the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys.
The Border Patrol makes more than 1 million arrests a year on the U.S.-Mexico border. T.J. Bonner, head of a union representing Border Patrol agents, said it's unrealistic to prosecute all violators.
"Let's be honest, there isn't enough jail space to incarcerate everyone who crosses that border," said Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council. "If everyone demanded hearing in front of an immigration judge, it would bring our system to a grinding halt in a matter of days."
It is unclear when the memo was written, but the Justice Department reviewed the guidelines sometime after a February 2005 performance review of Carol Lam, the top federal prosecutor in San Diego from 2002 until she was fired last month. Some Republican lawmakers had complained that Lam failed to aggressively prosecute immigration violations.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Thursday that immigration prosecutions are a high priority and that the government sent 30 additional attorneys to the border region in the second half of 2006. He said U.S. attorneys set guidelines that, in part, reflect local crime issues and staffing.
"Increasing the number of prosecutors will permit districts to adjust their guidelines and take in more cases," he said. "For law enforcement reasons, the department cannot discuss what the present prosecutorial guidelines are concerning the border."
The memo was written in response to Justice Department inquiries about immigration prosecutions by the five U.S. attorney offices that cover the 2,000-mile border - San Diego, Phoenix, San Antonio, Houston and Albuquerque, N.M.
Guidelines vary by office, but migrants with no criminal records who have not been deported by an immigration judge will almost certainly be turned back to Mexico "numerous times" before getting prosecuted, according to another Justice Department memo dated Nov. 22, 2005. Those "voluntary returns" are booked on administrative, not criminal, violations.
Parts of the other memo are blacked out, so it's unclear whether the document refers to U.S. attorneys in Houston or San Antonio.
The memo says one Texas district prosecutes migrants if the Border Patrol catches them at least six to eight times. The other district prosecutes after someone is caught at least seven times.
In late 2005, the government created a 200-mile zone near Del Rio, Texas, in which every adult arrested for illegal immigration would be prosecuted and jailed before being deported.
The San Diego office, which covers an area stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Arizona state line, does not prosecute "purely economic migrants" as a general rule, according to the memo.
The Arizona district, the nation's busiest corridor for illegal crossings, "almost certainly" declines to prosecute on a first or second offense, the memo says. The New Mexico district makes decisions based on criminal records in the U.S.
There are many exceptions to the rule, including violators with criminal records.
Representatives of all five U.S. attorney offices declined to comment.
Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, who advocates a crackdown on illegal immigration, said the Texas guidelines underscore a lax enforcement attitude. He said the federal government should contract for more jail space, perhaps with local governments.
"If you made it a priority of the department, you would see a reduction," Tancredo said.
Arizona's Paul Charlton and New Mexico's David Iglesias were also among the eight U.S. attorneys abruptly fired. Justice Department officials have said they were concerned about the prosecutors' approach to immigration cases.