Thread: {Sob} Immigration crackdown tears families apart

US News
Immigration crackdown tears families apart

By Andrea Hopkins Jun 13, 2007, 15:10 GMT



PAINESVILLE, Ohio - Maria de la Luz Bocanegra Velasquez was leaving for work when the U.S. immigration agents surrounded her car.

They were after another Maria but settled for arresting Velasquez, a pregnant mother of three who came illegally to this farming town from Mexico 15 years ago.

A week later, Velasquez, 33, sat in jail awaiting deportation while her partner, Antonio Ramos, tried to shelter their American-born children -- aged 12, 10 and 8 -- from the grim reality of a U.S. backlash against illegal immigrants.

Deep divisions have split this country of immigrants and President George W. Bush, a Republican, is struggling to push a broad package of immigration reforms through Congress, where opponents from both sides are balking at different details.

Across the country, raids on workplaces and homes of suspected illegal immigrants have increased. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore said some 20,000 people have been arrested since October 2006.

'Gone are the days where individuals will find a haven here,' said Palmore.

Ramos, who came to Ohio in 1977 and works legally in the area's sprawling fields, started to cry when asked whether he will take his children to Mexico to be with their mother or split the family so they can continue their U.S. education.

'I don't know what to do,' he said. 'If we go, they won't know how to read or write and they'll get jobs just like me, in the dirt, in the mud, in the heat.'

As he spoke, 10-year-old Luis lurked in a stairwell behind his father, straining to hear. His father told him his mother may be home next week, that she was filling out paperwork.

'But I know she's not coming back,' Ramos said, wiping away tears.

He brought a small bag of clothes and personal belongings to the jail, hoping Maria would have some things when she was deported. The jailer refused all but two pairs of underwear and socks, all in plain white cotton.

SOME PARENTS, SOME FUGITIVES

Palmore said the Painesville raids, which began on May 18, targeted illegal immigrants wanted for missing court dates, as well as a few wanted for crimes including a sex offense and disorderly conduct.

He said only two of the wanted immigrants were found during the operation, plus 35 others who could not prove legal status. A local immigration advocate said 42 people were arrested and that raids continued on Wednesday.

Border crackdowns had already made it harder for employers in Painesville to find workers this year.

The raids infuriated Larry Secor, a third-generation farmer who is short of labor for his tree, flower and fruit farm.

'The public in this country has no idea who's feeding them,' said Secor, 50, as he sorted fruit at his roadside store.

'People already complain that strawberries are $4 a quart. Do they want it to be $10?' he said. 'If you don't let these people come over here you'll get food from the same place we get our oil -- overseas. Do you want them to control our food supply too?'

The suggestion that immigrants take American jobs and lower U.S. wages angered Secor further.

'Americans are not raising their kids to work on their knees in the fields. My daughter's in college -- she's not going to be a farmer,' he said.

While most opponents of illegal immigration acknowledge that rounding up America's estimated 12 million undocumented workers is impossible, raids like the one in Painesville may convince some to leave voluntarily.

Rosario, a Mexican mother of four who did not want to give her full name because she is an illegal immigrant, faces the same bleak choice as Ramos -- stay in America with her children or follow her deported spouse back to Mexico.

Rosario's husband was caught in May moments after dropping their two youngest children at the babysitter. Word of the raid spread like wildfire to her factory and the local high school, where 15-year-old Saul heard his father had been caught.

'It was panic. Everyone was calling to see how the parents were,' recalled the boy, who came to Ohio when he was 7 years old after a trek through the desert with his family.

Rosario has taken extra shifts at the factory to pay the bills and Saul, who wants to study medicine or technology in college, said he will leave school to get a job as well.

But the government's capture of the head of the family will probably send the other five packing as well.

'If he can't come back, I'll have to go back,' Rosario said. 'We've been destroyed.'
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/usa/ ... lies_apart

When will they realize it not our job as Americans to take care of Mexico's population? They need to take their kids with them, and go home!

I don't know if it's the case with the farmers, but the main reason american laborers are harder to find around here is because of the fact that the majority of the field is illegals and one's wellbeing is at risk on the site.
They're quick to state the problem, but never relay the cause.

I guess this will a lesson on why it is important to obey the law!

'I don't know what to do,' he said. 'If we go, they won't know how to read or write and they'll get jobs just like me, in the dirt, in the mud, in the heat.'

You guys seem to be so ready to march in the streets by the hundreds of thousands demanding things from our country, how about trying it in your own country for a change? And you can even wave all the Mexican flags you want. It's not our fault you are invading lawbreakers who demand everything for free. Why don't you go home and demand these things from you own government?

I think that we all need to start marching on the street...Legal Immigration March! Start showing them our force.

THere was a reporter who posed as a homeless white man and tried t get a job as a day laborer the illegals threatened him and whan he tired to get on the truck they threw him off. It isn't that Americans won't take the day labor jobs the illegals won't let them.

Too bad so sad they broke the law now they have to pay.

fAMILY VALUES? THREE KIDS AND THEY ARE NOT MARRIED!