Thread: Construction skid sidelines Latino immigrant workers

Construction skid sidelines Latino immigrant workers
By Susan Ferriss - sferriss@sacbee.co
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, March 30, 2008
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B3

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Jose Espinosa can't find work in the construction industry and is saddled with a $2,700-a-month mortgage payment for the Stockton home he and his wife, Maria, and son, Erick, live in. Espinosa had been working steadily as a stucco and walls craftsman.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / pkitagaki@sacbee.com


Jose Espinosa worked his way out of the strawberry fields of Central California in the early 1990s, determined to learn a profitable trade.

He did, and as a craftsman in stucco and walls, he enjoyed 12 straight years of handsomely rewarded construction work.

Six months ago he was laid off and now may lose the house he and his wife bought a couple of years ago in Stockton. They had saved $30,000 for a down payment.

"That was my life savings," said the 38-year-old legal Mexican immigrant.

Latino immigrants like Espinosa, legal and illegal, were the backbone of California's housing boom, and they are feeling the pain of what Espinosa calls "una recesion."

As housing and the economy in general cools, other less lucrative jobs also are in shorter supply, upping competition for low-paying work in factories, restaurants and other services – even for jobs in the fields.

These days in Sacramento, many of the immigrants who gather outside a gas station on Martin Luther King Boulevard – hoping for a day labor job – say they once had steady, good-paying construction work.

Salvadoran Jose Dominquez, an undocumented worker for a dozen years, said he made good money in construction.

Now he picks up only occasional jobs digging ditches, putting down pipes.

"They want us to do the tough work. They give us a jackhammer and we bust up the concrete," he said. "They pay us $10 an hour."

"Thank God my brother still has regular construction work with his boss," he said. "He's the one paying the bills now."

State employment data show a dramatic slide in construction jobs: A preliminary estimate of California's construction work force as of February of this year was 834,500, compared with 913,000 in February 2007.

About a quarter of the nation's construction workers are Latinos, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a research institute in Washington, D.C.

Pew also estimates that between 21 percent and 25 percent of U.S. construction laborers, stone and brick masons and concrete finishers in 2005 were undocumented. In California, where entire crews who built houses were often Latino, the concentration of legal and illegal Latino immigrant workers is believed to be far greater.

Jose Garcia, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, poured concrete driveways and foundations for a Sacramento contractor for five years. After that, he got a job with another contractor he said still owes him $1,570.

Garcia said he has two children in Mexico whom he supports, but he hasn't been able to send money recently.

University of California at Los Angeles economist Jerry Nickelsburg said the amount of money – or remittances – that immigrants send home is decreasing.

The volume of remittances to Mexico rose steadily for years, fueled in no small part by construction, Nickelsburg said. But remittances dropped sharply in January year to $1.6 billion, down from $2 billion in June.

Nickelsburg said it's hard to measure the true scope of job losses with the downturn since undocumented workers who work off the books are "outside our statistics." Even if they worked under Social Security numbers, he said, they don't typically claim unemployment benefits out of fear.

In Stockton, Espinosa and his wife, Maria, 38, say they are scared. They have a 6-year-old, and Maria – who usually works in the fields – is pregnant with twins and can't work this season.

Espinosa said he'll return to the fields if he has to but he won't earn enough to save the house he wanted to raise his kids in.

His mortgage is $2,700 a month, he said. When he bought the house, he was earning at least $1,000 a week building houses in the Central Valley, Sacramento and the Sierra foothills.

It was enough to make him feel secure.

"Everybody said it was a good idea to buy a house. So we got excited and did it," Espinosa said. "My problem now is not a subprime loan. My problem is there is no work."

About the writer:
Call The Bee's Susan Ferriss, (916) 321-1267.

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/821786.html

What goes around comes around. I was once a construction worker and I was sidelined a few times by the cheap illegal alien workforce.

Sorry....no pity here for illegal aliens who can lie and steal their way into savings of $30,000, a brand new home, a $2,700/ month mortgage payment and a "comfortable" life in a country they have no right being in.

Six months ago he was laid off and now may lose the house he and his wife bought a couple of years ago in Stockton. They had saved $30,000 for a down payment.

As an American Citizen, I wish I could save $30,000 for a down payment on a house. But you see, as an American Citizen, I do not have the luxury of being paid under the table because i'm obligated to pay this thing called taxes if I want to remain out of jail.

I wonder who much taxes Mr.Jose Espinosa paid in taxes over those years in which he was saving that little nest egg for a down payment on a house.

What goes up must come down. The construction industry was out of control. We are badly overbuilt as to both housing and business. I just read that in one area, blight to foreclosed homes is so bad that they are starting to tear the worst ones down. I would never have qualified for the mortgage that guy got, btw, and I am a white collar manager. Nor would I have applied, for that matter. What was he thinking?

Construction work is notrious for being up and down.

$2700 a month for a mortgage??? Thats over half his income?

Sorry, but that was a bad mistake. It all comes down to a sense of entitlement that one DESERVES it, and it always comes back to bite them later...

No jobs means no need of workers holding work visas--time to revoke the work visas even before they expire.

Originally Posted by SicNTiredInSoCal

Construction work is notrious for being up and down.

$2700 a month for a mortgage??? Thats over half his income?

Sorry, but that was a bad mistake. It all comes down to a sense of entitlement that one DESERVES it, and it always comes back to bite them later...

It sure was HIS mistake and this is the very people our government wants to bail out. I cannot help but wonder how many of the foreclosures in this country are due to illegals who should have never received home loans to begin with. I have a feeling this is much more common than we have been led to believe.

Originally Posted by azwreath

Sorry....no pity here for illegal aliens who can lie and steal their way into savings of $30,000, a brand new home, a $2,700/ month mortgage payment and a "comfortable" life in a country they have no right being in.

Actually the article said this particular person is here legally. That's good. I say hey join the economic down turn like all American citizens. Don't make it a Latino problem. What a joke. So we are going to whine about the remittances going to Mexico has gone down.

Well, I say when you stand up for people like Jaime Pickering, a supervising firefighter who was demoted because one man on his 20 man crew spoke Spanish and he didn't then I'll respect you. Not until then.

Where's the tears for American born workers who speak their country's common language and get penalized for it not the usurper who won't learn English. No! No respect from me.

Originally Posted by azwreath

Sorry....no pity here for illegal aliens who can lie and steal their way into savings of $30,000, a brand new home, a $2,700/ month mortgage payment and a "comfortable" life in a country they have no right being in.

He's a legal immigrant from Mexico. He can't find work now, and the biggest reason is illegals working his trade for less money. He said he was making $1,000 or more a week for 12 years, and then you see an illegal say he was making $10hr. Do the math, would you hire the guy who will work for $10 or the guy who wants $25hr or more?

The mortgage no doubt was around $1600 to $1800 a month at the most before the ARM went through the roof on them, and now it's $2700. They should never have qualified for that loan if their income wouldn't equal 4 to 5 times the highest mortgage payment their ARM could adjust to.

This goes all the way to the top of our gov't. The Bear Stearns bailout was done because so many banks connected to them would also fail. If you borrow $5000 from a bank and can't pay it back, You have a problem. If you borrow $5 million from a bank, the BANK has a problem -does that explain why they HAD to be bailed out?