Anger rises toward illegal immigrants
Anger rises toward illegal immigrants
By MICHAEL EASTERBROOK, Staff Writer
An e-mail message sent early this month to El Pueblo, the Hispanic advocacy group in Raleigh, gave an indication of how confrontational an issue illegal immigration has become in North Carolina.
"Illegal Aliens have no Rights to anything in the U.S. other than deportation," the message said, according to a copy forwarded by director Andrea Bazan-Manson. "TAKE YOUR MEXICAN FLAG AND STICK IT!!!."
For years, the debate over how to treat the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in the state has raged in editorial pages, panel discussions and countless other forums. Now it's moving to the legislature -- where lawmakers in the state House and Senate have introduced six bills that are provoking more discussion than ever, some of it far from polite.
"It has been percolating up from the grass roots for some time," said Andrew Taylor, a political scientist at N.C. State University. Illegal immigration, he said, "is becoming increasingly visible to people."
The latest bill unleashed a ferocious response and drew national attention from conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Introduced Tuesday, the bill would allow undocumented high school students to pay in-state tuition at North Carolina colleges and universities. Currently, they pay the more expensive out-of-state rates.
Although it was launched with the support of former Gov. Jim Hunt in the interest of economic development, the bill lost several co-sponsors in short order after people lambasted it on the radio and in e-mail messages. One of the co-sponsors who hasn't backed away, Democratic Rep. Bill Faison of Cedar Grove, said he received three e-mail messages in favor of the proposal and 15 against.
"Some of it's pretty hostile stuff," Faison said.
Other bills introduced this session would put the squeeze on illegal immigrants by denying them driver's licenses and some public benefits, and force employers who hire illegal immigrants to cover some of their medical expenses if needed.
Although none of the bills has been voted on, they have the potential to usher in changes that would be felt by most of the state's estimated 300,000 illegal immigrants.
"The issue is heating up," said state Sen. Andrew Brock, a Republican from Mocksville who co-sponsored two of the bills that would restrict illegal immigrants' privileges.
A surge of immigrants
The state's illegal immigrant population skyrocketed in the 1990s, as migrants mainly from rural Mexico began pouring across the southern border and making their way to North Carolina.
In a recent study, the Pew Hispanic Center found that from 2000 to 2004, North Carolina's illegal immigrant population grew 43 percent to 300,000 -- making it one of the fastest-growing illegal immigrant populations in the country.
Industries such as agriculture, hospitality and construction rely heavily on this growing labor pool, because the workers are willing to pick tobacco, clean tables, hang drywall and perform other unglamorous jobs for long hours at low wages.
But after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, opposition to illegal immigrants began to intensify. Grass-roots groups, politicians and commentators argued that they represented a security threat.
Fallout from 9/11
In the Triangle, two anti-immigration groups formed after the attacks -- Stop the Invasion! and N.C. LISTEN. Last year, on the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks, about 15 North Carolinians launched the Raleigh-based Americans for Legal Immigration, which advocates an end to illegal immigration.
William Gheen, 36, the group's president, said he plans to visit the North Carolina legislature daily to persuade lawmakers to block the in-state tuition bill and support the other proposals that would deny driver's licenses and some public benefits to illegal immigrants.
"If they don't act on this issue," Gheen said, "I'm convinced we'll end up like California, where they're closing hospitals and closing schools and their tax base is fleeing the state."
The frustration appears to be broadening. A poll commissioned by The News & Observer in 2003 found that nearly three-fourths of 600 respondents said Mexican workers who had entered the country illegally but were otherwise abiding by U.S. laws should not be allowed to remain.
Membership in N.C. LISTEN grew from about 50 to 200 in the past two years, said its president, Ron Woodard. And on March 31, at least three North Carolinians boarded planes bound for Arizona to participate in a nationwide rally on the border aimed at preventing foreigners from entering the country illegally.
The three men spent a week in the desert before returning. One of them, Bill Gower, 53, of Louisburg, auctioned his grandfather-in-law's coin, stamp and baseball card collection on e-Bay to raise money for the trip.
"I'm just fed up with the problems the illegals have brought," said Gower, who is unemployed.
Legislators feel heat
North Carolinians are expressing their ire to lawmakers, too, moving a sentiment that had been at the fringes to the forefront of the legislature. State Sen. Hugh Webster, a Republican from Burlington, said many of his constituents contact him on a weekly basis to complain about illegal immigration.
"They want the flood to stop," said Webster, who sponsored the Senate bill that would deny certain public benefits to illegal immigrants.
The bill, known as the Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, would also require employers who hire illegal immigrants to cover "necessary" medical expenses and demand that people show proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
It was introduced March 24 and has nine co-sponsors. A House version of the bill appeared a week later. Other bills would make it more difficult, if not impossible, for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.
Though advocate groups and liberal Democrats have been among the most vocal defenders of the rights of illegal immigrants, they aren't the only ones. President Bush has pointed out repeatedly that employers depend on illegal immigrants for labor.
Bush has proposed a guest-worker program that would give temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents 3 million businesses, supports the proposal.
And in North Carolina, two of the four primary sponsors of the in-state tuition bill are Republicans -- state Rep. John Sauls of Sanford and state Rep. Jeff Barnhart of Concord. The bill was also backed by Hunt, who called it "economically necessary" for the state.
That kind of mainstream support is one reason El Pueblo's Bazan-Manson thinks the backlash against illegal immigrants is still primarily among fringe groups, albeit vocal ones.
"In the 12 years I've been doing this, I've seen anti-immigrant groups become more active, but I believe it's a small group of folks," Bazan-Manson said. "The regular person out there has welcomed the community."
Staff writer Michael Easterbrook can be reached at 836-5701 or measterb@newsobserver.com.
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