Posted on Wed, Jun. 18, 2008
In Beaufort County, Social Services grappling with immigration laws
Migrant workers pose dilemma for aid agencies and law enforcement
By ALEXIS GARROBO
agarrobo@beaufortgazette.com

BEAUFORT — Sweat drips from workers’ bodies and brows even as the sun sets behind the 12-foot chain-link, barbed-wire fence that surrounds a Lands End migrant camp.

Workers retreat from tomato fields to about 10 migrant camps attached to various farms — Sanders Farm, Six L’s and Capers Island Farm.

About 1,000 workers travel to Beaufort County from Florida, Mexico, Honduras or Guatemala following the tomato season. And as they arrive, volunteers largely organized through The Franciscan Center on St. Helena Island pack boxes of beans, rice, cookies and other food and flock to the migrant camps to provide when many do not have food. Food waits until the first paycheck arrives.

Now, local social services say they are grappling with the effects that recent illegal immigration legislation and negative perceptions toward Hispanics have had on the number of people who seek care, and they worry about the financial support the organizations receive.

Earlier this month, Gov. Mark Sanford signed an immigration law that requires employers to verify employees’ legal status through a federal work authorization program, bans illegal immigrants from college scholarships and allows workers fired and replaced by an illegal immigrant to sue the employer.

In Beaufort County, Sheriff P.J. Tanner announced Monday that four local deputies will begin enforcing federal immigration laws after they receive training from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Foreign migrant workers are required to have temporary or permanent government permission to work, according to state and federal laws. But there is no way to pin down whether all migrant workers are legal.

According to the National Center for Farmworker Health, a recent study shows 52 percent of farmworkers are not citizens or legal residents, but another report maintains that the majority of them are legal. People who provide services to migrant workers tend to err on the legal side.

BATTLING PERCEPTION

Many local social services provide care regardless of legal status, but program leaders say the fear of legal consequences has made some migrants more hesitant to seek them out.

Roland Gardner, Beaufort-Jasper-Hampton Comprehensive Health Services executive director, said patients seeking treatment have decreased at the same time as the illegal immigration bill became law.

Patients seeking OB-GYN services, which is one of the major services provided to migrant workers, have decreased both at the Leroy E. Brown Medical Center and at Beaufort-Jasper-Hampton Comprehensive Health Services, said LaFrance Ferguson, the primary clinic physician. But center director Carolyn Davis said she could not say if the decrease could be attributed to illegal immigration policies because the clinic does not inquire about the patients’ legal status.

“Our focus is health care and public health,â€