Thread: CACTUS, TEXAS Workers are town's backbone, but most are ther

CACTUS, TEXAS

Workers are town's backbone, but most are there illegally

12:00 AM CST on Sunday, November 19, 2006

First of three parts By ARNOLD HAMILTON and DEBORAH TURNER / The Dallas Morning News

CACTUS, Texas – He's known in this Panhandle outpost by an unofficial yet majestic title: "El presidente de Cactus."

His two-story Spanish villa – looking over blocks of town-center shanties – is often called "the White House." His portfolio includes the town's only grocery and laundry, at least 18 rental properties and a 575-acre ranch nearby.

It was little more than 30 years ago that Luis Aguilar slipped into this country from Mexico, eventually using a fake name, license and Social Security card to land a job at this town's sprawling beef packing plant. A decade later, he was in the right place at the right time when federal immigration reform granted him amnesty and put him on the path to citizenship.

Now, as mayor and arguably the most affluent – and influential – resident in town, he not only rents rooms and sells groceries to a new generation of illegal immigrants, but he also is paid to place them in jobs.

"I'm working like those guys are working," said the native of the state of Chihuahua. "I am helping them make money for their families. I worked just like that."

An hour's drive north of Amarillo, Cactus has an official population of 2,538. But realistically, it's closer to 5,000, and officials here estimate that three of every four residents are illegal immigrants, drawn by work in feedlots or the $11-plus hourly wages at the Swift & Co. plant.

Cactus doesn't register on most U.S. maps, but for some in Mexico and Guatemala who want a better life, it has become a destination town. Their presence has transformed the community, creating national-size problems for its small-town leaders.

As America debates immigration policy in often bipolar terms – amnesty or deportation – Cactus is living the fuzzy, everyday reality of porous borders and the competing interests behind one of the biggest demographic shifts in U.S. history: impoverished millions eager for a better life, industries ready to snap up cheap labor, federal officials impotent to act and local residents left to deal with the resulting troubles.

"We need federal help," Cactus City Manager Jeffrey Jenkins said. "Not knowing the American laws causes a lot of complications that the local government should not have to deal with."

Among those complications:

• Thieves who prey on immigrant workers carrying large sums of cash because banks won't come here;

• Fraudulent IDs that make solving crimes by and against immigrants difficult;

• Mobile homes, often crowded with more than one family, that sprout seemingly overnight in flagrant disregard of zoning laws;

• Drugs and prostitution;

• And a public school, lacking enough bilingual instructors, that resorts to total English immersion to educate the nearly 77 percent of students who speak little or no English.

The problems of illegal immigration are not unique to Cactus. Across America – especially in rural areas, where workers are sorely needed for difficult, often-dangerous, low-skill jobs – undocumented, south-of-the-border immigrants are rushing in.

But Cactus' challenges are magnified because of its size and remoteness.

Officials here teeter on a political high wire: They know the Swift plant – the town's lifeblood and the county's second-biggest taxpayer – attracts illegal immigrants by the thousands.

But they fear that increased federal and state scrutiny could jeopardize both plant and town, especially if it leads to the roundup and deportation of scores of illegal workers.

Swift officials insist they do all they legally can to verify the authenticity of their employees' documents, even participating voluntarily in a federal program aimed at spotting use of fraudulent Social Security numbers.

But that seems to be little deterrent.

"I know there are hundreds of illegals working at Swift; I see them every day," said one resident who works for a Swift contractor and agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. "They are from Guatemala and Mexico. Hundreds of them have false documents that allow them to work there."

Building a life

Today's Cactus probably isn't exactly what local leaders envisioned in 1972 when they heralded the beef plant's opening as the town's salvation.

In the beginning, its workforce was mostly local. But it didn't take long for immigrant workers to arrive – pushing aside the locals. Laotians became the dominant employee group ... only to be supplanted by Mexicans ... who are slowly but steadily being replaced by Guatemalans.

Mr. Aguilar, for one, slipped into the country near Tijuana, Mexico, on foot.

His goal? "A better life."

It was a treacherous, frightening journey from his home in Chihuahua: "When I cross the border, I think it gonna be my last one. I almost freeze to death."

An articulate man in his native language, Mr. Aguilar speaks a broken English learned on the job.

He spent three years working in a restaurant in Battle Mountain, Nev. In 1976, at the urging of a relative, he journeyed to the Texas Panhandle with his 18-year-old wife, Luz, and their infant daughter, Rosa. He called himself Amador Rivas. And he had the documents – albeit, bogus – to prove it.

In Cactus, he was the stereotypically hardworking, invisible immigrant. Soon after arriving, the couple had their second child, Eva. And he worked 12- to 18-hour days in the packing plant's shipping department for $10 an hour – "good money back then," as he put it.

With his job, he was able to provide for his growing family, send money home to Mexico and save a little.

Later, he was promoted to director of shipping and receiving, enabling him to buy an apartment building. For seven years, he and his family occupied two of the four units and rented the others.

Then, in 1986, he received an unexpected gift: He was one of 2.7 million illegal immigrants awarded amnesty by President Ronald Reagan under the Immigration Reform and Control Act.

With his green card in hand, Mr. Aguilar escaped the oft-murky world of an illegal immigrant and shed his Amador Rivas alias. He could once again be Luis Aguilar. And he made a name for himself as a successful businessman, buying the Cactus Laundromat and Cactus Grocery in 1988.

Using $11,000 he'd saved from his job at Swift – and borrowing the rest – he bought the store from former Cactus Mayor Leon Graham after a fire devastated much of the structure.

"I asked my brother-in-law," he said. "He loaned me $300. My cousin loaned me $300. So I got altogether about $21,000. ... And I started building."

Over time, he became a force in town – and served as a beacon for other southern-border immigrants pursuing the American dream.

His Spanish-style home, with its arched doorways and light stucco walls, dominates the center of town, commanding respect from those dwelling in the shanty trailer homes that surround it.

"The people of Cactus built my home for me," he said.

He is open about his role in helping undocumented immigrants who follow his path.

"I work as the middleman for places around the Panhandle," said Mr. Aguilar, 50. "They [feedlots] pay me, and I pay the guys. I keep their timecards here in the store. I am hired to find them."

Mr. Aguilar's willingness to help a new generation of illegal immigrants, though, puts him at odds with other town leaders. They complain that they are swamped with problems created by thousands of often unidentifiable residents.

Climate for crime

Cactus today seems less like a Panhandle burg than a colonia – magically airlifted 600 miles north from the border and dropped into the heart of what once was the Anglo-dominated farm and ranch lands of the southern High Plains.

Decaying World War II-era barracks each bunk as many as a half-dozen Swift & Co. workers whose families were left back home. Most yards are dirt, weeds and gravel.

There are few flowers and even less grass; a soccer field on the west side of town with homemade goalposts; one park with playground equipment and a basketball court; and three times as many places to get an adult beverage as in the much larger nearby county seat, Dumas.

"Alcohol-related problems are paramount [and] ... a lot of cocaine," said Cactus Police Chief Tim Turley.

"But if I had to say, what we run across most is fraudulent use of ID," he added. "That is far and above the number one most encountered incident."

Cultures collide on a variety of issues, from education to sex.

Some of the youngest students from newly arrived families must be instructed, for example, on indoor plumbing and proper hygiene.

Other immigrants are bewildered when advised that it is not only socially unacceptable but illegal for men in their 20s to have sex with young teenage girls.

Zoning regulations are difficult to enforce.

"Folks don't believe you should be able to tell them what to do and where to put things," said Mr. Jenkins, the city manager. "And they'll bring in trailers that the walls are falling in, and they'll want to set 'em up and rent 'em to somebody.

"On the reverse end of it, you get the renters. ... They think that if they report it or something, they're going to be deported . ... So, they're getting taken advantage of by the landlords in some places."

Unlicensed food stands pop up all over town – a constant headache for officials.

"The mobile stands are hard to track down because they could be there on Saturday night and then they disappear," said Mr. Jenkins. "The state only has one food officer for this area. ... [It] puts a burden on the local government to raise taxes, and it could make someone sick."

All contribute to a climate in which criminal mischief can flourish – but uncovering it and prosecuting it is often difficult, if not impossible.

According to police, some Mexicans – worried they could lose their jobs to newly arrived immigrants – have taken to beating, robbing and terrorizing Guatemalans, who are reluctant to report the crimes because they fear being deported.

After a string of robberies – and one vicious attack in particular – Chief Turley ordered his deputies to document anyone walking the streets after midnight. Workers leaving the plant after the midnight shift change were the primary targets, police said.

"I went and bought a Polaroid camera ... and I said from now on, if you see an individual on foot after midnight, they get stopped, photographed and ID'd," Chief Turley said. "Find out where they live. Bar none."

"I tell the Guatemalans I am not unsympathetic to them. I am not immigration. I say, 'We know you are an illegal alien.' "

Chief Turley has learned about the Guatemalan culture. He can't speak Quiche but can certainly pronounce it. Guatemalans who end up in Cactus come from a war-torn region, he said, where the arrival of police forces rarely equaled public safety.

So he's told his officers to never order a Guatemalan down on his knees.

"If you tell them to get on their knees, they think they are going to get shot in the head," Chief Turley said. "You tell them to sit down."

Police recently investigated allegations that at least two Swift workers were extorting as much as $800 from each prospective employee in exchange for "fixing" document problems.

In the midst of the investigation, local police said, two human resources workers were fired.

A union official insisted that the dismissals had nothing to do with "immigration." Swift spokesman Sean McHugh declined to discuss the matter, writing in an e-mail that "it is irresponsible for me to comment on rumors and innuendo."

The fired employees couldn't be reached for comment. No one answered the door at one of the former workers' residences. At another, a balding man with a goatee, said the ex-employee wouldn't speak to a reporter.

"She is no longer employed there. She has nothing to say," he said, referring questions "to the [Swift] corporate office."

After the firings, police dropped the investigation.

Smooth operation

Modern-day Cactus was built on beef. Swift's sprawling complex stands out on the west side of U.S. Highway 287. The divided four-lane highway – a main artery linking Dallas-Fort Worth to Denver – separates the plant from most residential areas, though neighborhoods south of the facility are expanding rapidly.

Surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, the plant operates around the clock, processing about 5,300 animals daily, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Two eight-hour shifts – one beginning about 6 a.m., the other about 3 p.m. – process the beef.

The third, the overnight shift – staffed by a subcontractor – cleans and readies the plant for the next day.

Last summer, Swift workers were on a six-day-a-week schedule, heeding America's increased demand for beef during outdoor grilling season.

State and federal agencies report little evidence of problems at the plant, including worker safety issues.

Casey Williams, a leader in the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 540, said union officials and employee safety monitors meet with the company weekly to discuss plant safety.

"We hardly get any calls to go to Swift for injuries," said Theron Park, the county hospital administrator. "My impression is they have a pretty comprehensive safety program."

Still, it's difficult to know precisely what goes on inside the plant.

Swift declined requests for interviews with its Cactus chief and to visit the facility. And most workers don't want to be noticed, much less interviewed, for fear of losing their jobs or being deported.

"It's a scary thing to be undocumented," said Lydia Hernandez, an immigration counselor at Catholic Family Services Inc. in Amarillo, "because you don't know who's your friend."

Those agreeing to speak describe difficult conditions.

One man employed by a plant contractor describes an almost feudal existence endured by many illegal immigrant workers.

"They are overworked," said the man, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. "I see it every day. They are working them like crazy."

Another longtime employee said plant managers know that not all workers are in the country legally.

"About a month ago, or so, when immigration was around ... we were inside [the plant] working, and all the green helmets and the managers warned everyone: 'If you don't have your papers, don't come out, because immigration is here,' " the worker said.

"That time, it was convenient for them to protect the people and warn them about the trap waiting for them outside. ... They told everyone that they could stay if they wanted or they could go. But immigration was out there."

Mr. McHugh, the Swift spokesman, said he couldn't find evidence of that incident.

Such action by a Swift manager "would be viewed as a serious breach of our integrity," he said. "We would take appropriate action against that individual.

"We've got a great track record of cooperating fully with law enforcement," he said.

Swift's corporate officials say they do all they can legally to verify the authenticity of documents.

"If it happens 12 times a year, that's probably the most," said Doug Schult, Swift's Colorado-based vice president for human resources, field operations and employee relations.

Town officials routinely praise Swift's efforts to ensure the legitimacy of its workers.

"They're very cooperative in these matters," Chief Turley said.

Even so, the chief said, he frequently fields telephone inquiries from identity theft victims who learn that their names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and places, were co-opted by workers at the beef plant.

Whether from Connecticut or California, he said, the calls typically begin the same way:

"Where in the hell is Cactus, Texas?"

Difficult work

More than 20 years ago, the beef packing industry was filled mostly with white American workers earning more than $20 an hour.

Now, studies show, the plants are dominated by Latino immigrants, most paid less than $12 an hour.

Duke Millard, who managed the Cactus plant from the time it was built in 1972 until his retirement in 1999, said it always had a "multiracial" workforce, from its initial 400 or so employees to the 2,700 or so today.

"I never thought of it as an immigrant workforce," he said.

Mr. Williams, who negotiated the Cactus contract for the union, said the plant still hires its share of Anglos, but "they usually don't last."

One reason: "It is one of the hardest jobs I've ever done in my life," said Mr. Williams, who worked in three West Texas packing houses. "It's so physically demanding."

Nothing, he said, seems to spur college enrollment quite like a recent high school graduate spending a few months working in one of the dozen or so plants scattered across what is known as Packing House Alley – stretching from the southern High Plains into the Oklahoma Panhandle, southwest Kansas and southeastern Colorado.

It's not unheard of, authorities said, to find teenagers working at the plant – they lie about their ages to get hired – when, by law, they are supposed to be in school.

Other young people are drawn to Cactus but never land work.

Consider the case of "Spot," a young man picked up by Cactus police because he abused the 911 emergency phone system. He called – then hung up – more than 40 times over several days, unable to communicate in anything but his native Guatemalan dialect.

Like they would a lost puppy, officers took him in: feeding him, finding him places to stay, spending time with him, eventually trying to teach him English and Spanish.

What they learned, Chief Turley said, was heartbreaking: Through broken Spanish, they were able to determine that he was not a 39-year-old named Carlos Torres – as they originally believed – but a 16-year-old named Gaspar Ambrosio Quixan.

"He wanted to go back to Guatemala because he didn't have enough money to buy fake documentation in order to obtain employment" at Swift.

The chief said he couldn't find any government agency that would help – federal agents declined because Gaspar was a juvenile, state officials because he was an illegal immigrant.

One day, Gaspar vanished.

Cactus police have no idea what happened to him.

Spreading the word

Mr. Millard, who managed the plant for five companies over its first 27 years, said he never advertised south of the border for workers – nor did he hire so-called "brokers" to seek out employees.

Swift's Mr. Schult said some companies still engage in what he described as "mobile recruiting," but his doesn't because "all that does is increase the turnover. It's a revolving door."

So how do workers from Mexico and Guatemala end up in Cactus?

"It's a word-of-mouth thing," said Ms. Hernandez, of Catholic Family Services. "Someone comes in to work here; they've got friends at home, they tell them about it. They don't just come in because it's Cactus. Somebody has to bring them in."

The union's Mr. Williams said he gets angry when he hears immigrant workers depicted primarily as lawbreakers sponging off American taxpayers.

"A lot of them end up in these industries where no one else will work," he said, adding that they all pay income and Social Security taxes, just like all workers.

Social Security earnings from numbers that didn't match names in the government's database – recorded in an "earnings suspense file" – were nearly $520 billion as of 2003, the last year for which the government data is available. Three-fourths of that amount came in during 1990-2003.

Social Security taxes paid under these mismatches have increased: In 2001, about $7 billion in taxes was paid on nearly $58 billion in earnings, according to the agency's Dallas office.

Some believe that much of the money comes from undocumented workers who don't attempt to claim the funds because they are afraid of being caught.

Despite the difficulty of the work – its repetitiveness, its physical demands, its blood and guts – Mr. Williams said, he understands why some would risk everything to land a job in a place like Cactus, where workers earn the equivalent of $20 to $25 an hour, factoring in such benefits as health care.

"If I lived in Guatemala and couldn't get a job and had a wife and family," he said, "I'd try it, too."

'Drink and work'

For many of the workers, there is a simple rhythm to Cactus life: Work long hours. Cruise Center Drive. Drink beer.

Start over.

The mayor and Cactus police Sgt. Stewart Moss don't seem to agree on much. But they both recognize this pattern.

"For fun ... [we] really don't have much fun here," Mr. Aguilar said. "Just work."

"Drink," added Sgt. Moss.

"Drink and work," agreed Mr. Aguilar.

The cruising along Center Drive is straight out of American Graffiti. Cars and trucks inch along in a bumper-to-bumper processional. They hope to see and be seen.

"That's the only fun they got," Mr. Aguilar said. "If you got stopped just for that ... fun is over."

"Don't you get tired of cleaning the beer bottles out from in front of the laundromat?" Sgt. Moss asked.

"Not at all," the mayor replied. "I sell it. So what the hell?"

When the police get involved, cultures clash.

"We'll catch somebody doing something they're not supposed to be doing ... and they'll immediately: 'Oh, I'm friends with Luis [Aguilar]," Sgt. Moss said. "So what? That does not excuse you from doing what you did. And I'm sure they've used their one phone call down at the jail to call you."

Mr. Aguilar: "One o'clock in the morning, 2 o'clock in the morning: 'Luis, the cop stopped me ... and I'm over here.' "

Sgt. Moss: "But did they tell you why they were stopped?"

Mr. Aguilar: "No. ... They just tell me, 'Hey, can you do something for me?' And I can't do nothing about it. That's all I can tell them."

He may be revered as El presidente de Cactus by some, but Mr. Aguilar feels others here are aligned against him. They view the former illegal immigrant with suspicion, depicting him – mostly in private – as a power-hungry mayor who thinks he's operating a Mexican-style fiefdom.

"You know what all my problem is with the city," he said. "I used to be illegal alien out there. When I get the mayor ... some people say, 'What the hell we gonna do with the used-to-be-wetback guy sittin' over here as the mayor?'

"All the City Council is against me. I guess [they] don't like my ideas. It's against me. You know, I live in Cactus for 30 years. I care [about] Cactus. I want to do something good for Cactus."

Staff writer Dianne Solís contributed to this report. Deborah Turner is a staff writer and photographer for Al Día, The Dallas Morning News' Spanish-language newspaper.

E-mail cactus@dallasnews.com

http://www.wfaa.com

More than 20 years ago, the beef packing industry was filled mostly with white American workers earning more than $20 an hour. Now, studies show, the plants are dominated by Latino immigrants, most paid less than $12 an hour.

Oh NO, they don't drive down wages!!!!!

Fruit of the last amnesty.

Makes you feel good doesnt it?