THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2006


Daily photo by Emily Saunders
Melisen, left, and Jose Angelos stay with their baby sitter Gloria Crisantes and her children, Arisbeth, 6, and Monica, 15. The Crisantes family lived in the United States for about 10 years. They work and go to school in Decatur but plan on returning to Mexico to join the rest of their family after they finish building a house there.

Immigrants prospering
Lack of paper doesn't stop
some from seeking better life

By Chris Paschenko
chris@decaturdaily.com· 340-2442

An exchange rate of more than 10 Mexican pesos per U.S. dollar, and the promise of readily available labor jobs draw immigrants by word of mouth to Decatur and the Tennessee Valley.

Authorities call undocumented immigrants "illegals" because they slip across the border undetected. But whatever they're called, they're here and most are working.

One Hispanic family from Guerrero, Mexico, has lived in Decatur about 10 years. Gloria Crisantes, 34, a stay-at-home mother who speaks only Spanish, talked about her life and dreams. Monica, 15, one of her children, translated.

Crisantes paid a coyote $15,000, however, it is unclear if the coyote smuggled her or other family members into the country. A coyote is a man who brings illegal workers and their families to the U.S. She has eight children. Two live with her mother in Mexico. Of the six with her, two were born in the United States, making them U.S. citizens.

Remembering the journey

During the two-hour interview in Crisantes' home, her daughter Diana, 14, raised her head from her schoolbooks to recall part of her journey. Her English is fairly good. She didn't know where she entered the country, but made the trip unharmed.

"I came here with a pregnant lady," said Diana. "She lost her baby. We were in a van with a blanket. It was cold, no jackets. It was like freezing. I was scared when it was dark. We crossed a mountain."

She dreams of going to college and becoming a doctor, but she also said she needs to improve her grades.

Monica would like to become a nurse or a teacher, but her dreams of attending college are slim. She said her grades are also bad.

Crisantes said she's happy to have her daughters in school because she completed only two years. Arisbeth, her 6-year-old daughter, makes high marks.

Their mother plans to return to Mexico within a year, maybe two. She said the family is building a home there, and when it's finished she will no longer have to pay rent.

Until they return, they support her mother by wiring money to Mexico. Monica said sending her grandmother $10 in U.S. currency is like sending her $100.

The money pays for her two sisters to attend school and take care of their grandmother.

Gloria Crisantes' husband Margarito, 35, returned home just before sunset. Dirty from his landscaping job, he looked puzzled to see a photographer and a reporter.

"Police," said Crisantes, pointing to to her visitors. Margarito was speechless, then laughter filled the room.

The family is happy, despite the cramped quarters of their one-bedroom apartment.

Some Hispanics are living even more cramped. Decatur police officer Alberto Ballesteros, who speaks fluent Spanish, said some working men live a more cramped lifestyle. By taking turns paying rent, some men pay only once a year and are able to send more money home.

One Decatur landlord reportedly charges rent by the head.

Jimmy Brothers, the city's Building Department director, and Michelle Jordan, director of community development and planning, said laws regulate the number of tenants per square foot of sleeping space.

They said they've received few complaints from the community about people living in cramped quarters.

"In order to inspect a home, the city needs a warrant from a municipal judge," Brothers said.

"That usually entails a citizen providing evidence to convince a judge to sign a warrant. It's very hard to prosecute."

Proving how many people live in a home is difficult, with restraints from the federal Fair Housing Act.

The act prevents discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex or familial status.

Stakeout

A former city employee, Ed Fricks, once staked out a Beard Street Southwest home over a period of nights in the late 1990s.

"This house had a rotation during the day of about 10 to 15 people living there and the same thing at night," Fricks said.

The practice is called hot bunking.

"The people who owned the house were living in a detached garage on the property. We got in the garage with the assistance of Decatur Utilities and found the people had set a commode down and ran a pipe outside," Fricks said.

"In the meantime, we put a call into immigration in Birmingham."

Fricks said immigration officials shut the operation down, and he learned the 30 people living there would move out after finding employment, then new faces would arrive.

Word of mouth

Illegal immigrants learn by word of mouth that as long as they live under the radar of U.S. immigration officials and avoid felony arrests by police or court convictions, they're unlikely to face deportation.

The U.S. Department of Justice has 53 immigration courts throughout the nation.

Although Alabama is among 22 states without immigration courts, the U.S. Department of Justice said notices issued to immigrants generally require them to appear in an Atlanta court, which has jurisdiction over the state.

Alabama does, however, have U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers working in the state, but ICE officials wouldn't disclose the number of officers employed, citing the information as sensitive to law-enforcement efforts.

The state has seven officers, up from two.