Thread: Economy & Policy Make It Harder For Illegals

Hopefully many will self deport.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/ ... 8512.story

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Economy, get-tough policy make life harder for many immigrants
By Ruth Morris

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

September 4, 2007

The shop owner who sells phone cards, cowboy boots and football jerseys to immigrants in Lake Worth says he is barely covering costs. The men who wait for work along the sidewalk say jobs are harder to come by.

A combination of slowing construction because of dismal real estate sales and stepped-up scrutiny over employment documents has meant less work for many immigrants, particularly those who install drywall and roofing at South Florida construction sites.

The result is a downturn for many businesses that cater to South Florida's low-wage immigrant population. The immigrants themselves say they feel less welcome.

Supporters of reduced immigration say this increased discomfort is precisely what's needed to persuade undocumented workers to leave the United States. Advocates for such workers say they will simply be pushed deeper underground as they struggle to survive.

"They feel unprotected," said pollster Sergio Bendixen, who recently published a study on immigrants' welfare with the Inter-American Development Bank. The survey found the job crunch was nationwide.

"Things have gotten much tougher, and if you do get a job, it's much easier for employers not to pay minimum wage, much easier not to give benefits, not to pay overtime," Bendixen said.

The poll of 900 immigrants, both legal and undocumented, conď cluded that more than 80 percent of immigrants from Mexico and Central America are finding it harder to obtain good-paying jobs than a year ago in the United States. The study was conducted in June, as the immigration debate consumed Congress, and released Aug. 14.

Alvaro Zeas, a legal immigrant from Nicaragua, said his small store in Lake Worth, which sells fancy shirts and belt buckles to an immigrant clientele, is barely getting by.

"You can feel it," he said, nodding across the counter to his empty showroom. "Things have stalled. Everyone is feeling the drop. It's stressful."

With bleak housing sales, fewer construction projects are in the pipeline, and analysts say the market isn't likely to pick up soon. Real estate analyst Mike Larson noted Palm Beach County has a three-year inventory of homes for sale.

"Construction activity is weak and obviously the immigrant community fill a lot of construction jobs, and they're going to bear the brunt of it," he said.

New government vigilance also plays a role. The federal government announced last month it was boosting job site enforcement with continued raids and a crackdown on employers who fail to respond to queries about mismatched Social Security numbers.

Dario, a landscaper, said a brother who works in construction was having a hard time finding jobs as more labor contractors demanded ID.

"Before, they didn't ask for anything. Now, they want a Social Security number," said Dario who asked not to be identified by his last name because of his undocumented status.

Sitting on an upside-down bucket and shooting the breeze with friends, he said his work as a landscaper was also less steady these days. His employer had suspended all crews for a week because of dry weather. With little rain, gardens don't grow as fast, and fewer hands are needed to cut grass and trim back bushes.

Dario said he would remain in the United States at almost any cost, rather than uproot his family -- a wife and two small U.S.-born children -- and move back to his native Chiapas, Mexico. "We came to work, but they don't want to help us," he said.

Bendixen said immigrants tended to feel more vulnerable in "nontraditional" states that don't have a long history of absorbing immigrants. In regions like South Florida, an immigrant hub, he said respondents were less likely to entertain thoughts of returning home in the next five years.

Advocates of a sweeping overhaul of immigration law lost their fight in June when Congress failed to pass a bill that would have handed legal status to millions of undocumented workers while bolstering border security. Advocates say the debate around those issues brought out hostile sentiments toward immigrants, which have not subsided.

Indeed, the Bendixen study found that immigrants said they increasingly were targets of hostility. One-third said discrimination against immigrants was the biggest problem they and their families face in the United States. That percentage was up from three years ago, when only 5 percent identified discrimination as their biggest problem.

Those in favor of stricter immigration controls insist that removing the "jobs magnet" would significantly reduce the flow of illegal workers and dissuade others from coming. They say U.S. workers are available for the same jobs if employers will raise wages.

It's unclear whether the situation has reached a tipping point at which larger numbers of immigrants are returning to their homelands.

"The spaces people operate in keep shrinking and shrinking," said Maria Rodriguez, head of the Florida Immigrant Coalition. She noted undocumented immigrants have no access to driver's licenses in Florida, and sometimes they shy away from reporting crimes for fear of revealing their illegal status.

"When does living here become worse than living in their home country?" Rodriguez said.

"When does living here become worse than living in their home country?" Rodriguez said.


Very soon I hope!!

Dario said he would remain in the United States at almost any cost, rather than uproot his family -- a wife and two small U.S.-born children -- and move back to his native Chiapas, Mexico. "We came to work, but they don't want to help us," he said.

...One comment and one question.

Comment: "two small U.S.-born children" Anchor Baby Alert!!! Anchor Baby Alert!!!

Question: "but they don't want to help us". Here we go with the entitlement illegal mindset again. Since when are we supposed to help out these 3rd world invaders???