Thread: Guat-bashing as 'sport,' policy

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Guat-bashing as 'sport,' policy
By Dan Moffett

Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Julio Reyes Paxtore died in a pool of his own blood near the corner of Okeechobee Road and South 27th Street in Fort Pierce on Friday night, Aug. 19.

He would have lived an anonymous life here had not his death been so brutal. Witnesses told police that a group of black teens chased him down, stole his money and red mountain bike, then beat him until he died.

Mr. Paxtore, 32, became the latest victim of a South Florida blood sport known as "Guat-bashing." Gangs of youths have targeted Guatemalan immigrants in West Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Indiantown and Stuart because they are easy marks. Besides typically being small in stature, many are here illegally and vulnerable because of it.

Undocumented immigrants are reluctant to report crimes because they fear deportation. Guatemalans, particularly Mayans, also fear law enforcement because of experiences with corrupt police in their homeland. Without legal status, most are unable to open bank accounts, so they carry their money with them. On the streets, they are known as walking ATMs.

Mr. Paxtore crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally four months ago and came to Fort Pierce to live with his brothers and earn money to send back home to his wife and two daughters. He got a construction job and was doing that. On the night he died, he rode his bike to a gas station to buy a calling card to talk to his family. After he hung up the pay phone, the Guat-bashers got him.

Mr. Paxtore will go down as a murder victim, but our national hypocrisy is a co-conspirator in the crime.

Americans still are willing to tolerate an approach to immigration that looks the other way when it comes to the recruitment of illegal labor. Farms and businesses need workers to fill low-paying, menial jobs, and there's no shortage of employers who will hire employees without the least concern about their legal status.

Back in Guatemala, the message is mixed but clear: The U.S. government will try to stop you crossing the border, but if you make it across, there are plenty of jobs waiting for you, and Americans want you to fill them.

As a nation, we treat illegal immigrants with cynical duplicity. We want them to pick our tomatoes, nanny our kids and patch our roofs, but we revile them for breaking our laws to do it. They are illegal and essential. When they're standing on street corners or sending their children to our schools, we see them as illegal. When they're doing our dirty work for us, we see them as essential. Most often, though, we prefer not to see them at all.

You never hear any talk from Washington about Guat-bashing, but the Bush administration and Congress could do something to help stop it if they could agree on reforms that would create a way for immigrants to come here legally to fill the jobs Americans don't want.

President Bush and lawmakers have proposed competing versions of guest-worker legislation that would give legal status to immigrants who are willing to play by the rules. A bill in the Senate, sponsored by Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., would give foreign workers the chance to earn permanent residency over time.

Somewhere between the White House and the Senate's versions, beyond the reach of political expediency, is a compromise that could have made Julio Reyes Paxtore and other Guatemalans less vulnerable.

In a guest-worker program, they could have the legal status they need to open bank accounts. With legal status, they would be more willing to cooperate with police than to hide from them. With legal status, they would have identities within a system instead of laboring anonymously in an undocumented netherworld. National security would be enhanced by a system that registers who is in the country, where they are and what they are doing.

Street hoodlums would not see the easy targets they do now. Instead of illegal workers, Guatemalans and other immigrants could live their lives here as documented employees whom the government recognizes for their contributions.

The autopsy on Mr. Paxtore will say he was beaten to death, but the hypocrisy and denial of a failed policy set him up for his tragic end.

another death that could have been avoided if our borders were working properly.