Thread: Immigrants aren't leaving, despite harder times in U.S.(Sob)

Immigrants aren't leaving, despite harder times in U.S.

by Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/inde ... despi.html

Friday January 23, 2009, 7:59 PM

As temperatures dropped below freezing and snow amassed on cars and rooftops, Maria, her husband Zenon, and their two small children huddled in the tiny kitchen of their unheated trailer. The entry door was broken, letting in an icy draft.

Nine years after arriving from the Mexican state of Michoacan, the undocumented parents are without jobs, barely scraping enough food for their U.S.-born children to eat.

Is the family thinking of going back to Mexico?

"We really have not thought about going back," Maria said. "It hasn't occurred to us."

That's true of many Latino immigrant families who find themselves out of work and resources in the lagging economy. There has been no exodus of area Latinos back to Mexico and Central America, and no such exodus on a national scale. The crisis, Latinos say, is still better than the poverty they faced back home. And with increased enforcement at the border, leaving the United States could mean never being able to come back -- a chance few want to take.

The choice between staying or returning to the country of origin is a matter of survival, especially for undocumented immigrants, experts say.

"Leaving is not a decision you just take one morning," said Demetrios Papademetriou, director of the nonpartisan Washington-based Migration Policy Institute. "These are acts of desperation."

Activists against illegal immigration, who want also to reduce the level of legal immigration, hoped that a bad economy and increased immigration enforcement would push undocumented Latinos out of the country.

"We won't get rid of all illegals, but we can have policies and an environment that cause deportation through attrition," said Jim Ludwick, president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, at an immigration debate in Wilsonville this month.

The opposite seems to be true.

A report released by the Migration Policy Institute this month, which Papademetriou co-authored, says no definitive return migration trend can be tied so far to the U.S. economic crisis. That's because return migration, the report says, is historically connected with improved social, economic and political conditions in the immigrants' countries of origin.

But the economy has dwindled also in Latin America, especially in Mexico, where about 80 percent of exports are bought by U.S. markets. Mexico's economy is probably headed for a recession, government officials there said this month. And a slowdown in money that U.S. Latinos send home may further hinder growth. Remittances make up nearly 3 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product, according to the World Bank, and are the second source of foreign revenue after oil exports.

A tighter border
Similarly, stepped-up enforcement at the border has reduced circular migration and led more Latinos to settle in the United States with their families, Papademetriou said.
More patrols, improved technology and miles of border fences have pushed illegal immigrants to cross in areas more secluded and more dangerous. Many make dozens of attempts to cross before they succeed. The dangers and difficulties, in turn, have inflated the prices paid to smugglers to several thousand dollars a person.

Latino immigrants know that "if you leave the U.S. now, it will be extremely difficult to come back in," Papademetriou said.

Once immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens, going back becomes even harder. And Mexico's unstable security climate fueled by narco-trafficking adds to the hesitation.

"Going back home would be an act of total desperation," Papademetriou said, "almost equivalent to the one that made them take any chance necessary, including losing their lives, to cross the border to the United States."

Javier Serrano, an expert on migration at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, a university in the Mexican state of Tabasco, says another ephemeral factor may also keep immigrants in the United States: the fulfillment of a dream.

"Migration involves hopes, expectations and ambitions that don't necessarily adjust to economic calculations," Serrano said. "Once they have moved, immigrants try to fulfill their expectations, and they persist even when the situation becomes unfavorable."

No work in village
Maria and Zenon, who for fear of deportation would be interviewed only if their last names were withheld, left their villages in Mexico in 1999 because no work was available.

Since arriving in Oregon, Zenon has worked full time in nurseries. Maria raised the children, now 3 and 5 years old, and worked in the fields picking blueberries and other fruit. The couple saved their modest incomes and bought a trailer in the Portland area last year.

But six months ago, Zenon was laid off "because the plants were not selling," he said. Since then, the family has subsided on the bare minimum.

"We never thought it would be like this," said Maria in Spanish. "We don't even have enough money for lunch."

When Zenon gets work for a day or two -- covering berry shrubs, odd construction jobs -- the money goes toward paying rent on the trailer lot. They have lapsed in the mortgage on the trailer and their water bills. Their car broke down. Just last week, their electricity was cut off. They have no savings or assets.

The family survives on food donations from the SnowCap and Salvation Army shelters. They also receive food stamps for the two children, who are U.S. citizens. The couple are not eligible for any government benefits, such as unemployment. But the parents say they're waiting for jobs to come back because they want to give their children a better future, one without poverty.

"We're used to living here," Maria said. "And there is nothing to go back to."

There may be a tipping point in the decision-making of immigrants such as Maria and Zenon, Papademetriou said.

"At which point are horrible conditions over there better than the horrible conditions here?" he said. "If you have to live on the margins, with no income, in a place where people don't want you and don't help you, there is only so much time you can move in with relatives and tighten your belt before you hit bare bones."

If the recession continues for six to nine months, Papademetriou said, and if the recovery is "jobless," undocumented Latinos may reconsider. But the decision to return to poverty in Latin America would still be agonizing, especially in light of the potential for U.S. immigration reform.

"The deck is stacked and they are stuck," Papademetriou said. "The question is, which gives first, the economy, Mr. Obama with legalization, or a realization that I can't survive anymore."

Gosia Wozniacka: 503-294-5960; gosiawozniacka@news.oregonian.com

The family survives on food donations from the SnowCap and Salvation Army shelters. They also receive food stamps for the two children, who are U.S. citizens. The couple are not eligible for any government benefits, such as unemployment. But the parents say they're waiting for jobs to come back because they want to give their children a better future, one without poverty.

Am I supposed to feel sorry for them? Sorry, I don't.

Many American families have been brought low by illegal aliens undercutting wages and sending money out of this country. That's a huge part of why we're in this mess.

The jobs that will "come back" had better be for Americans and legal immigrants. Increase the raids and ensure them a safe deportation!

Why would they leave? They know about, and are waiting for Obama’s “co-calledâ€

here is another piece of sob by Gosia Wozniacka,
http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-144090-0.html

Written on the same slant with little objective reporting. Just a rehash/rewrite. It is time she was outsourced.

"These are acts of desperation." her story?

Watch out for the wording.
No one wants immigrants to leave.
We want ILLEGAL immigrants to leave.

They try to trick us and then they publish our posts and it looks like we are against immigrants.
We are NOT!
We like immigrants but not AMNESTY immigrants!
I'd say we'll have a different category of 'em.

They also receive food stamps for the two children, who are U.S. citizens.

We need to do something about that. "Under the jurisdiction thereof" was written in to prevent children of two illegal parents from gaining citizenship!!!


Oh, for the record, not a single tissue was wasted from reading this article. They made their own bed, now ICE needs to give them a new choice, not whether to stay or go, but do they leave the kids or take them with them.

Nine years after arriving from the Mexican state of Michoacan, the undocumented parents are without jobs, barely scraping enough food for their U.S.-born children to eat.

Is the family thinking of going back to Mexico?

"We really have not thought about going back," Maria said. "It hasn't occurred to us."

"Barely scraping enough food for their U.S. born children to eat." The only "scraping" these illegal invaders had to do was go down to their local welfare office and collect benefits on behalf of their pseudo-American, A.K.A. anchor babies! As long as the free benefits are rolling in, they are not going to leave!

This is exactly how they can claim their situation to be dire, while not even giving the thought of going back any consideration!

Nothing but another SOB story by the slobbering media, on behalf of their beloved illegal invaders!

How to make Mo Money with your Money

Get Rid of the Anchor Baby clause ... NOW!!!!

They are all hunkering down in their 50 people per apartment sanctuary waiting on those stimulus jobs since Senor Obama has said he and his reconquista cabinet will halt all raids and other enforcement measures including e-verify so illegal aliens get not a piece but ALL of the taxpayer funded trillion dollar pie. Hell, that horse's ass Harry Reid has just promised free health care to them and the endless numbers illegally crossing our border while Americans including senior citizens and veterans face benefits cuts and are losing their homes, jobs and health care. Yesterday I saw a video featuring our real President Felipe Calderon and the Wicked Wench of the West Nancy Pelosi leaving her office. With Pelosi being a staunch terrorist hugger, illegal alien lover, open borders lover and American people hater that unreasonable facsimile of a politician and human being scares me more than anything. For all we know they could have inserted illegal alien amnesty into that monstrosity. Insanity knows no bounds where this government is involved.................

I don't care about their stupid stories. They need to take what they learned here back to the home country and do something to better it. Of course, they probably don't have the education or thought process to do that, nor the pride in their own country to try to improve it. I worked in a few plant nurseries and to me there is nothing more relaxing than getting out in fresh air and talking to the seedlings. This is one job this American will do.
And I am sorry you are suffering on US soil; go back home and suffer as your presence is adding to our suffering.