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Immigrants don't expect much from Bush plan

By Mark Houser
TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Wednesday, November 30, 2005


Alejandro Martinez applauds President Bush's idea to allow illegal immigrants to work in the United States for up to six years, if they agree to return home afterward.
"It would be good for me, because I only want to stay one (more) year," said Martinez, 34, a dishwasher who came to Pittsburgh illegally last year to earn money for his family in Mexico City.

But Martin Francisco Serrano, 24, another Mexican living in Pittsburgh -- legally now, until his visa expires at year's end -- is skeptical of the idea.

"What happens after the visas expire?" asked Serrano, a tree cutter who has worked in Pittsburgh for five years, both illegally and on short-term work visas. "Does it mean we can never come back?"

During visits to border areas in Arizona and Texas yesterday and Monday, Bush said he wants to crack down on illegal border crossings but also give current illegal immigrants permission to stay in the country and work for three years, if they promise to return home after that.

Temporary work permits could be extended for an additional three years under the Bush plan.

Southwestern Pennsylvania typically has not attracted large numbers of Latin American immigrants.

The Pittsburgh metropolitan area -- Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties -- had 17,400 Hispanic residents in the last Census, less than 1 percent of the region's population. Only 2,200 were not U.S. citizens, though the Census does not indicate what share of those were illegal residents.

The numbers might be small, but they are growing.

Farms in Washington County have attracted enough Hispanic laborers that a church in Cecil offers Mass every Sunday evening in Spanish.

Pittsburgh's Beechview neighborhood is a growing enclave of Spanish-speaking laborers, mostly young, single men like Serrano and Martinez with families back home. The neighborhood has two Mexican groceries and a restaurant.

Martinez said he paid a smuggler $2,200 last year to help him cross the desert to a safe house in Tucson, Ariz. He and three others in his group then came to Pittsburgh, where they had friends and relatives.

Martinez shares an apartment with four other Mexicans. He said he earns almost twice as much here as a dishwasher as he did as a chauffeur in Mexico City.

Serrano said he has crossed the border illegally several times, because the money he can earn helps him support his family.

"They can create all the laws they want, but you're always going to have people coming here illegally," Serrano said.

At least 11 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, and that number is growing, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington, D.C., research group that analyzes immigration trends. Illegal immigrants outnumber legal immigrants each year, according to the center.

Bush's recent statements are not much different from ideas he floated a year ago, said Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, another Washington think tank.

"We're going to get some weak enforcement, a few more border patrol agents, and some vague promises of interior enforcement, the implementation of which will be years off. At the same time, we're going to get a massive temporary worker amnesty ... and some massive increase in green cards," Camarota said.

Bush said his program is not amnesty, because it requires temporary visa holders to leave eventually.

Pedro Bretz, executive director of Hispanic Center Inc., questions Bush's plan.

The North Side nonprofit helps new immigrants to Pittsburgh find jobs and training.

"What's the objective of giving (illegal immigrants) a 3-year visa? It's finding a way to track them. They know it," Bretz said.

"So I don' t think the majority of them are going to show up and say, 'Hey, I am illegal. I want to be here another three years, and then I'm going to go back home.' It's not going to happen," he said.

Jose Lemus, 30, came to Los Angeles hidden in a vegetable truck in 1991 with the rest of his family. He said he dropped out of school, joined a gang, and went to jail for robbery and assault.

When Lemus' girlfriend, a Pittsburgh native, got pregnant, the two decided to move here and start over. Eventually Lemus became a U.S. citizen, and now he manages a Mexican restaurant in Robinson.

He said most illegal immigrants he knows have no desire to go back to Mexico and would break any promises to leave in three years.

The only solution, he said, is for the Mexican economy to get strong enough that people won't want to leave.

"I was an immigrant, so I'm not against them," Lemus said. "But to me, it's becoming a big problem. ... I don't think immigration will ever be fixed."