http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/14384103.htm

Posted on Thu, Apr. 20, 2006

Kansas faces deportation dilemma

73% of Kansans think the U.S. should attempt to deport illegal immigrants.
BY BRENT D. WISTROM
The Wichita Eagle

It was about 6:30 in the evening and the woman had dinner on the stove.

Her husband came though the door after a dusty day of work with Cornejo & Sons Construction. He was cheery as always, she said. But the U.S. Marshals that came to the porch of their Wichita home minutes later changed that.

The marshals arrested Jaime Villagrana following his indictment on four counts of using a fake Social Security number to land his job. He is in the U.S. illegally and after being deported once before, had returned.

For some Americans and a majority of Kansans, the question of how the U.S. should deal with illegal immigration is cut and dried: Find those who shouldn't be here and deport them.

But the reality of deportation is complicated, those who deport illegal immigrants for a living say.

Villagrana and his wife, Manuela, for example, have two young children who were born in Wichita and are by law American citizens.

Villagrana's take-home pay -- after taxes and Social Security deductions -- supported his family, but his 7-month-old son, Guillermo, has an undiagnosed illness that requires a respirator and 20-hour-a-day professional attention He has received thousands of dollars in Medicaid services for his care.

If Villagrana is prison, and Manuela is forced to leave, what will happen to the children?

In the debate over whether the U.S. should more aggressively deport those who are here illegally, cases like the Villagranas show that easy answers are hard to find.

Enforcing the laws

"If they're here illegally, get rid of them," said Robert Tyler, a Wichitan who said he has made his position known to senators and President Bush.

Tyler's opinion is shared by 73 percent of Kansans polled last week by The Wichita Eagle and KWCH, Channel 12.

Tyler said he just wants illegal immigration fixed.

"I can kind of liken it to a leaky pipe," Tyler said. "You've got to fix the pipe first before you can clean up the water. You've got to close those borders and then we can start working on what we've got now."

In the past two years, federal immigration officials have deported more than 6,000 people from Kansas and Missouri.

That is just a fraction of the more than 100,000 illegal immigrants believed to be in both states.

"There's a lot of them that are here legally, and they're great. But right now, we are bursting at the seams," Tyler said. "We're growing too big, too rapidly."

In fiscal 2005, a total of 167,700 people were deported nationwide, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Carl Rusnok said. Of those, 84,300 committed crimes while in the United States or were wanted for crimes in their native countries.

Local police tend to leave immigration enforcement to federal officials.

"We're in the business of public safety," Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said. "Immigration status does not register on our radar. We do not ferret or seek people out."

Perhaps a couple of times a week, Stolz said, police take into custody someone whose immigration status is called into question. When that happens, he said, federal agencies are contacted to ask whether the person should be held for federal authorities.

A future in question

Villagrana and his wife came to the United States illegally 13 years ago hoping to find a better life for themselves and a country with better schools and social services.

And that's what they found.

"Here we have work. We have a house. We have a family. And my son has the help he needs," Manuela said.

"It would be hard to return," she said. "It's our country and we love it. But we want to be here for the opportunities."

Immigration officials are typically reluctant to aggressively pursue an illegal immigrant who is the last remaining parent of young children, said David Link, an immigration lawyer in Wichita.

But Manuela is still afraid.

She doesn't know what she will do if she is forced to leave.

She would likely have a choice of taking her children -- Guillermo and his 22-month-old sister, Jimina -- with her to Mexico, or leaving them in the United States with her husband's brother.

"It would be difficult," she said.

David Warner, a professor of public affairs at the University of Texas, said Guillermo, who is an American citizen, could probably not get the health care he needs in Mexico.

If they could find similar care, it would likely be at a private hospital that is far too expensive for them, Warner said.

To make matters worse, Link said, when families with American children are forced to go back to Mexico, the children are sometimes discriminated against.

Sometimes, he said, they will end up buying fake Mexican Ids, and once they become adults they return to the United States.

"It's a vicious cycle," he said.

Play by the rules

In Robert Tyler's letter to politicians, he engaged in a little satire. He's planning a trip to Mexico, he says -- he just needs a little help. The same kind that he contends the U.S. government provides illegal immigrants.

Among his 13 demands: free medical care, documents printed in English, and a free pass from police who catch him with no valid ID.

"Please tell all the people in the country to be extremely nice and never say a critical word about me, or about the strain I might place on the economy," he wrote.

Tyler said he has sympathy for children like Guillermo , but says that his parents shouldn't have put themselves in that situation in the first place.

"It's not the kids' fault," he said. "If there's emergency situations like this, have them go through the proper procedures.

"You've got to play by the rules here."