Thread: Some immigrants blend in better than others

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Some immigrants blend in better than others
Sunday, July 09, 2006
By Chris Killian
Special to the Gazette
THREE RIVERS -- When members of an immigrant community get wind of a potential raid by federal immigration officials, those here illegally lie low.

But one immigrant here with an expired visa says she has little fear of being caught. The Latvian woman has been living in the United States illegally since the early 1990s. For this story we'll call her Elsa.

Unlike undocumented immigrants from Mexico or other Latin American countries, Elsa blends in with the majority of Americans.

The 66-year-old woman is eastern European with fair skin. She realizes most of the attention in the debate over illegal immigration is on those with darker skin.

More than half of the 1,800 illegal immigrants deported to 139 countries from Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Michigan/Ohio region in 2005 were from Mexico. Rob Baker, who is in charge of detention and removal at the Detroit field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said 972 were sent back to Mexico.

Nationally, Mexico is by far the main destination for deportees. In 2004, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Brazil rounded out the top 5. Latvia didn't make the top 10, nor did any European country.

Elsa continues to be under Immigration's radar.

``I've never been mistreated and nobody has ever questioned me about being here (illegally),'' she said. ``Besides, I'm too old to be afraid. They don't ask and I don't tell.''

Elsa arrived in the U.S. from Latvia in 1992 on a visitor's visa to spend time with her sister in Grand Rapids. After a six-month stay, she was granted another six-month visa.

When that time was up, she should have returned to Latvia, but didn't.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 45 percent of migrants in the U.S. illegally entered on visas and never left. That means there may be as many as 6 million illegal immigrants who, like Elsa , simply overstayed visas.

Often, they stay for the same reason most enter the U.S. illegally in the first place: work.

In Latvia, Elsa was employed in health care. She worked as a lab histologist, determining diseases present in tissue samples taken from patients. In the U.S., she has earned a living doing odd jobs and caring for elderly in-home patients in Florida, Illinois and Michigan.

The money she makes -- about $10,000 to $15,000 per year -- is a fortune to her.

``I make more here in one year than in the 30 years I worked as a doctor in Latvia,'' she said. ``I'm taking all the money I can grab.''

Like many immigrants to the U.S., she is thinking as much about her family as she is about herself. She's happy with the few possessions she has, and nearly all the money she makes goes to her husband in Latvia.

``He's sick; he needs the money,'' she said. She hasn't seen him since she left her home country 14 years ago. ``He is the reason I keep working.''

On a recent Friday morning, Elsa was busy doing chores in the kitchen of a local recreational camp. She washes dishes, scrubs the floors and keeps the area tidy.

It's not her usual work.

She says her main job caring for people nearing the end of their lives pays better than the work many other undocumented immigrants perform -- picking fruit and vegetables, landscaping or other labor-intensive jobs.

``They are worse off than me,'' she said. ``They might not get the jobs I get because of the way I look. I look like other Americans.''

Elsa follows the immigration debate by watching the news on television, and sympathizes with other undocumented workers.

``America needs us,'' she said. ``There are a lot worse things someone could be than an illegal (immigrant).''

In the afternoons, when the work is over, she walks to a lake near the camp at which she has been employed for the past several weeks.

``This looks a lot like Latvia,'' she said. ``It's beautiful like it is there.''

At the water's edge, she said, she takes imaginary walks with her husband, holding a hand that isn't there and speaking words he will never hear.

She maintains a relationship with her family not through communication, but through fantasy. She has two children and five grandchildren living in Latvia. In the past 14 years, they've been here to visit her twice.

Eventually, Elsa will return to Latvia, she said. She knows that when she leaves the U.S., it will be a final farewell to a country that has provided for her and her family for more than a decade.

And when she goes home, she knows she can never return.

Until that time, she will stay and work.

``I still feel like I can do and do and do,'' she said. ``And so I stay.''

I hope that Elsa's husband and children she so callously left behind, are taking walks by the water with a real woman who has stepped in to be a real wife to her husband and a loving step mother to her children ! I do not understand how one can so easily leave behind their whole families for the chance of living in America. This shows to me, these people are materialistic who care more for what they can buy then people who love their families and refuse to be separated from them at all cost!