Thread: Immigrants are hopeful but cautious

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Posted on Mon, Aug. 15, 2005

Immigrants are hopeful but cautious

By Diane Smith
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

A bipartisan plan that would allow illegal immigrants to pay fines while they await permission to work temporarily in the United States is giving some immigrants hope.

But Congress has teased them with similar talk in the past.

"We are used to a lot of promises that aren't fulfilled," said Carlos, an undocumented hotel maintenance technician from Cleburne who asked that his last name not be published for fear of deportation. He earns about $24,000 a year.

Should undocumented employees such as Carlos be allowed to pay a fine and continue to work? Or should they be forced to return to their homelands and reapply for residency through a new guest-worker program?

And if millions of illegal workers left, how much would the economies of Texas and other border states be pinched?

The questions may be nearer than ever to being resolved as Congress reviews two competing immigration bills, each sponsored by two high-profile senators.

Those who favor tighter border controls say they worry that a guest-worker program would encourage more illegal immigration in the long run.

"The public is becoming more roused about the issue and is demanding that something be done," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors cracking down on illegal immigration.

But immigrants and some employers favor the bill filed by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Under that plan, illegal workers could pay $2,000 in fines for being in this country. They could then remain in the United States and apply for jobs.

"It doesn't matter if we have to pay, just so we don't have to keep hiding," Carlos said in Spanish.

Some service-sector employers also say they favor that bill because the competing plan, by Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona, would require undocumented workers in the United States to return to their homeland. From there, they could apply for the guest-worker program or for permanent U.S. residency.

Requiring an estimated 11 million undocumented workers to leave their jobs could create a labor shortage, said John Gay, co-chairman of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which national businesses and trade associations formed six years ago to lobby for laws that would help immigrant workers gain legal status.

Many illegal immigrants have built lives in this country by filling service-sector and manual-labor jobs that don't require a four-year college degree, Gay said.

"There are not enough Americans who are willing to do these kinds of jobs. We, as a society, want our kids to go to college," Gay said.

Talk of an immigration overhaul is not new. Since the late 1990s, the debate has been characterized mostly by proposals for a guest-worker program that would allow undocumented workers to work and live in the United States temporarily.

Immigrants have typically called for a route that enables them to gain legal permanent status or citizenship. Some have even called for a sweeping amnesty program similar to the one President Reagan pushed in the 1980s.

"They need to sit down and offer a decent plan," said Mary Dominguez-Santini, president of Casa Chihuahua, a Dallas immigration-advocacy organization.

That was the mood among lawmakers in the summer of 2001, but after 9-11, talk of a guest-worker program took a back seat to national security.

As immigration overhaul creeps back into the limelight, the post-9-11 concerns linger.

Shannon McGauley, co-founder of the Texas Minutemen in Arlington, which voluntarily monitors illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, said securing the borders is the country's foremost immigration issue. He said he worries that terrorists might be among the hundreds of thousands who enter illegally.

"The word is out: 'If you want to come into the United States, come through Mexico,' " McGauley said.

He said that it is a myth that employers need a guest-worker program to fill jobs and that the issue should be settled by national referendum.

For immigrants, jobs are not the only issue. They say they favor the McCain-Kennedy bill because it would keep families together.

Andres, a roofer from the Mexican state of Tampico, now lives in Johnson County. He said many families like his have mixed-legal status. He, for example, lives in this country illegally, but his children were born here and are citizens.

Some undocumented workers own homes, cars and businesses -- opportunities they didn't have in their homelands. Many pay property and sales taxes and sometimes payroll taxes and have become a major consumer force.

"I didn't come to get a handout from the government," Andres said.

Undocumented workers

• A guest-worker program has been part of President Bush's immigration-overhaul agenda since his 2000 campaign. Immigrant advocates have been calling for some sort of legalization program for undocumented workers since President Clinton was in office.

• The number of people working and living illegally in the United States is estimated at 7 million to 11 million.

• The population of illegal immigrants grew by 350,000 per year on average during the early and mid-1990s but by as much as 500,000 people a year during the last part of the decade.

• In 2000, California, Texas, New York, Illinois and Florida had the highest numbers of illegal immigrants.

SOURCE: Analysis of unauthorized immigration in the United States by the Migration Policy Institute


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The questions may be nearer than ever to being resolved as Congress reviews two competing immigration bills, each sponsored by two high-profile senators.

these "two high-profile senators" of the United States FOR Mexico, need to have their butts yanked from Congress by the legislatures of the States as well as any and all other Senators who have "forgotten their first love" and their duty

Corporate America wants cheap labor -- Corporate America owns the United States Senate and the federal courts