http://www.statepress.com/issues/2007/0 ... yle/699804

Immigration issues
SPM looks at both sides of the heated debate
by Leah Duran
published on Thursday, February 15, 2007

Jose* lives in Phoenix. He works every day to support his wife and two children. Jose owns a car and a house. He pays insurance and files his taxes.

But Jose is an illegal immigrant.

Ten years ago, Jose came to America without money or even shoes, which robbers took from him on his morning trek from Mexico. He rode in a pickup truck to Phoenix, where his brother had been living for five years. Jose began working in construction before he met his wife and started a family.

"I've learned to love this country," Jose says. "This is home."

There are approximately 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States and nearly 450,000 reside in Arizona, according to estimates made by the Pew Hispanic Center's 2005 Current Population Survey.

Illegal immigrants face an increasingly difficult situation due to recent political and social developments nationwide, says Tony Herrera, a member of Unidos En Arizona, a Phoenix-based group that works for the interests of the Latino community.

"There is a growing environment of hostility toward undocumented immigrants," Herrera says. "American society needs them physically and economically, but they are not wanted politically and socially."

One bill that deters illegal immigrants from participating in Arizona's political process is Proposition 200. Passed two years ago, it requires proof of citizenship to register to vote.

"If I could vote, I would, but I don't have the ability," Jose says.

Many U.S. cities approved laws such as the one passed in July 2006 in Hazelton, Pa., that fines landlords who rent to illegal immigrants. Arizona passed four anti-immigrant measures in the November election.

But not everyone shares the anti-immigrant sentiment. Arizona is home to humanitarian and migrant-rights groups such as Humane Borders and No More Deaths.

"The theory is that if immigrants' lives are made miserable, they will want to self-deport," Herrera says. "But the majority of immigrants have nothing to go back to."

Jose says he lives in constant fear of being stopped for a small infraction and then sent to immigration authorities. Since he was worried about being discovered, he recently quit his job as a carpenter and now works from his home.

"I don't know if I will return home every night," Jose says. "The law says that [if I were caught] my children, who were born here and are American citizens, could stay, but my wife and I would have to go back to Mexico."

Jose says he doesn't send any money to Mexico since his family is here.

Even though some workers do send money home to their families in Mexico, immigration helps the economy rather than draining it, according to Dawn McLaren, a research economist at the W.P. Carey School of Business. She says that American consumers buying goods made overseas has a larger negative effect on our economy than immigrants sending their wages home.

However, a study conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that Arizona's illegal immigrant population costs the state's taxpayers about $1.3 billion per year for medical care, education and prison costs.

Jack Martin, special projects coordinator of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, says illegal immigrants who pay taxes offset one-fourth of the cost, but that "it still leaves a heavy burden on the taxpayers."

Population is another factor that contributes to economic growth, McLaren says. "One-half of the current population growth [in the U.S.] comes from immigration."

Economic growth also results from increased productivity. With more people graduating from college with degrees for skilled jobs like computer programming, less people are willing to do manual labor. Immigrants fulfill the demand for those needed to work jobs like construction and planting, she adds.

"Mexico is creating jobs for more-skilled people," McLaren says. "The U.S. provides them with skilled labor, and they provide us with unskilled labor."

But there are as many U.S. citizens who are unemployed or looking for work as there are people working illegally in this country, Martin says.

The large number of illegal immigrants working has allowed employers to "drive down wages and working conditions so that those jobs are not attractive to Americans anymore," Martin says.

Regardless of how many debates ensue about immigration, illegal immigrants undergo a daily struggle to simply live their lives.

"This is home," Jose says again.

*Last name omitted to protect privacy.