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Immigration polarizes public
By MELISSA GRIGGS
Staff Writer
Last update: March 27, 2005

For nine years, farmworker advocates tried to hammer out an agreement between undocumented workers and growers who employ them.

Their efforts are contained in a bill before Congress that would allow farmworkers to become temporary residents and apply for permanent status after working 360 days in a six-year period.

The Agricultural Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act, known as AgJOBS, has 35 co-sponsors in the Senate, almost evenly split between the parties. Both Florida senators, Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican, and Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, are co-sponsors of the bill.

"We think with the widespread bipartisan support, it will pass," said Bruce Goldstein, an attorney with the Farmworker Justice Fund.

The bill "has a snowball's chance in Hades" of passing, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Krikorian, whose group advocates strict immigration rules, said any bill that allows illegal immigrants to stay in the United States won't go anywhere in Congress. The same applies to President Bush's proposed guest worker program, said Krikorian.

Republican gains in the fall election have stiffened resistance on Capitol Hill, where conservatives view Bush's plan as granting amnesty, experts agree.

Bush's plan, not yet written into a bill, would be the first overhaul of immigration laws in 19 years.

It would allow three-year work visas for the millions of immigrants living illegally in the United States. To get the work permits, applicants would have to show letters from employers saying their jobs could not be filled by U.S. citizens. Immigrants could get one renewal for three years and then would have to return home.

"The White House has twisted itself in knots to say this is not amnesty," Krikorian said. "But the illegals get to stay. That's amnesty."

An estimated 10.3 million undocumented immigrants now live in the United States and Mexicans make up about 5.9 million of that, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Another half million unauthorized immigrants enter the country each year.

The immigration boom has polarized the two sides of the debate. One side says foreign-born workers who enter the country illegally take jobs from citizens, drive down wages and undermine national security.

The other side says immigrants satisfy employer and consumer demands for cheap labor, pay taxes and continue America's proud immigrant tradition, which should entitle them to rights and benefits.

University of Florida Professor Manuel Vasquez, who studies Florida's immigrant communities, said he is surprised by the conflict generated by the arrival of new immigrants.

"The backlash against immigrants is a paradox," he said. "On the one hand, we need the immigrants to run the local economy, but on the other hand, we don't want them visible."

Critics say American taxpayers are concerned about the cost of social services used by undocumented immigrants and their U.S.-born children.

And the current system poses a security threat, Krikorian said. "Any system that a Mexican dishwasher can sneak though is one a terrorist can sneak through."

Michele Waslin, spokesman for the National Council of La Raza, a Latino civil rights organization, agrees the current system is ineffective.

"We don't want smugglers to determine who is crossing the border," she said. "We want them to be vetted by the U.S. government."

It's ironic the immigration boom in the past decade has occurred when the United States is spending considerably more on immigration control than ever before, especially on border enforcement, said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California San Diego.

And while border enforcement has risen, interior enforcement has declined sharply, he said. In 2003, only four employers nationwide were prosecuted for knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant, a crime punishable by six months in prison.

Proponents and opponents do agree on one thing: Undocumented workers are driving down wages for Americans. Construction jobs that used to pay $10 to $15 an hour are only paying $7, said Gregory Schell, an attorney with the Migrant Farmworkers Justice Project in Lake Worth.

Critics argue that if cheap labor wasn't available, employers would have to pay more.

"Illegal immigration is a subsidy for employers,," said Krikorian.

Experts say Bush's proposals and the AgJOBS bill are just putting Band-Aids on a terminally ill system. Both plans fall short of the reform needed, said UF's Vasquez.

But John Hoblick, a fernery owner in DeLeon Springs, said the AgJOBS bill is a good start.

"AgJOBS is the best thing we have going," said Hoblick, a member of the Volusia County Farm Bureau board and secretary of the Florida Farm Bureau Federation.

"We need workers, especially in the state after the hurricanes," he said.