Thread: SUCCESS STORIES OF AMNESTY "SOB"

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/28669.php



Guide Site Map » Published: 10.07.2006
SUCCESS STORIES OF AMNESTY
Entire village enjoys benefits of act
The 1986 law opened special door to Tucson for those from poor area in Mexico
By CLAUDINE LoMONACO
Tucson Citizen
Sergio Pacheco left home when he was 17 with little more than the determination to escape the poverty of rural Mexico. He landed a job as a cattle hand on a ranch in Sasabe. That was 28 years ago.
Now he owns a multimillion-dollar mobile home installation business in Tucson with 25 employees.
Pacheco, 45, pegs his success on hard work and the 1986 amnesty that legalized 2.7 million people, including him, who entered the U.S. illegally.
"When I was young, I just wanted to have a decent job," Pacheco said. "Put food on the table and provide for my family. But then amnesty came along and I could do so much more."
For Pacheco and many others who settled in Tucson from his village, Loma de Buena Vista, in Guanajuato, Mexico, amnesty was an unmitigated success. It allowed them to come out of the shadows, build businesses, send their children to college and integrate into American life.
Still, amnesty was widely labeled a failure because it did not stop illegal immigration.
Many, including Pacheco's 43-year-old brother Saul, a legal permanent U.S. resident, said the act encouraged illegal immigration because those who got papers brought over other family members - some legally, some not.
"It was like a hook, drawing people to the United States," he said.
Sergio Pacheco estimates there are about 400 families from Loma de Buena Vista in Tucson.
"There are more people from Loma de Buena Vista in Tucson than there are in Mexico," he said, laughing from behind his desk in a mobile home on the South Side that serves as the company's office.
A baseball cap with the company's name, U.S. Mobile Home Transport, hangs on a wall above the fireplace and near a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
In 1986, for Sergio Pacheco amnesty meant the difference between earning $25 a day as an illegal immigrant installing mobile homes and earning $1,000 a week as manager for the same company after his legalization.
He started his own business in 1991 after earning U.S. citizenship, and quickly petitioned for Saul to join him, not as a family member, which would have taken years, but as a necessary worker.
Saul Pacheco had earned $100 a week at a factory manufacturing thread. He did not want to leave Mexico, but he said he had no choice.
"Jobs just don't pay enough over there," he said.
The Pacheco brothers have their wives and children with them in Tucson and own homes. They speak English, as do their children, and two brothers have their oldest child in college.
Sergio's daughter Joann is a sophomore majoring in business administration at the University of Arizona.
"One day, she'll be running this business and telling us all what to do," he joked.
The brothers form the heart of Tucson's Loma de Buena Vista community, and community members regularly pop into their office to plan soccer tournaments, parties and to raise money for projects or people back home. They have financed roads, purchased medication and refurbished a church.
Loma de Buena Vista residents in Tucson are a mix of U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents and illegal immigrants.
Within the community, immigration status dictates someone's work options and type of housing, educational possibilities, connection to the home village and the ability to live with loved ones. For some from the village, it has meant the difference between life and death.
The contrast was brought into stark detail this summer when a 46-year-old father of nine from the Pacheco brothers' village died in the desert south of Three Points.
Antonio Jimenez Torres had crossed back and forth from Loma de Buena Vista to work on ranches and construction sites around Tucson for decades. He died of heat exposure in June.
Pacheco and his brothers organized a search party of 24 people armed with cell phones and water bottles.
"He was the first from our village to die in the desert," said Saul Pacheco, who coordinated the search.
Torres earned amnesty in 1986, but lost it when he returned to Mexico after the death of his oldest child when he stayed out of the country too long. The Pacheco brothers found Torres' body after a two-day search, then organized a soccer tournament that raised $15,000 for his widow.

Many, including Pacheco's 43-year-old brother Saul, a legal permanent U.S. resident, said the act encouraged illegal immigration because those who got papers brought over other family members - some legally, some not.
"It was like a hook, drawing people to the United States," he said.

Too bad the idiots in Congress can't even see what is so obvious.