Union behind illegal immigrant

Workplace - Carpenter union members rally behind a man who once would have been seen as a threat

Tuesday, February 13, 2007
SARAH HUNSBERGER

The Oregonian

Of all the offenders that U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown has sentenced, a carpenter and union organizer who illegally immigrated from Mexico more than 15 years ago drew one of the biggest crowds.

Instead of spurning Jose Alfredo Cobian of Molalla as a threat to their jobs and wages, fellow union members packed Brown's Portland courtroom last month in a gesture that reveals the changing relationship between organized labor and immigrant workers.

Many union members continue to support Cobian as he faces the possibility of deportation at a separate immigration hearing today.

"I had a chance to run but chose not to do it," Cobian said during the Jan. 23 criminal sentencing. "I did something wrong, and when you do that, you pay for your mistakes. And that's what I'm here to do. It's something I want to teach my kids."

Union members are helping with legal fees and donating about $500 a week for family living expenses now that Cobian has been barred from working in the United States.

(Now this is all so wonderful, but I wonder......? Would this same group of union members be as helpful to an American wife if her husband were arrested and convicted of a crime, say identity theft, cause this is what this man has done, never mind the persons identity was that of a dead child!!)

"I know we have members that have a fear that if we bring in more people it will have the effect of taking work away from them," said Bruce Dennis, president of Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, which employed Cobian without knowing he was an illegal immigrant. "But the simple truth is these people are already here doing the work."

More than 1.4 million undocumented immigrants work in U.S. construction jobs, accounting for about 12 percent of all construction workers, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates. Oregon has 125,000 to 175,000 unauthorized migrants, (this is a very low estimate) according to the center, with at least half in the work force.

Dennis, who is president of Portland-based Carpenters Local 247 as well as president of the regional council that employed Cobian, said that in the past the union had more of a "country club" attitude toward its membership.

But he said the union has grown to realize that if some employers get away with paying improperly low wages to immigrant workers, U.S.-born carpenters could suffer, too.

As a lead union organizer, Cobian pressured some "despicable employers," Dennis said.

He was one of the union's first bilingual organizers and advocated for workers -- often immigrants -- who were sometimes paid below minimum wage and who worked in unsafe conditions, said Pete Savage, regional manager for the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters.

Bob Bussel, director of the Labor, Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon, said the carpenter union's approach to immigrant labor "is kind of emblematic" of many sectors of the union movement. "They've been working strategically about how to be more welcoming and more inclusive, whereas before there was more of a sense of let's try to keep the doors closed," he said.

A pivotal shift came in 2000, Bussel said, when the AFL-CIO turned away from policies to keep immigrant workers out of the country and advocated amnesty opportunities.

Cobian and his lawyer in the criminal case, T.J. Hester, declined to be interviewed by The Oregonian, but Cobian spoke last fall with a union publication. "In my heart, I am an American," Cobian told Northwest Labor Press, adding that his greatest concern about returning to Mexico was the reduced educational and economic opportunity for his two children.

Cobian, who is 36 according to some documents, was born in Mexico and entered the United States as a young man, finding low-paying construction work.

Along the way, he illegally obtained a birth certificate belonging to Jose Luis Mendoza, who was born in Willows, Calif., in 1971 and died as a child. Cobian used the birth certificate to assume a new identity. He married, had children, and bought a house in Molalla, according to court documents.

Because they were born in the United States, his two children are U.S. citizens.

In 2004, he used his new identity to seek legal permanent U.S. residency for his wife, according to his indictment.

It wasn't until after Cobian applied for a U.S. passport at the Oregon City Post Office in 2005 -- using the identity of the dead boy -- that he was caught, according to court documents. The U.S. Department of State did a routine cross-check comparing passport applications with a database of dead people, said Kemp Strickland, special assistant U.S. attorney who handled Cobian's criminal case.

Immigration authorities knocked on Cobian's door in July 2006, and Cobian immediately admitted that he had lied about his identity. He was arrested in September, and authorities seized two handguns from his home. ](guns?????why????)

He was not charged with being an illegal resident in possession of weapons but pleaded guilty to criminal passport fraud and was sentenced to probation. Charges of Social Security fraud and making false statements were dismissed, but he faces the possibility of deportation in today's immigration proceeding.

Hester told the judge during the criminal sentencing that Cobian is making plans to move his family to Mexico and hopes to repay donations through the sale of his house.

Savage said Cobian has been resigned to his fate and hopes immigration authorities will grant him a voluntary departure that would allow him to travel with his family, rather than incarcerating him and leaving the family to reunite later in Mexico.

About 20 to 30 union colleagues volunteered to help paint, landscape and spruce up Cobian's house before he put it on the market, Savage said. They also plan fundraisers for Cobian.

Brown, the federal judge who sentenced Cobian for passport fraud, told him during his January court appearance that most defendants have only their paid court-appointed attorneys to help them.

"I hope you take great comfort in the fact that you've persuaded so many good people to stand with you," Brown said. (was this said sarcasticallly? Seems to have been)

Sarah Hunsberger: 503-294-5922 shunsberger@news.oregonian.com



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