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Illegals' presence deepens health concerns in food industry
The Business Journal of Phoenix - May 26, 2006
by Mike Sunnucks

Public health worries about illegal immigrants are reaching beyond hospitals and emergency rooms and could hit home in the restaurant and food-service sectors.

Undocumented immigrants are prevalent in the food-service industry, filling lower-paying, labor-intensive jobs such as bus boys, waiters, cooks, meat-cutters and food handlers.

That raises public health concerns among some lawmakers, including Scottsdale Congressman J.D. Hayworth and medical experts, because undocumented migrant workers often come from countries and regions with higher communicable disease rates.

Studies by the National Institutes of Health and articles in various medical journals point to higher rates of tuberculosis, malaria, blood disorders and other diseases in Mexican border regions and other Third World countries than in the U.S., where some of these diseases are rare or nonexistent.

Some cities in other states, including Massachusetts, have started cracking down on restaurants that hire illegals, citing not only violation of federal employment laws, but also public health protections.

There are about 12.5 million restaurant workers in the U.S and more than 200,000 food-service and restaurant workers in Arizona, according to industry associations.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates there are 1.6 million foreign-born and immigrant workers in the food service and restaurant sectors nationally.

"They are a substantial portion of our work force," said Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant & Hospitality Association.

David Ludwig, environmental health manager at the Maricopa County Department of Environmental Services, said the restaurant industry is required to train all of its workers on health code rules and practices after they are on the job 30 days, but the sector struggles with high turnover.

The county agency, which regulates and inspects restaurants and food-service operations, does not track the relationship between immigration status and health code violations.

Restaurants periodically are inspected by county health officials to make sure they are abiding by food handling and safety regulations. Violations often include having unlicensed workers and food managers, evidence of rodents or insects and operations without proper permits.

Ludwig said food-service safety and regulations classes are given in English, Spanish and a number of other languages. The key is for immigrants and other workers to be adequately trained and for restaurants to have licensed managers on the premises to make sure new workers follow health code rules and don't show up to work when they are sick.

The county agency also cracks down on unlicensed mobile food carts often operated in Latino neighborhoods by Hispanic entrepreneurs, some undocumented workers and some U.S. citizens, Ludwig said.

"Our goal is to keep the public safe," he said.

Chucri said restaurants are required to follow basic training rules and regulations, but some go beyond those and conduct background checks on workers and managers and help Spanish-speaking employees improve their English. A few restaurants also require medical background checks and physicals, he said.

The state group and the National Restaurant Association work with chains and individual eateries on training and food safety issues.

Immigration hawks argue the answer to the public health worries is to better control the Mexican border.

"Since illegal aliens are not screened as legal immigrants are, they can walk in with all manner of dangerous contagious diseases, including drug-resistant tuberculosis, which can cost up to $1 million to treat, Chagas, acute hepatitis B, chronic hepatitis C, and sexually transmitted diseases," said Scottsdale Congressman J.D. Hayworth, a Republican advocate of stricter border controls.

"Many of these diseases are reaching alarming proportions in the rest of the world, especially tuberculosis. Continued illegal immigration risks the reintroduction of diseases we eradicated long ago," said Hayworth.

Those on the other side of the issue counter the public health argument is a way of fear-mongering the immigration issue and that undocumented workers are hard-working and take lower-paying jobs shunned by others.

"Referring to undocumented workers, even obtusely, as dirty and disease-ridden reminds me of stereotypes of years past, when African Americans were considered dirty and disease-ridden, and later, when Irish Americans were considered as such," said state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix.

"Classifying a group of people with these negative stereotypes takes us farther from solutions and unity, and leads us into more problems and strife," she said.

Get connected

Arizona Restaurant & Hospitality Association: www.azrestaurant.org.