August 13, 2007

Census figures don't track number of undocumented workers in Weld County

Census figures on Weld County's Latino population don't include estimates on how many undocumented workers live in Weld.

A release by the federal government last week revealed that Weld's Latino population grew 3.8 percent from 2005 to 2006, the most recent data available.

There are approximately 65,143 Latinos who live in Weld, more than 25 percent of the entire population of 236,857. Of that number, it's unknown how many people counted are in the United States illegally.

Undocumented workers aren't counted for any ethnicity in the census, though their undocumented status doesn't preclude them from being counted in the Census, Census officials say.

According to the federal government's Census Web site, many illegal immigrants are worried about being deported after responding to Census questions, so many simply don't respond to a request for information. That makes tracking the number of undocumented workers a big task.

There are an estimated 190,000 illegal immigrants who reside in Colorado, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, but neither the center nor the Census bureau keeps figures on how many estimated undocumented workers live in Weld.

Al Dominguez, former Weld district attorney and current administrative hearing officer for Greeley, said many local law enforcement agencies have no way of telling if someone they've arrested is here illegally or not.

"There's really no way to track them until you catch them," Dominguez said. "Jails have no way of tracking them either."

Dominguez said undocumented workers naturally would want to keep as low a profile as possible. Also, Dominguez said, deporting undocumented workers has been shown to not be as effective in driving down numbers of people who are here illegally. An event like the December raids on Greeley's Swift plant also doesn't have much long term affect on numbers of undocumented workers in Weld, Dominguez said.

"I would suspect that it has a temporary effect," Dominguez said. "We always knew that deportation sounds good, but a lot of the time within 48 hours they're back in the country."

http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/2007 ... /108120161