Thread: Two Countries, Two Takes On Immigtation

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/

April 20, 2006 — In Mexico, Felipe Hernandez could make about $50 a week. In the United States? $300.

The income gap between Mexico and the United States is the widest for two countries sharing a border anywhere in the world, so it is an easy decision for thousands of Mexican laborers to rise hours before dawn and ride across the border for long days of intense, back-breaking work on massive farms and ranches.

On Wednesday, U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement conducted raids in nine states in what it says is the beginning of a nationwide effort to better enforce immigration laws.

But two counties along Arizona's border with Mexico illustrate the complexity of the issue. In Yuma County, in the southwestern corner of the state, immigrants are in high demand. In Cochise County, along the border with New Mexico, there are few jobs to spare.


In the West: A Matter of Demand

Yuma County produces about 90 percent of the lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower shipped between Thanksgiving and Easter — a business worth more than a $1 billion a year. And the big growers depend upon immigrant labor, legal or otherwise.

"I have worked since I was 7 years old in the field, and not once have I ever seen an Anglo-American pick alongside me," said Fernando Esqueda, who once picked lettuce at his mother's side and now runs a non-profit that helps immigrants.

In Yuma, employers reach out to legal workers. Rick Rademacher of the Yuma County Fresh Vegetable Association points to the three or four pages of classified ads in the newspaper as proof. But the responses to them cannot satisfy the demand.

"We can't find enough people to do the job," Rademacher said. "We're slowly mechanizing, but that's ongoing. We still can't eliminate people. We still need the people."

The growers insist they do their best to hire legal immigrants. But that job is farmed out to the labor contractors, and the truth is both sides operate in the gray area between what the law says and how it is enforced because a billion-dollar business depends on it.

Across the state, Roger Barnett, a Cochise County rancher, sets up a thermal imaging camera to scan the border for illegal immigrants. He is spending his own time and money because he considers the human traffic an affront to American law.



"They are coming over here, they are bringing their families," Barnett said. "We don't need them."


In Cochise, the burden of even temporary illegal immigrants is great. Last year, just from May to December, illegal aliens cost a small hospital about $400,000.


"We are morally and ethically required, not to mention federally required, to treat everyone who comes into the hospital. It's what we do," said Christine Vieria of Southeast Arizona Medical Center. "We treat people without regard to their national origin or ability to pay."


And according to the county's sheriff, the impact on the criminal justice system has been substantial. Sheriff Larry Dever said 40 percent of his department's time and budget is spent dealing with illegal immigrants, and he gets an earful from property owners.


"Whether you live in an apartment in Chicago or you live on 20,000 acres in southern Arizona, if someone is in your backyard you resent it," Dever said. "Then they are using it for a bathroom and cutting fences, damaging your water sources and killing your livestock — it's a big economic loss."


In Cochise, the border patrol is putting up a bigger, better fence. But the new cameras and lights have only pushed the human smugglers farther down the line into the desert.


"The illegal alien smuggler is going to try to sneak their cargo into the U.S. where it is easier," said Ulysses Duronslet of the U.S. Border Patrol.


And where the fence ends, just outside of town, the burden falls hard on individual ranchers. For John Ladd, maintaining his family's 14,000 acre ranch despite hundreds of immigrants crossing his property every week means fixing fences and dealing with the debris and destruction — caused not just by the migrants but by the enforcers as well.

"The vehicle traffic from our government agencies patrolling, that will never go away," Ladd said. He said he doesn't expect Congress to act fast enough to help: "pretty soon it's going to be too late to do anything."


Already, the border patrol in this part of Arizona is apprehending more than 100 illegal immigrants a day. On average, at least one dies every day.


"They are willing to sacrifice themselves," Esqueda said, "because they know they have a family behind, they have a family they still have to support."

If Esqueda couldn't afford to feed his family, where is the personal responsibity in having the family in the first place? Oh, I forgot. Mexicans "love having children." And they love making the American taxpayer pay for them!

Well said, reform_now! Welcome aboard!