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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Illegal immigrants refrain: 'Leaving America is not an option' Francisco Gimenez risked his life to get into United States. He is not planning to leave in a hurry. Like many members of Los Angeles' immigrant community, the 27-year-old butcher is skeptical about proposed legislation intended to offer illegal workers a path to citizenship. Under reforms announced last week, Gimenez would be required to return to Mexico at some point in order to secure the right to work legally in the United States, possibly paying up to 5,000 dollars in fines additionally. Gimenez fears however that once he leaves America he won't be allowed back in. "I don't really understand that much about the bill, but I'd have to be crazy to go back to Mexico to apply for visa now that I am already in the US," he says. "They wouldn't give me a visa there." Persuading workers like Gimenez that is in their interests to leave appears to be one of the biggest challenges facing US authorities, as they try to bring the country's 12-million strong illegal labor force out of the shadows. In factories, markets, car-washes and laundromats, illegal workers in Los Angeles Hispanic community the same refrain: "Going home is not an option." Gimenez is one of the thousands who put their lives in the hands of human-traffickers known as 'coyotes' to sneak across the United States' southern border with Mexico. Often immigrants trying to cross the desert are robbed or murdered by bandits and rival gangs. But the rewards on offer for those willing to take the risk are immense. Gimenez, who paid 3,000 dollars to a smuggling gang to help get him across the border in Arizona in 2003, sends back 400 dollars a month to his wife and two children in Mexico. His salary of just over 1,400 dollars a month is roughly 10 times what he would earn for the same job in Mexico. "I would love to go back and live in Mexico but I can only make money here," Gimenez said. "For me the important thing about the legislation is if I can visit my country or bring my family here legally without the danger of them having to try and cross the border." For other illegals, finding the money required to pay for legal status under the new reforms is problematical. "If I could pay 5,000 dollars to get residency or a work permit without leaving the country I would pay that because it's roughly the same amount you have to pay to the 'coyotes'," said Sigfrido Villalta, a worker in a car wash. "But when you only have 1,000 dollars a month it's hard. Obviously I want a residence visa. But I need the ability to pay for one, and there is also the possibility they could penalize the employer." Gimenez' employer, Jose Luis Rojas, an illegal immigrant who acquired permanent residency and citizenship after Ronald Reagan's 1986 amnesty, is confident that a solution is only a matter of time. "I came to America as an illegal worker and now I'm a citizen," Rojas said. "That's why I say to them just be patient." Rojas said he is relaxed about the possibility of immigration authorities raiding his business. "I'm not worried about immigration raids," the 46-year-old said. "If they're going to do that they are going to do it at the big textile factories, where they have 40 or 50 illegal workers at a time." Villalta, meanwhile, is also wary of leaving his family in Los Angeles in order to apply for a foothold in the US system from El Salvador. "The guest worker program does not help the families that are here," he said. "If I have to leave the country who will pay the bills here? How will my family exist?" Gimenez echoed Villalta's concern -- and said he expected agricultural workers entering the country on seasonal visas would quite likely end up over-staying in any case. "The work permit program is for people who want to come here for the first time -- it doesn't offer anything for people that are already here," he said. "And anyway, a Mexican farmer who comes here on a 10-month permit is going to stay here permanently anyway."
Poster Comment: I posted this for the information it provides us. He is making $1,400 a month as a butcher. I have met many native born American butchers in my life so he is doing a job that Americans want. $1,400 every 4 weeks works out to $8.75 an hour. If we passed Amnesty, his wages would go up and the wages of those working now with legal papers as butchers would go down until the market place and the Law of Supply and Demand set a new wage in between the legal and illegal wages. This new wage would have to be low enough to create jobs for all new 22,000,000 Americans. That means that nearly 60,000,000 or more employed native born Americans would have to take a pay cut. His wife and kids would come to America under Amnesty. In California average school expenditures are $10,000 per child in the poorest districts. Two more kids in the schools means an extra $20,000 a year to local taxpayers. Of course that would not be him, because even if the wages for butchers dropped to $12.00 an hour so he gets a $3.25 an hour raise he will not be making enough to pay taxes. Of course the taxes paid by butchers, truck drivers, waitresses, cooks, warehouse workers and others would go down drastically with their new lower wages. And his wife and million of other newly imported wives will have to work too so that the Law of Supply and Demand will have to create millions more jobs for these new, new citizens by lowering wages yet again. Wages have been dropping in real terms for many years especially for those native born Americans who had to compete for jobs with legal and illegal immigrants. Granting citizenship to 30,000,000 (if you include the daisy chain of spouses and children and parents) will only drastically cut wages and raise rents for the working poor already here. It will also grant citizenship to relatives who will go directly onto Social Security disability and retirement. That would mean that our 43,000,000 current recipients could expect benefit cuts along with their rent increases as the housing market has to accomodate ten million plus new low income new residents. There are many other hard realities this new Senate bill does not address. The chief one being the funding source. The Senators should be required to pass tax increases sufficient to pay for all new programs including their impact on state and local schools and on private and charitable hospitals.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: *The Border* (#0)
#4. To: robin (#1)
I am really getting tired of having to fight this thing every six months. Would people put out money if I started up a "Send a brick to your Congresscritter" subscription service?
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