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 Editorials | May 2005 
As Border Debate Rages, Immigrants' Fears Rise
 Emily Bazar - SacBee.com
| | Immigrants contribute to the economy while becoming scapegoats for Americans' financial frustrations. |
In a farmworker's world, bad weather equals a bad paycheck. Thursday's rain kept 200 mostly Mexican and Central American laborers who work for Salvador Gonzalez Labor Contractor at home.
The company's Galt office was quiet as a result, and talk among the Gonzalez family and staff turned to immigration.
Everyone agreed that recent weeks have been hard for immigrants, particularly the roughly 10 million who are in the country illegally.
"Why are they so angry?" asked Teresa Gonzalez, 57, a Mexican immigrant and naturalized citizen.
"They," according to Gonzalez, include a variety of individuals and groups:
• Last month, volunteers calling themselves Minutemen descended on the Arizona border to deter illegal immigrants from crossing into the United States, and a Southern California organization announced plans to do the same near San Diego this summer.
• Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised the work of the Minutemen, saying, "They've done a terrific job."
• Earlier this week, Southern California Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta, submitted a proposed initiative that would establish a state police force to enforce immigration laws.
• And the U.S. Senate is poised to approve a measure that would, among other things, discourage states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
Gonzalez fears these elements are combustible and could spark violence.
She also knows there's no simple answer to her question.
Paul Rosenzweig is a senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "There's a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the current (immigration) system," he said.
Though the Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank, Rosenzweig said liberal immigration advocates agree that change is needed.
"I don't think there's any consensus on what the right answer is," he said.
It seems everyone has jumped into the immigration debate, from President Bush - who has advocated a guest worker program - to California's GOP governor.
One popular theory is that Schwarzenegger's comments were a politically motivated attempt to boost his sagging poll numbers.
But activists on all sides offer a variety of reasons for recent immigration-related debates, border patrols and proposals.
Jack Pealer of Citrus Heights cites the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as his wake-up call.
Pealer, 76, considered traveling to Washington D.C., last month to complain about what he views as a porous southern border.
"The possibility of a nuclear device, even in nothing more than a suitcase, could be brought across and exploded in California," said Pealer, who is retired from the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Postal Service.
"I think people are getting fed up," he added.
Carole Blalock, chairwoman of the Northern California Coalition for Immigration Reform, agrees that security concerns are stoking passions.
Her beliefs also have been shaped by personal experiences.
Blalock's daughter lives in Kansas, which is among the several Midwestern and Southeastern states with a growing illegal immigrant population.
Migrants increasingly are heading for places other than California and Texas, which have long been favored destinations.
"Now, the other states are having the same problems as the few states here, and people are saying, 'Wait a minute, what's going on?' " Blalock said.
Blalock said her daughter has reported hard economic times and local job losses, which she blames on the new immigrant population.
"We're seeing the pot boiling over," Blalock said.
On the opposite end of the philosophical spectrum, Ilene Jacobs, director of litigation, advocacy and training for California Rural Legal Assistance, agreed that money woes can spur anti-immigrant sentiments.
Immigrants contribute to the economy, she said, while becoming scapegoats for Americans' financial frustrations.
"Whenever we have problems in the economy, whenever we have people priced out of the housing market, like we have in California, the instinct is to blame the victim," Jacobs said.
"They try to blame the people who have not caused the problem."
This anti-immigrant sentiment has had a profound effect on immigrants, said Luis Magana, who works with farmworkers in Stockton.
"People feel vulnerable, like they're targets," he said. "People are thinking, 'Now what?' "
Gema Ruiz, 28, works in the Gonzalez contracting office in Galt.
She said she's increasingly frightened of deportation and believes strangers have been eyeing her oddly in the grocery store.
She and other immigrants are venturing out less often, she said.
"There's always been a little fear," said Ruiz, who came to the United States six years ago from Jalisco, Mexico. Until about two years ago, she worked in the fields.
"Now it's getting a little worse, because what's happening at the border might come up here," she said.
That sentiment was echoed Friday morning on a south Sacramento street corner, where hundreds of day laborers gather each morning to search for work.
Herman Gonzalez, 30, came to the United States about a year ago. He waits on the street corner every day, rushing pickup trucks that pull over to hire workers for construction, landscaping or painting.
Gonzalez said he's paid about $8 to $10 an hour for his work.
He believes the current immigration wars aren't necessary, because he and other migrants fulfill a need.
"They think we're here to take their jobs," he said. "We do the jobs that Americans don't want to do." |
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