Interest Groups

Business


Some business groups have called the temporary-worker program impractical and protest a provision that would force employers to verify the legal status of every worker in the country. Of concern in some sectors is the bill's point system for permanent-residence visas, or green cards, which would deprive them of the ability to bring in foreign workers with distinct skills they need. Industries needing highly skilled, well-educated workers and industries employing lower-wage, minimally skilled workers have both identified problems with the compromise.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce backs the proposal as "the countours of a sound compromise." Of particular concern to the chamber is a backlog in the immigration bureaucracy that impedes the movement of legitimate cargo and travelers. The group advocates the expansion of temporary visa programs for essential workers, while ensuring that temporary workers would not take jobs being filled by U.S. citizens.

The National Association of Home Builders issued a statement rejecting the reform bill, saying that its problems are "grave and extensive" and if enacted "would do irreparable harm to America's small businesses." The trade association, whose members employ thousands of immigrant workers, says the bill could hurt employers who unwittingly hire illegal immigrants. The group is also concerned about language that would limit the number of permanent-resident green cards for low-skill workers needed by many construction crews.

The National Association of Manufacturers supports exempting foreign nationals who are graduates of U.S. universities with advanced degrees from a visa cap and backs an amendment by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.) that would keep the existing green card system largely intact, arguing that it would keep employers' flexibility in selecting workers with needed skill sets.

Immigrant Advocacy Groups


Several immigrant groups fault the proposed guest-worker program for denying them rights and a path to citizenship. Some also say the point system may limit the diversity of immigrants and allow bias in favor of immigrants from English-speaking countries.

National Council of La Raza, a Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, applauds the bill under consideration though it said it has "serious concerns about the specifics." It supports the DREAM Act, which would allow certain alien students to meet residency requirements for higher education, and the AgJOBS bill, which would open the way to legal status for some agriculture workers.

The League of United Latin American Citizens opposes the reform because it says the temporary workers program does not provide "a meaningful pathway to permanent legal residence" and eliminates some family-based green card categories. It supports the DREAM Act and AgJOBS bill.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), a nonprofit Latino litigation, advocacy and educational outreach institution, is pushing hard for family reunification and to eliminate some provisions that would bar illegal immigrants from becoming legalized



Labor


The Service Employees International Union, representing 1.3 million workers, supports a wider legalization program and stricter workplace enforcement to deter employers from skirting the law for competitive advantage. In a letter to Sen. Kennedy, the SEIU criticized the bill's legalization provisions as "unacceptable and unworkable," claiming that undocumented workers will not leave the country voluntarily. Service workers would like to create a path to citizenship for these temporary workers, such as the STRIVE Act in the House version of the bill. They also call for increasing the number of visas available for family reunification.

The AFL-CIO and the Laborers' International Union of North America oppose the immigration bill, arguing that workers here on a temporary basis are more vulnerable to labor violations. The AFL-CIO, whose members have historically viewed illegal immigrants as competitors, contends that some temporary workers will stay in this country illegally rather than go home when their visa expires.

The UNITE HERE International Union, representing 450,000 workers in the textile, hotel, casino, foodservice and restaurant industries, supports the legalization of undocumented workers and replacing employer sanctions with labor law enforcement. It is concerned about the creation of an underclass of temporary workers who have no chance of gaining citizenship.

Other Groups


The Roman Catholic Church is concerned about the separation of families and the potential for the exploitation of temporary workers who cannot get full rights and supports an earned legalization program for the country's undocumented workers. Catholicism is the religion of the majority of Latin Americans, the population most central to the immigration debate. In a May 17 statement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed "significant reservations" about the proposal with regard to these issues. During his May 22 testimony before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law, Bishop Thomas G. Wenski of Orlando, representing U.S. bishops, said: "From the church perspective, a family member from Central America, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean or elsewhere could well offer the country as much as a computer software engineer. Wenski proposed a new worker visa program agreed on by U.S. and Mexican bishops as a way to safeguard the rights of migrant workers.

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials does not support the compromise because the group believes the law reduces the emphasis on family reunification, does not provide a clear path to legal permanent residency for temporary workers and considers the legalization requirements of returning to one's home country and paying a penalty to be "unfair and burdensome." It supports the compromise's "earned" legalization program, the DREAM Act and the temporary worker program that provides workers with legal status and labor protections.

U.S. Border Control, a lobbying group dedicated to ending illegal immigration, issued an action alert against the "Amnesty Bill" calling it "a betrayal of everything America stand[s] for."

July 9, 2007
EMPLOYERS TO FACE MORE HEADACHES ON IMMIGRATION

Kent Hoover Washington Bureau Chief

The collapse of federal immigration reform means businesses can expect more state and local laws aimed at preventing them from hiring undocumented workers or renting apartments to illegal aliens.

Immigration attorneys also think the Department of Homeland Security will move forward with a proposed federal regulation that would increase a business' liability for employing workers whose Social Security numbers don't match government databases.

"There will be mass layoffs as soon as that regulation is published," said Laura Reiff, an immigration attorney at Greenberg Traurig's McLean, Va., office and co-chair of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition.

State immigration legislation
Number of bills in 2007: 1,169
Top policy areas:
Employment: 199 bills
Benefits: 149 bills
Law enforcement: 129 bills
Education: 105 bills
Health: 92 bills
Source: National Conference of State Legislatures, tally as of April 13

"In Florida, it could be catastrophic," said Wendy Smith, an employment lawyer at the Tampa office of Fisher & Phillips.

Business groups like EWIC contended immigration reform was needed to fix a dysfunctional system. Employers in many industries can't find enough legal workers, document fraud makes it hard to determine a worker's status, and the failure of Congress to address these problems has prompted states and localities to pass their own immigration laws.

By putting off action on immigration reform, the Senate just made the status quo worse, Reiff said.

'Green light' for state action
State legislators around the country have introduced around 1,200 bills and resolutions related to immigration so far this year, up from 570 last year. States will see Congress' failure to address immigration as "a green light to go forward and do more," Reiff said.

"I don't think there's any question that it will energize more efforts at the state and local level," said EWIC Co-chair Randy Johnson, vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Many of these efforts are aimed at employers. In Georgia, a new law went into effect July 1 that requires businesses that receive state contracts to participate in the federal government's Basic Pilot program, an electronic system that checks workers' Social Security numbers against federal databases. Colorado enacted similar legislation this year.

A new law in Oklahoma requires all employers to participate in the Basic Pilot program. Similar legislation was introduced this year in Missouri and South Carolina.

Many localities also are fighting illegal immigration by targeting businesses. Hazleton, Pa., for example, enacted an ordinance last year that enables the city to suspend a company's business license if it employs undocumented workers. The city also requires landlords to verify the legal status of their tenants.

These ordinances, however, have been challenged in the courts. Business groups contend they violate the U.S. constitution because only the federal government has jurisdiction over immigration. The same argument applies to state laws that would force companies to participate in the Basic Pilot program, they contend.

The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately will have to decide this issue, said Irv Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports stronger enforcement of immigration laws. FAIR contends states and localities have the right to regulate how business is conducted in their jurisdictions, and to decide how their own tax dollars are spent.

When a landlord rents an apartment or house to a family of illegal immigrants, he or she is committing everyone else in the community to pay for their education and other services, Mehlman said.

'No match' rule coming?

A bigger threat to businesses could come from the federal government. Business groups had urged the Department of Homeland Security to wait for immigration reform legislation before it issues a final regulation outlining what steps businesses should take when they receive letters notifying them that an employee's name and Social Security number don't match federal records. Now that Congress has punted on the issue, the department may soon implement that regulation, immigration attorneys predict.

As proposed last summer, businesses who receive these "no match" letters should follow certain steps, such as checking the accuracy of their own records and notifying the employee of the problem. If the discrepancy can't be resolved within two months, the employer must fire the employee or risk being charged with violating immigration laws.

The regulation won't "let people ignore problems that have stared them in the face before," Smith said.

Many workers who have been using fake Social Security numbers will lose their jobs, but "they're not just going to pack up their bags and go back to Mexico," Reiff said.

Many will stay in the United States and work in the underground economy instead, she predicted.

Employers should prepare for increased federal enforcement of immigration laws by going through the I-9 forms that workers fill out when they're hired and see if there are any obvious problems, Smith said. Employees whose Social Security numbers don't match federal records should be told to resolve the problem "or we've got to say adios," she said.

July 11, 2007, 6:08PM
19 Arrested in Swift Immigration Raids

By MIKE WILSON Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa "” Nineteen people were arrested at Swift & Co. meatpacking plants around the country as part of a sweep involving illegal immigrant workers at the plants, according to a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Raids were conducted Tuesday and Wednesday in Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado .

Officials with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union said that agents did not appear to use the "same level of intimidation and overkill" as they did in December raids in six cities that resulted in more than 1,200 immigrant workers being arrested.

Dan Hoppes, president of the local United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Grand Island, Neb., said immigration officials came to the plants with five warrants but only three of the workers were present.

Hoppes characterized the operation as far less aggressive than the raids in December that resulted in 261 arrests at the plant.

"It was done the right way this time," Hoppes said. "Not like last time, for crying out loud."

In Iowa, a union representative and human resources worker were arrested at the Swift meatpacking plant in Marshalltown on charges of bringing in and harboring illegal immigrants, said Richard Rocha, a spokesman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The arrests were part of the ongoing investigation into identity theft and illegal employment, Rocha said.

The U.S. attorney's office said two other people in Iowa were charged with immigration and identity theft-related charges and were being sought. No other information on those individuals was released.

Three other people at the plant were detained to determine if they are in the country legally, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Dave Minshall, spokesman for the Food and Commercial Workers union Local No. 7 in Greeley, Colo., said Tuesday that agents had at least 40 arrest warrants for suspects in Greeley; Cactus, Texas; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn.

In the December raids, no charges were filed against Swift, a Greeley-based company that bills itself as the world's second-largest beef and pork processor.

July 11, 2007, 11:08AM
New Arrests at Swift Plant

By OSKAR GARCIA Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. "” Three workers at a meatpacking plant in Grand Island were arrested on suspicion of identity theft, the local union president said Wednesday.

The arrests Tuesday were part of a scaled return to Swift & Co. plants in six states by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who arrested 1,200 immigrant workers at the plants on Dec. 12.

Dan Hoppes, president of the local United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said immigration officials came to the plants with five warrants but only three of the workers were present.

Hoppes characterized the operation as far less aggressive than the raids in December that resulted in 261 arrests at the Grand Island plant.

"It was done the right way this time," Hoppes said. "Not like last time, for crying out loud."

Immigration officials were expected to give details of arrests in Grand Island and at the other plants later Wednesday, spokesman Tim Counts said. Counts said he could not confirm Hoppes' totals Wednesday morning.

"We believe you have to obey the law, but at least they didn't go in and round up 400 or 500 people in the cafeteria and scare everybody to death," Hoppes said. "I don't like to see any arrests happen, of course, but they have to happen in order to keep our legal system going."

The Washington-based union released a statement Tuesday in support of the operation.

"To the extent this is the case, the union supports law enforcement efforts that abide by the law and respect the rights of workers," the union said.

Union officials Tuesday said immigration officers had arrest warrants for suspects in Greeley, Colo.; Cactus, Texas; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn.

In the December raids, no charges were filed against Swift, a Greeley-based company that bills itself as the world's second-largest beef and pork processor.

ICE Agents Arrive at Swift Plants

July 10, 2007, 10:38PM

© 2007 The Associated Press

GREELEY, Colo. "” Agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned to at least one Swift & Co. meatpacking plant Tuesday with arrest warrants for people suspected of identity theft in an operation that garnered union support.

Officials with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union said agents did not appear to use the "same level of intimidation and overkill" as raids in December that resulted in more than 1,200 immigrant workers being arrested at plants in six cities.

"To the extent this is the case, the UFCW supports law enforcement efforts that abide by the law and respect the rights of workers," the Washington-based union said in a statement.

ICE regional spokesman Carl Rusnok confirmed one "worksite enforcement operation" in Greeley, but would not say how many people were arrested.

Dave Minshall, spokesman for Local No. 7, said agents had at least 40 arrest warrants for suspects in Greeley; Cactus, Texas; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn. Five people were taken into custody, though it was unclear where the arrests were made.

Four people were questioned at the Greeley plant, Minshall said.

Rusnok said details will be released in a news conference Wednesday.

In the December raids, no charges were filed against Swift, a Greeley, Colo., which bills itself as the world's second-largest beef and pork processor.

Published: 07.12.2007


Economic impact of immigrants on AZ
Report: Immigrant work force worth billions All migrants, legal and illegal, considered in UA calculations
The Arizona Republic

If all noncitizen workers were removed from Arizona's workforce, economic output would drop annually by at least $29 billion, according to a University of Arizona study released Wednesday.

That group, which is mostly illegal immigrants, represents 8.2 percent of the state's economic activity, the study found.

The report also found that Arizona's legal and illegal immigrants generated nearly $44 billion in output.

"Output" includes the value of goods produced in industry, wages and profits.

"I'm not making a stand on what policy should be," said author Judith Gans, a program manager at the university's Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. "This just shows what's at stake."

The study is based on Census Bureau and other data from 2004, the most complete year available. It assumed most noncitizens in the state are illegal immigrants.

Gans conceded that the research does not capture all costs associated with illegal immigrants, but claims it caught significant expenses.

"It is not the purpose of this study to address the myriad issues surrounding illegal immigration or to imply in any way that illegal immigration is not a problem," Gans wrote in the study, funded by the Thomas R. Brown Foundation in Tucson.

The group funds academic research and promotes education about the economy.
Their findings did not surprise Jack Camper, president and CEO of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

Tucson businesses have long known immigrants provide an economic spark. The trick is to make more immigrants legal, Camper said.

"That just speaks to the need for a guest worker program," Camper said. "We need to provide some way to bring 12 million illegal immigrants out of the shadows."

However, the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., research group that advocates slowing immigration, said such studies don't pay enough attention to the basic services that illegal immigrants in Arizona cost the state.

"What about roads, fire protection, police?" research director Steven Camarota said. "There should be some benefit for the native-born population (from immigrants working in the economy). It just appears to be very small and come at the expense of less-educated natives."
Illegal immigrant workers are a drain on the economy, he said.

"But most 40-year-old males in Arizona without a high school diploma who are white are a fiscal drain also," Camarota said.

The study also looked at what would happen to specific industries that lost most noncitizen workers. The figures assumed unskilled citizens would fill some positions.

Without most noncitizen immigrants, the simulations showed:
● $6.56 billion in lost construction output
● $3.77 billion lost in manufacturing
● $2.48 billion lost in service sectors
● $600.9 million lost in agriculture

"Filling the specific jobs in question would require large numbers of low-skilled workers, and the U.S. education system produces relatively few of them," Gans said. "There simply aren't enough additional workers in Arizona to fill the jobs."

Experts do not expect that companies will fire illegal workers on Jan. 1, the day the state's employer-sanctions bill goes into effect.

There are an estimated half-million such immigrants in Arizona.

"If they think their folks are illegal, I think they have to address that," said Troy Foster, an employment lawyer with Ford & Harrison in Phoenix.

"But they have to be cautious. You can't just be approaching people because they are Hispanic."

Foster advises clients not to be too aggressive in going after suspicious workers unless they have knowledge of their illegal status, but said the new law will keep companies from hiring more undocumented workers.

"The real impact will be on the back end," Foster said. "In four or five years we will see an impact because of the growth-restraint issue."

Illegal Immigrant Parents Stay 1 Year

Jul 12, 9:26 PM EDT
By JULIANA BARBASSA
Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The illegal immigrant parents of a toddler with a little-known genetic abnormality were granted a one year stay in the United States, U.S. Customs and Immigration officials said Thursday.

Victor and Maria Roa, who entered the country illegally in 1990, want to stay in the United States because their daughter's condition requires specialized care she would likely not be able to get in their native Mexico. Before officials accepted their request, filed earlier this month, the Roas were under order to leave by July 26.

Their daughter, 17-month-old Hazelle Roa, was scheduled for an exploratory heart procedure Thursday that would seek to open up a constricted heart valve - one of the consequences of her genetic disorder - and help doctors decide whether she would need further heart surgery.

Immigration officials said the one-year stay was based on what ICE believed was in the best interest of this family, given their circumstances.

The Roas want their immigration case to be reopened. They also want permanent residency under a rule that allows undocumented immigrants to remain if their departure would cause extreme hardship to an American citizen.

Hazelle was born in the United States and has been followed by a team of physicians at the University of California, San Francisco's Medical Center.

Her doctors have written letters in support of keeping her family in the United States, saying the child was unlikely to get the medical attention she needs to live a full life elsewhere.

"Her condition is essentially unique," said Stephen Wilson, medical director for the pediatric unit at UCSF, just before the toddler was checked in for the procedure. "She's really dependent on the technical intervention we're providing here. It's quite critical for her ongoing survival."

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

Calderon's Offensive Against Drug Cartels Use of Mexican Military Increasingly Criticized

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 8, 2007

MEXICO CITY -- Every Monday morning, President Felipe Calderón settles in at the head of the table in the presidential library at Los Pinos, Mexico's fortresslike chief executive's compound.

Calderón presides over strategy sessions with the leaders of Mexico's army and navy, key players in the centerpiece initiative of his seven-month-old presidency: a military assault against drug cartels. No Mexican president in recent history has convened his security council with such regularity, but few of his modern-day predecessors have faced such a daunting security crisis.

Calderón is betting his presidency on a surge of Mexican troops -- one of the country's largest deployments of the military in a crime-fighting role -- to wage street-by-street battles with drug cartels that are blamed for more than 3,000 execution-style killings in the past year and a half. Sending more than 20,000 federal troops and police officers to nine Mexican states has made Calderón extremely popular; his latest approval ratings hit 65 percent.

But as the campaign drags into its eighth month and the death toll mounts, Calderón is facing a growing cadre of critics, including the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights representative in Mexico, who opposes the use of the military in policing. Calderón is also contending with foes in Mexico's Congress who want to strip him of the authority to dispatch troops without congressional approval. The Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights organization, has faulted him as quick to use the military but slow to reform Mexico's corrupt police.

All this is familiar territory for Calderón, a former congressman and energy secretary who appears comfortable in the role of political scrapper.

Pundits predicted he would struggle in office after collecting barely more than a third of the vote in last July's election and being forced into a two-month legal battle -- twice as long as the Bush-Gore electoral crisis in 2000 -- before being declared president by Mexico's Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

But Calderón has not only pounced on the drug violence. He also has pushed through a controversial reform of Mexico's corrupt and antiquated pension system, and he is gaining momentum for a massive fiscal initiative aimed at reducing the country's dependence on oil revenue.

"This seems to be his political destiny," wrote Ramón Alberto Garza, editor of the weekly Indigo. "To sail with the wind against him, a storm on the horizon, with a mutinous crew but to finish the journey safe in port."

Calderón inherited Mexico's drug problem, which was beginning to rival in scope and savagery the 1980s drug wars in Colombia. Drug lords, who make their riches trafficking in cocaine, but also methamphetamines and marijuana, were beheading rivals and killing police officers, municipal officials and journalists who got in their way. Some municipal governments and police forces were so infiltrated by organized crime that they essentially ceased to function as public service entities and became virtual arms of the cartels.

A War Over 'Plaza'

As far back as mid-July 2006, with the election outcome still in doubt, Calderón began laying the groundwork for the military campaign, Mexico's attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, said in an interview. With corruption raging throughout local governments and only 27,000 federal police officers available, Medina Mora said, the military seemed to be the only viable option.

"The size of the problem was large enough to understand that using the full federal deployment of police was not enough," Medina Mora said as a Beethoven piano sonata played in the background at his high-rise headquarters in Mexico City.

By the time Calderón took office in December, Mexico's two most powerful drug organizations -- the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels -- were deep into a war over "plaza," as Mexicans call drug territory. Carnage led the news almost every night. It was then that Calderón, a careful, wonkish public speaker not known for soaring rhetoric, started hitting verbal home runs.


"My hand won't tremble" in acting firmly to stop the crime that is holding Mexicans hostage, Calderón said repeatedly.

On Dec. 11, 10 days after taking office, Calderón launched the first of six military operations, sending more than 6,000 federal troops and police officers to his home state of Michoacan. The next day, a cousin of first lady Margarita Zavala was found murdered in the trunk of a car outside Mexico City -- a killing that some suspect was retribution by drug gangs. Undaunted, Calderón sent a force of 3,000 to Tijuana three weeks later.


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The day after the Tijuana raid became a signal moment in Calderón's drug war. He donned a khaki hat and military uniform to review his troops in the city of Apatzingan, purportedly the first time in a century that a Mexican president had dressed in military attire. Columnists fretted that he would turn Mexico into a military state. Others mocked the hang of a baggy uniform on the diminutive, unathletic Calderón.

"He looked pathetic," Sen. Graco Ramírez -- a Calderón nemesis who is the son, grandson and brother of Mexican army generals -- sniffed during a recent interview at Mexico's legislative palace.

Ramírez is more than a fashion critic; he and other members of the Democratic Revolutionary Party are among the leaders of a push to declare the use of the military in drug raids unconstitutional. Medina Mora counters that under the Mexican constitution, the armed forces "have not only the power but the duty to preserve internal order."

Calderón dismissed the criticisms. In February, he announced a 45 percent pay increase for the army, a move that contrasted neatly with a decision to lower his own salary by 10 percent and abolish pensions for Mexican presidents.

Admirers in the U.S.

In the six months since he first appeared in a military uniform, Calderón has sent thousands of troops to the infamous drug zones of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua, known as the Golden Triangle, and to Acapulco, Veracruz and the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, home to Mexico's industrial capital, Monterrey. The soldiers operate roadblocks, cordon off urban areas for house-to-house searches and often engage heavily armed drug dealers in gun battles.

The troops have arrested more than 580 people, according to the government, though only one would qualify as a major figure. Since the military campaign began, 19 troops and 168 police officers have been killed; more than 1,080 civilian deaths have been recorded, though most of those were the result of infighting among cartels.

Analysts say it is too soon to tell whether the military operations will have a long-term effect. Execution-style killings have decreased somewhat in recent weeks, but some news reports attribute that to what they call a truce between warring cartels; Medina Mora credits the military and said there was no evidence of such a truce.

None of the deaths has resonated like five that occurred mistakenly June 2, when soldiers shot two unarmed women and three children at a roadblock in the northern state of Sonora. The killings set off fierce criticism in Mexico, but Calderón has kept to his military strategy.

The approach has won admirers in the United States, where law enforcement agencies have long pushed for Mexico to confront drug cartels more aggressively.

That positive reception comes at a potentially critical moment in U.S.-Mexico talks to dramatically increase American aid.

News accounts originally compared the Mexican initiative to the multibillion-dollar Plan Colombia, an extensive aid package designed to eradicate coca and erode support for Marxist rebels. Mexican diplomats scrambled to note that their proposal differed in one key way: It does not contemplate a U.S. military presence similar to the one in Colombia. Any hint that U.S. troops would operate in Mexico is wildly inflammatory here; people still bear historical wounds from the Mexican-American War of 1846-48.

María Eugenia Campos Galván, chairwoman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the lower house of Mexico's Congress, said in an interview that Mexican authorities have considered asking for as much as $1 billion. U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, is pushing for a major commitment of U.S. dollars.

"If we're smart, it'll be very high," Reyes said in an interview.

Mexican authorities say they've demonstrated cooperation by sharply increasing extraditions -- already in 2007 breaking Mexico's annual record with 63 extraditions in the first six months of the year. They are hoping the United States will reciprocate by paying for additional training and equipment, including technology that would allow for instant transfer of information between law enforcement officials on each side of the border. Calderón, in particular, is suggesting that the United States has an obligation to help with Mexico's law enforcement costs because of the extent of Americans' illegal drug use.

The talks have been complicated by sensitivities in the United States related to Mexico as Capitol Hill lawmakers were debating immigration proposals.

"When there was a school shooting over in Russia, I got e-mails saying, 'That's why we need a wall on the Mexican border,' " Reyes said. "Regardless of what we do, there are going to be those who try to politicize it."

Mexican authorities are well aware that political tensions could delay or scuttle proposals for more U.S. aid. For now, they are preparing for months, maybe years, of military battles with drug leaders without more help from the United States and for long Monday mornings in the presidential library.

Getting Latinos to vote GOP becomes an uphill battle

09:04 AM CDT on Saturday, July 7, 2007
Mercedes Olivera molivera@dallasnews.com

When the comprehensive immigration reform bill died in the Senate last week, many believe the GOP's successful courtship of Latino voters also stalled.

Will President Bush be the last GOP president to garner 40 percent of the Latino vote – as he did in 2004 – for the near future?

Some political observers now predict Republicans may be able to muster only 20 percent to 30 percent of those voters in the coming presidential election. Others, however, don't see Latino voters as being any different from the rest of the U.S. electorate.

Latino issues are American issues. When U.S. voters moved to the right, so did Latinos, though never in any large numbers. Latinos consistently vote Democratic, as much as 60 percent or more.

Republicans had always stressed the "natural ties" between Republicans and Latinos – family and religious values, entrepreneurship and social traditions.

But much of that rhetoric changed during the heated national debate over immigration. And Latinos felt much of that heat directed at them.

"If there was any movement towards the Republican Party by Latinos, this [failure to pass the immigration bill] would have stopped it dead in its tracks," said Andy Hernandez, a Latino politics scholar at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

"But the case is overstated. Immigration reform is not the only reason. The war in Iraq has had a huge impact on the Latino community. The war and immigration have had a cluster-bomb effect on the GOP."

Harold Stanley, a history professor at Southern Methodist University, agreed and said it's uncertain what the defeat of immigration reform this year will mean to the 2008 election.

"The immigration marches of spring 2006 vividly showed that political potential of the Latino community. Yet that potential has been more latent than actual," Dr. Stanley said.

"Other issues matter greatly to Latinos – education, jobs, the war in Iraq, the war on terror – and concerns with immigration alone neither displace these other issues nor paper over the divisions on these other issues."

Jason Villalba, chairman of the Dallas chapter of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, said he opposed the failed immigration bill because it was "too complicated and didn't solve the problems of immigration."

But he acknowledged it would be "an uphill battle to convince Hispanics to come out and vote for the GOP" in 2008.

"We got the largest number of Hispanic votes in 2000 and 2004, but we won't see it this time," he said. "And I don't know how to prevent this."

But he believes that concern over border security among the general electorate will trump losing Latino voters.

Mr. Hernandez said security is also a concern for many Latinos, but for a different reason.

"Many Latino legal immigrants don't want their situation threatened here in the U.S.," he said. "And they have always been practical. That's what's driving the increase in citizenship applications now."

And while many Latino leaders now stress citizenship as crucial for future political growth, it may not necessarily be felt at the ballot box next year.

Citizenship applications are up 77 percent since January, and some attribute it to the fee increase slated to take effect at the end of this month.

The average waiting time for legal residents to become citizens, if all background checks and paperwork run smoothly, is now eight months, according to the Department of Homeland Security. But the surge in citizenship applications could cause unexpected delays in the process, as was seen with the surge in passport requests.

State Rep. Rafael Anchía, D-Dallas, said the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials has made citizenship a central focus as it promotes more Hispanic political progress.

But Mr. Anchía, who is chairman of the NALEO Educational Fund, said it was part of a two-pronged strategy among Hispanics.

The group also wants to register 18-year-olds, who were jolted out of complacency last year.

"Young voters [18 to 29 years old] are increasing as a size of the electorate, and are increasingly politically motivated by issues like the war in Iraq, college affordability and the economy," he said.

But "in the case of young Latinos, the immigration issue has awakened an entire generation."

Town a haven for immigrants Workers are the lifeblood of Cactus, Texas, but most are there illegally

09:08 AM CST on Sunday, November 19, 2006
By ARNOLD HAMILTON and DEBORAH TURNER / The Dallas Morning News

First of three parts

CACTUS, Texas – He's known in this Panhandle outpost by an unofficial yet majestic title: "El presidente de Cactus."

His two-story Spanish villa – looking over blocks of town-center shanties – is often called "the White House." His portfolio includes the town's only grocery and laundry, at least 18 rental properties and a 575-acre ranch nearby.

It was little more than 30 years ago that Luis Aguilar slipped into this country from Mexico, eventually using a fake name, license and Social Security card to land a job at this town's sprawling beef packing plant. A decade later, he was in the right place at the right time when federal immigration reform granted him amnesty and put him on the path to citizenship.

Cactus, Texas

Part 1
"¢ An immigrant haven on the High Plains
"¢ Identity theft is paper trail to a job
"¢ Cash is king, but corruption reigned

Part 2
"¢ They come to work - and to send money home
"¢ For many in Guatemala, no choice but to leave
"¢ Despite many challenges, school succeeds with youths

Part 3
"¢ Processing plants' dangers don't scare off migrants

Tell Us: Many readers have weighed in with their thoughts on immigration. What's your opinion of the situation in Cactus, Texas?


"¢ City Manager Jeff Jenkins describes Cactus and its people
"¢ Teachers describe efforts to teach English in Cactus
"¢ Law enforcement work is difficult with the increasing number of immigrants

Graphics:
"¢ A closer look at Cactus
"¢ Cactus Elementary School
"¢ A dangerous job

Photos: Coping in Cactus

En español: Read Spanish-language coverage from AlDiaTX.com

Cactus, Texas: Complete coverage
Now, as mayor and arguably the most affluent – and influential – resident in town, he not only rents rooms and sells groceries to a new generation of illegal immigrants, but he also is paid to place them in jobs.

"I'm working like those guys are working," said the native of the state of Chihuahua. "I am helping them make money for their families. I worked just like that."

An hour's drive north of Amarillo, Cactus has an official population of 2,538. But realistically, it's closer to 5,000, and officials here estimate that three of every four residents are illegal immigrants, drawn by work in feedlots or the $11-plus hourly wages at the Swift & Co. plant.

Cactus doesn't register on most U.S. maps, but for some in Mexico and Guatemala who want a better life, it has become a destination town. Their presence has transformed the community, creating national-size problems for its small-town leaders.

As America debates immigration policy in often bipolar terms – amnesty or deportation – Cactus is living the fuzzy, everyday reality of porous borders and the competing interests behind one of the biggest demographic shifts in U.S. history: impoverished millions eager for a better life, industries ready to snap up cheap labor, federal officials impotent to act and local residents left to deal with the resulting troubles.

"We need federal help," Cactus City Manager Jeffrey Jenkins said. "Not knowing the American laws causes a lot of complications that the local government should not have to deal with."

Among those complications:

"¢Thieves who prey on immigrant workers carrying large sums of cash because banks won't come here

"¢Fraudulent IDs that make solving crimes by and against immigrants difficult

"¢Mobile homes, often crowded with more than one family, that sprout seemingly overnight in flagrant disregard of zoning laws;

"¢Drugs and prostitution;

"¢And a public school, lacking enough bilingual instructors, that resorts to total English immersion to educate the nearly 77 percent of students who speak little or no English.

The problems of illegal immigration are not unique to Cactus. Across America – especially in rural areas, where workers are sorely needed for difficult, often-dangerous, low-skill jobs – undocumented, south-of-the-border immigrants are rushing in.

But Cactus' challenges are magnified because of its size and remoteness.


Officials here teeter on a political high wire: They know the Swift plant – the town's lifeblood and the county's second-biggest taxpayer – attracts illegal immigrants by the thousands.

But they fear that increased federal and state scrutiny could jeopardize both plant and town, especially if it leads to the roundup and deportation of scores of illegal workers.

Swift officials insist they do all they legally can to verify the authenticity of their employees' documents, even participating voluntarily in a federal program aimed at spotting use of fraudulent Social Security numbers.

But that seems to be little deterrent.

"I know there are hundreds of illegals working at Swift; I see them every day," said one resident who works for a Swift contractor and agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. "They are from Guatemala and Mexico. Hundreds of them have false documents that allow them to work there."


Building a life

Today's Cactus probably isn't exactly what local leaders envisioned in 1972 when they heralded the beef plant's opening as the town's salvation.

In the beginning, its workforce was mostly local. But it didn't take long for immigrant workers to arrive – shoving aside the locals. Laotians became the dominant employee group ... only to be supplanted by Mexicans ... who are slowly, but steadily, being replaced by Guatemalans.

Mr. Aguilar, for one, slipped into the country near Tijuana, Mexico, on foot.

His goal? "A better life."

It was a treacherous, frightening journey from his home in Chihuahua: "When I cross the border, I think it gonna be my last one. I almost freeze to death."

An articulate man in his native language, Mr. Aguilar speaks a broken English learned on the job.

He spent three years working in a restaurant in Battle Mountain, Nev. In 1976, at the urging of a relative, he journeyed to the Texas Panhandle with his 18-year-old wife, Luz, and their infant daughter, Rosa. He called himself Amador Rivas. And he had the documents – albeit, bogus – to prove it.

In Cactus, he was the stereotypically hard-working, invisible immigrant. Soon after arriving, the couple had their second child, Eva. And he worked 12- to 18-hour days in the packing plant's shipping department for $10 an hour – "good money back then," as he put it.

With his job, he was able to provide for his growing family, send money home to Mexico and save a little.

Later, he was promoted to director of shipping and receiving, enabling him to buy an apartment building. For seven years, he and his family occupied two of the four units and rented the rest.

Then, in 1986, he received an unexpected gift: He was one of 2.7 million illegal immigrants awarded amnesty by President Ronald Reagan under the Immigration Reform and Control Act.

With his green card in hand, Mr. Aguilar escaped the oft-murky world of an illegal immigrant and shed his Amador Rivas alias. He could once again be Luis Aguilar. And he made a name for himself as a successful businessman, buying the Cactus Laundromat and Cactus Grocery in 1988.

Using $11,000 he'd saved from his job at Swift – and borrowing the rest – he bought the store from former Cactus Mayor Leon Graham after a fire devastated much of the structure.

"I asked my brother-in-law," he said. "He loaned me $300. My cousin loaned me $300. So I got altogether about $21,000. ... And I started building."

Over time, he became a force in town – and served as a beacon for other south-of-the-border immigrants pursuing the American dream.

His Spanish-style home with its arched doorways and light-colored stucco walls dominates the center of town, commanding respect from those dwelling in the shanty trailer homes that surround it.

"The people of Cactus built my home for me," he said.

He is open about his role in helping undocumented immigrants who follow his path.

"I work as the middle man for places around the Panhandle," said Mr. Aguilar, 50. "They [feedlots] pay me, and I pay the guys. I keep their timecards here in the store. I am hired to find them."

Mr. Aguilar's willingness to help a new generation of illegal immigrants, though, puts him at odds with other town leaders. They complain that they are swamped with problems created by thousands of often unidentifiable residents.



Climate for crime

Cactus today seems less like a Panhandle burg than a colonia – magically airlifted 600 miles north from the border and dropped into the heart of what once was the Anglo-dominated, farm and ranch South Plains.

Decaying World War II-era barracks each bunk as many as a half-dozen Swift & Co. workers whose families were left back home. Most yards are dirt, weeds and gravel.

There are few flowers and even less grass; a soccer field on the west side of town with homemade goalposts; one park with playground equipment and a basketball court; and three times as many places to get an adult beverage as in the much larger nearby county seat, Dumas.

"Alcohol-related problems are paramount [and] ... a lot of cocaine," said Cactus Police Chief Tim Turley.

"But if I had to say what we run across most is fraudulent use of ID," he added. "That is far and above the number one most encountered incident."

Cultures collide on a variety of issues, from education to ***.

Some of the youngest students from newly arrived families must be instructed, for example, on indoor plumbing and proper hygiene.

Other immigrants are bewildered when advised that it is not only socially unacceptable but illegal for men in their 20s to have *** with young teenage girls.

Zoning regulations are difficult to enforce.

"Folks don't believe you should be able to tell them what to do and where to put things," said Mr. Jenkins, the city manager. "And they'll bring in trailers that the walls are falling in, and they'll want to set 'em up and rent 'em to somebody.

"On the reverse end of it, you get the renters ... they think that if they report it or something, they're going to be deported . ... So, they're getting taken advantage of by the landlords in some places."

Unlicensed food stands pop up all over town – a constant headache for officials.

"The mobile stands are hard to track down because they could be there on Saturday night and then they disappear," said Mr. Jenkins. "The state only has one food officer for this area. ... [It] puts a burden on the local government to raise taxes, and it could make someone sick."

All contribute to a climate where criminal mischief can flourish – but uncovering it and prosecuting it is often difficult, if not impossible.

According to police, some Mexicans – worried they could lose their jobs to newly arrived immigrants – have taken to beating, robbing and terrorizing Guatemalans, who are reluctant to report the crimes because they fear they could be deported.

After a string of robberies – and one vicious attack, in particular – Chief Turley ordered his deputies to document anyone walking the streets after midnight. Workers leaving the plant after the midnight shift change were the primary targets, police said.

"I went and bought a Polaroid camera ... and I said from now on, if you see an individual on foot after midnight, they get stopped, photographed and ID'd," Chief Turley said. "Find out where they live. Bar none."

"I tell the Guatemalans I am not unsympathetic to them. I am not immigration. I say, 'We know you are an illegal alien.' "

Chief Turley has learned about the Guatemalan culture. He can't speak Quiche, but can certainly pronounce it. Guatemalans who end up in Cactus come from a war-torn region, he said, where the arrival of police forces rarely equaled public safety.

So he's told his officers to never order a Guatemalan down on his knees.

"If you tell them to get on their knees, they think they are going to get shot in the head," Chief Turley said. "You tell them to sit down."

Police recently investigated allegations that at least two Swift workers were extorting as much as $800 from each prospective employee in exchange for "fixing" document problems.

In the midst of the investigation, local police said, two human resources workers were fired.

A union official insisted the dismissals had nothing to do with "immigration." Swift spokesman Sean McHugh declined to discuss the matter, writing in an e-mail that "it is irresponsible for me to comment on rumors and innuendo."

The fired employees could not be reached for comment. No one answered the door at one former worker's residence. At another, a balding man with a goatee said the ex-employee would not speak to a reporter.

"She is no longer employed there. She has nothing to say," he said, referring questions "to the [Swift] corporate office."

After the firings, police dropped the investigation.


Smooth operation

Modern-day Cactus was built on beef. Swift's sprawling complex stands out on the west side of U.S. Highway 287. The divided four-lane highway – a main artery linking Dallas-Fort Worth to Denver – separates the plant from most residential areas, though neighborhoods south of the facility are expanding rapidly.

Surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, the plant operates around the clock, processing about 5,300 animals daily, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Two eight-hour shifts – one beginning about 6 a.m., the other about 3 p.m. – process the beef.

A third, overnight shift – staffed by a subcontractor – cleans and readies the plant for the next day.

Last summer, Swift workers were on a six-day-a-week schedule, heeding America's increased demand for beef during outdoor grilling season.

State and federal agencies report little evidence of problems at the plant, including worker safety issues.

Casey Williams, a leader in the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 540, said union officials and employee safety monitors meet with the company weekly to discuss plant safety.

"We hardly get any calls to go to Swift for injuries," said Theron Park, the county hospital administrator. "My impression is they have a pretty comprehensive safety program."

Still, it's difficult to know precisely what goes on inside the plant.

Swift declined requests for interviews with its Cactus chief and to visit the facility. And most workers don't want to be noticed, much less interviewed, for fear of losing their jobs or being deported.

"It's a scary thing to be undocumented," said Lydia Hernandez, an immigration counselor at Catholic Family Services Inc. in Amarillo, "because you don't know who's your friend."

Those agreeing to speak describe difficult conditions.

One man employed by a plant contractor describes an almost feudal existence endured by many illegal immigrant workers.

"They are overworked," said the man, who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity. "I see it every day. They are working them like crazy."

Another longtime employee said plant managers know that not all workers are in the country legally.

"About a month ago, or so, when immigration was around ... we were inside [the plant] working, and all the green helmets and the managers warned everyone: 'If you don't have your papers, don't come out, because immigration is here,' " the worker said.

"That time, it was convenient for them to protect the people and warn them about the trap waiting for them outside. ... They told everyone that they could stay if they wanted or they could go. But immigration was out there."

Mr. McHugh, the Swift spokesman, said he couldn't find evidence of that incident.

Such an action by a Swift manager "would be viewed as a serious breach of our integrity," he said. "We would take appropriate action against that individual.

"We've got a great track record of cooperating fully with law enforcement," he said.

Swift's corporate officials say they do all they can legally to verify the authenticity of documents.

"If it happens 12 times a year, that's probably the most," said Doug Schult, Swift's Colorado-based vice president for human resources, field operations and employee relations.

Town officials routinely praise Swift's efforts to ensure the legitimacy of its workers.

"They're very cooperative in these matters," Chief Turley said.

Even so, the chief said, he frequently fields telephone inquiries from identity theft victims who learn their names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and places were co-opted by workers at the beef plant.

Whether from Connecticut or California, he said, the calls typically begin the same way:

"Where in the hell is Cactus, Texas?"


Difficult work

More than 20 years ago, the beef packing industry was filled mostly with white American workers, earning more than $20 an hour.

Now, studies show, the plants are dominated by Latino immigrants, most paid less than $12 an hour.

Duke Millard, who managed the Cactus plant from the time it was built in 1972 until his retirement in 1999, said it always had a "multiracial" workforce, from its initial 400 or so employees to the 2,700 or so today.

"I never thought of it as an immigrant workforce," he said.

Mr. Williams, who negotiated the Cactus contract for the union, said the plant still hires its share of Anglos, but "they usually don't last."

One reason: "It is one of the hardest jobs I've ever done in my life," said Mr. Williams, who worked in three West Texas packing houses. "It's so physically demanding."

Nothing, he said, seems to spur college enrollment quite like a recent high school graduate spending a few months working in one of the dozen or so plants scattered across what is known as Packing House Alley – stretching from the South Plains into the Oklahoma Panhandle, southwest Kansas and southeastern Colorado.

It's not unheard of, authorities said, to find teenagers working at the plant – they lie about their ages to get hired – when, by law, they are supposed to be in school.

Other young people are drawn to Cactus but never land work.

Consider the case of "Spot," a young man picked up by Cactus police because he abused the 911 emergency phone system. He called – then hung up – more than 40 times over several days, unable to communicate in anything but his native Guatemalan dialect.

Like a lost puppy, officers took him in: feeding him, finding him places to stay, spending time with him, eventually working to try to teach him English and Spanish.

What they learned, Chief Turley said, was heartbreaking: Through broken Spanish, they were able to determine that he was not a 39-year-old named Carlos Torres – as they originally believed – but a 16-year-old named Gaspar Ambrosio Quixan.

"He wanted to go back to Guatemala because he didn't have enough money to buy fake documentation in order to obtain employment" at Swift.

The chief said he couldn't find any government agency that would help – federal agents declined because Gaspar was a juvenile, state officials because he was an illegal immigrant.

One day, Gaspar vanished.

Cactus police have no idea what happened to him.


Spreading the word

Mr. Millard, who managed the plant for five companies over its first 27 years, said he never advertised south of the border for workers – nor did he hire so-called "brokers" to seek out potential employees.

Swift's Mr. Schult said some companies still engage in what he described as "mobile recruiting," but his does not because "all that does is increase the turnover. It's a revolving door."

So how do workers from Mexico and Guatemala end up in Cactus?

"It's a word-of-mouth thing," said Ms. Hernandez of Catholic Family Services. "Someone comes in to work here; they've got friends at home, they tell them about it. "They don't just come in because it's Cactus. Somebody has to bring them in."

The union's Mr. Williams said he gets angry when he hears immigrant workers depicted primarily as law-breakers sponging off American taxpayers.

"A lot of them end up in these industries where no one else will work," he said, adding that all pay income and Social Security taxes, just like all workers.

Social Security earnings from numbers that didn't match names in the government's database – recorded in an "earnings suspense file" – was nearly $520 billion as of 2003, the last year for which government data is available. Three-fourths of that amount came in during 1990-2003.

Social Security taxes paid under these mismatches have increased: In 2001, about $7 billion in taxes was paid on nearly $58 billion in earnings, according to the agency's Dallas office.

Some believe that much of the money comes from undocumented workers who don't attempt to claim the funds because they are afraid of being caught.

Despite the difficulty of the work – its repetitiveness, its physical demands, its blood and guts – Mr. Williams said he understands why some would risk everything to land a job in a place like Cactus, where workers earn the equivalent of $20 to $25 an hour, factoring in such benefits as health care.

"If I lived in Guatemala and couldn't get a job and had a wife and family," he said, "I'd try it, too."


'Drink and work'

For many of the workers, there is a simple rhythm to Cactus life: Work long hours. Cruise Center Drive. Drink beer.

Start over.

The mayor and Cactus police Sgt. Stewart Moss don't seem to agree on much. But they both recognize this pattern.

"For fun ... [we] really don't have much fun here," Mr. Aguilar said. "Just work."

"Drink," added Sgt. Moss.

"Drink and work," agreed Mr. Aguilar.

The cruising along Center Drive is straight out of American Graffiti . Cars and trucks inch along in a ***per-to-***per processional. They hope to see and be seen.

"That's the only fun they got," Mr. Aguilar said. "If you got stopped just for that ... fun is over."

"Don't you get tired of cleaning the beer bottles out from in front of the Laundromat?" Sgt. Moss asked.

"Not at all," the mayor replied. "I sell it. So what the hell?"

When the police get involved, cultures clash.

"We'll catch somebody doing something they're not supposed to be doing ... and they'll immediately: 'Oh, I'm friends with Luis [Aguilar]," Sgt. Moss said. "So what? That does not excuse you from doing what you did. And I'm sure they've used their one phone call down at the jail to call you."

Mr. Aguilar: "One o'clock in the morning, 2 o'clock in the morning: 'Luis, the cop stopped me ... and I'm over here.' "

Sgt. Moss: "But did they tell you why they were stopped?"

Mr. Aguilar: "No. ... They just tell me, 'Hey, can you do something for me?' And I can't do nothing about it. That's all I can tell them."

He may be revered as El presidente de Cactus by some, but Mr. Aguilar feels others here are aligned against him. They view the former illegal immigrant with suspicion, depicting him – mostly in private – as a power-hungry mayor who thinks he is operating a Mexican-style fiefdom.

"You know what all my problem is with the city," he said. "I used to be illegal alien out there. When I get the mayor ... some people say, 'What the hell we gonna do with the used-to-be-wetback guy sittin' over here as the mayor?'

"All the City Council is against me. I guess [they] don't like my ideas. It's against me. You know, I live in Cactus for 30 years. I care [about] Cactus. I want to do something good for Cactus."


The People of Cactus, Texas


LUIS AGUILAR

Job: Mayor and businessman

His story: Mr. Aguilar, a native of Chihuahua, Mexico, slipped into the U.S. illegally more than 30 years ago, living and working in Nevada before moving to Cactus. He used fake documents and the name Amador Rivas until he became a citizen after a federal amnesty program in 1986. Today, he owns a 575-acre ranch, a Laundromat, a grocery store and more than a dozen rental properties. He acknowledges helping new illegal immigrants find work in the area.

He says: "I used to be illegal alien out there. When I get the mayor ... some people say, 'What the hell we going to do with the used-to-be wetback guy sittin' over here as the mayor? ... You know, I live in Cactus for 30 years. I care [about] Cactus. I want to do something good for Cactus."


JEFFREY JENKINS

Job: City manager

His story: Mr. Jenkins says, "Folks don't believe you should be able to tell them what to do and where to put things. ... And they'll bring in trailers that the walls are falling in, and they'll want to set 'em up and rent 'em to somebody. ...On the reverse end of it, you get the renters ... they think that if they report it or something, they're going to be deported or something's going to happen. So, they're getting taken advantage of by the landlords in some places. And that's sad to see."

He says: "And it's the federal government that's just not accountable. ...It's definitely a broken system."

About This Series

The nation's immigration debate is often focused on extremes – amnesty or deportation for the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants.

But in one Texas Panhandle town, all the political, economic and human complexities of the problem come into sharp focus.

In this series, The Dallas Morning News and Al Día examine Cactus, Texas: a town where three out of four residents are thought to be illegal immigrants; the slaughterhouse where many work; and the local officials who walk a political tight wire with the biggest employer in town.

Today: A look at Luis Aguilar, now the mayor of Cactus, who slipped into this country from Mexico, eventually using a fake name, license and Social Security card to land a job at this town's sprawling beef packing plant.

Monday: Tomas Cus and his fellow Guatemalans talk about their work, their lives and their reasons for migrating to Cactus.

Tuesday: Each year, thousands of illegal immigrants gravitate toward meatpacking plants in places like Cactus. Their attraction to the nation's most dangerous factory job has created an environment that's increasingly difficult to monitor, experts say.


Staff writer Dianne Solís contributed to this report. Deborah Turner is a staff writer and photographer for Al Día, The Dallas Morning News' Spanish-language newspaper.

E-mail cactus@dallasnews.com

They come to work - and to send money home Payday makes harrowing journey worth the risk to illegal laborers

08:59 AM CST on Monday, November 20, 2006
By DIANNE SOLÍS and DEBORAH TURNER / The Dallas Morning News

Second of three parts

CACTUS, Texas – Every day, twice a day – around 5:45 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. – workers on foot trudge west on Center Drive. Others in cars and vans line U.S. 287 on their way to the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant.

This is where Tomas Cus tries to eke out an existence – packing meat into boxes for $13.30 an hour. Tomas is his real name. At the meatpacking plant, the young Guatemalan goes by a different moniker. He agreed to speak on condition that his work identity not be revealed.

The same goes for fellow Guatemalan Martin Tiniguar, who packs meat into boxes for $11.80 an hour; and Mario Lux, who takes gristle off meat carcasses for eight hours a day, five days a week, at $11.90 an hour.

Cactus, Texas

Part 1
"¢ An immigrant haven on the High Plains
"¢ Identity theft is paper trail to a job
"¢ Cash is king, but corruption reigned

Part 2
"¢ They come to work - and to send money home
"¢ For many in Guatemala, no choice but to leave
"¢ Despite many challenges, school succeeds with youths

Part 3
"¢ Processing plants' dangers don't scare off migrants

Tell Us: Many readers have weighed in with their thoughts on immigration. What's your opinion of the situation in Cactus, Texas?


"¢ City Manager Jeff Jenkins describes Cactus and its people
"¢ Teachers describe efforts to teach English in Cactus
"¢ Law enforcement work is difficult with the increasing number of immigrants

Graphics:
"¢ A closer look at Cactus
"¢ Cactus Elementary School
"¢ A dangerous job

Photos: Coping in Cactus

En español: Read Spanish-language coverage from AlDiaTX.com

Cactus, Texas: Complete coverage
The men are among the thousands of illegal immigrants who work under false identities in America's meatpacking industry – receiving a steady paycheck in exchange for constant and sometimes debilitating punishment to their bodies. Mr. Cus, a 23-year-old with broad cheekbones and full lips that seldom spread into a smile, paid a coyote $6,000 to guide him from the Quiché province in southeast Guatemala through the tropical terrain of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas – past gangs, border agents and to the banks at the Río Bravo in Ciudad Juárez.

To raise the money, he went to a Guatemalan loan shark, who now charges his family 10 percent interest monthly.

"There are times when it is really hard, but you come here for necessity," said Mr. Cus, who left behind his parents, three brothers and four sisters.

He wants to buy his family a house back in Quiché province.

"We don't come here to rest," he said. "We come to send money back home."

To cut his expenses, he lives with five other men in an air-conditioned, single-wide trailer whose beige color nearly dissolves into the strip of dirt it sits on. Together, they pay $120 a week in rent. But only Mr. Cus agreed to be interviewed.

"We have six beds in there," said Mr. Cus.

His Spartan ways recently allowed him to send $1,000 home in one month – something he can do from any one of a handful of stores in town that cater to Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants.

Mr. Cus arrived in Cactus via North Carolina, where he spent 10 months working in the agriculture industry. But he left because there wasn't enough work, he said.

That hasn't been a problem in Cactus, where his existence pretty much revolves around his 3 p.m. shift at the plant. Recently, he left again – this time headed to Missouri.

"I work, I go home, cook, go to sleep, then do it all over again," he said of his job in Cactus.

The trip north for Mr. Lux (pronounced LOUsh) took him through the Sonoran Desert, into the Mexican town of Altar, a key staging point for migrants, about 60 miles south of the Arizona border.

He walked two days and one night through the Arizona desert, past sun-bleached skeletons and other remains.

"I didn't know where I was going but that it would pay $10 an hour at some meat plant," said Mr. Lux in an excited stream, as he relived his journey.

At the plant, the 26-year-old pulls on three pairs of gloves, including one with steel fibers to prevent the knife cuts from drawing his blood.

Not long ago, the mechanized line of carcasses started speeding up, he said.

His shoulders throb from the effort. But his thumbs hurt more. He's glad he's paid off his debt to a smuggler, but now must nip at the interest to the loan shark. He, too, pays a hefty 10 percent a month. The crushing rates are a fixture of Central American passage to the U.S. and a financial hit that Mexicans on the same illegal path seldom pay.

Such rates are illegal under Guatemalan law and affect the poorest migrants, said attorney Nazario Monzon in Guatemala.

Workers should be paying the bank rate of less than 3 percent on their loans. But many Guatemalans are too poor to own collateral, or their land isn't registered with clear title, he said. So they don't go to banks. And Mr. Monzon has never heard of a prosecution.

"It was a little hard," said Mr. Lux, who recently left his job at Swift for work elsewhere. "OK, it was more than a little hard. It was painful."


Life outside work

On the weekends, every empty patch of field in Cactus mutates into a cancha de futbol, a soccer field where the men release the stress of the week.

A few more join their fellow countrymen at band practice at one of the two churches.

From one church building comes an ironic chorus: "No estas lejos al reino de Dios," or "You are not far from the kingdom of God." A cumbia beat provides the melodic line. As the singing stops, the singers turn from the Spanish lyrics to religious homages in Quiché, the Mayan dialect of their home state that bears the same name.

Others find their home away from home in the little Baptist church on South Drive led by Pastor Jose Rosales – himself a transplant from the Mexican state of Durango.

Back at Mr. Rosales' church, a man prepares to tune his musical instruments.

Here, the men gather for more than worship.

Mr. Cus said he finds solace in singing with a gospel group that calls itself Cristo Salva – Christ Saves. He leads the group – made up of a trumpet player, two keyboardists, an electric guitarist and another conga-tambor player like himself.

Then, he takes to the microphone and looks out over his fellow Guatemalans.

"It is an honor to say the sweet name of God," Mr. Cus said.

On this particular weekend, as the workers tend to their pain – physical and spiritual – the Ku Klux Klan marches against illegal immigration through the streets of nearby Amarillo.

"Que K? [What's KKK?]" asks Mr. Rosales when he learns of the KKK, a leader who calls himself a "grand dragon" and city police stationed with shotguns on rooftops.

The pastor turns saucer-eyed in disbelief. Then, he shrugs his shoulders.

Life in this region is rough, he said. Laws are held in suspension. Falsified identities, boozing, drug trafficking and "the oldest profession in the world" proliferate here, he adds, in a commentary backed up by local police.

Mr. Rosales, 55, is more than just a pastor for his immigrant flock.

He's also the mailman, counselor and sometimes driver.

He gets their mail, delivered to the church's P.O. box.

He's gives them the occasional ride to the doctor's office. The closest doctor is 16 miles away in Dumas, and many of them don't have cars.

"Sometimes they will send them to the doctor to get their ears checked," Mr. Rosales said. "Sometimes I have time to do it. If not, my wife takes them, or one of my daughters."

And he stocks an assortment of employment applications – from various cattle and feedlot operations around the Panhandle.

"Many of them don't know how to write or read," Mr. Rosales said. "Sometimes they bring their applications. Sometimes they don't. But I have a bunch there. Every time I go, I'll pick up two or three ... from the [Swift] plant, from Guymon, Liberal ... wherever they want to go."

He even tried to start English lessons – at two different times a day to accommodate the workers' shifts at the plant. But attendance dropped off, he said.

"They started coming, but they're so tired when they get out of work," he said.

"If you could see the kind of work that they do at that plant. It is a job for animals," the preacher said. "And they suffer not just because of the work, but by the way they are treated."


Plant environment

Mario Barrientos agrees. He hails from the Mexican state of Chihuahua and works on the kill floor at the Swift plant.

"Guatemalans are very good workers," he said. "And they never complain."

He has no trouble listing the problems he sees at the plant, starting on the kill floor where "la matanza es horible," the slaughter is horrible.

But Mr. Barrientos said he has his documents, unlike many of the Guatemalan workers, who fear losing their jobs if they speak up.

Mr. Tiniguar left his village of Las Joyas de Zacualpa, Guatemala, to come work at Swift five years ago.

In his village, he fasted in a religious ritual for two days. The economy was in shambles from a 36-year-old civil war that ended in peace accords in 1996.

He pleaded with the higher beings that he survive the long trek to Texas, "to make sure that I stayed alive. In this world, there are all kinds of things that can happen to you."

His job at Swift allows him to send about $200 a month to his wife, Juana, to support the four children who live there.

A small, wiry man – he's all of 5-3 – Mr. Tiniguar is tired and worn. He looks much older than his 44 years.

The work can be painful, he acknowledges. But his 18-year-old son, Sebastian, who joined him two years ago, "knows how to work."

Like many of the younger men in Cactus who work at Swift, his son is a cutter, carving up 800-pound carcasses into steaks as they make their way down the conveyor belt at speeds some workers say are maddening.

A second son is trying to make his way up from Guatemala, as the cycle of migration continues.

This weekend, he's stuck in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville. Mr. Tiniguar's knowledge of the vast U.S.-Mexico border is so scant that he doesn't realize that Matamoros abuts the Río Grande. He'll spend the next few days on a cellphone to his wife back in Las Joyas de Zacualpa.

Both are deep in worry about their son's chances of making it across the long diagonal from Matamoros to the Texas Panhandle.

"He's lost," said Mr. Tiniguar into a cellphone.

Behind him at 6 p.m., a full moon makes its ascent like a plump peach over a sky that is still a medium blue.

Deborah Turner is a staff writer and photographer for Al Día, The Dallas Morning News' Spanish-language newspaper.


E-mail cactus@dallasnews.com


THE PEOPLE OF CACTUS, TEXAS

MARIO LUX

Job: Meat plant worker

His story: Mr. Lux, 26, earns $11.90 an hour taking gristle off meat carcasses. The Guatemalan walked two days and one night through the desert to enter the United States, on occasion passing sun-bleached skeletons leaning against trees.

He says: "I didn't know where I was going but that it would pay $10 an hour at some meat plant."

TOMAS CUS

Job: Meatpacker who recently left the Swift plant for another job

His story: Mr. Cus, 23, borrowed money from a Guatemalan loan shark to pay a smuggler for his passage to the U.S. He lives with five other men in a trailer in Cactus. Because he is in the country illegally, he works under an alias at his $13.30-an-hour job packing meat into boxes. His Spartan ways recently allowed him to send $1,000 back to Guatemala.

He says: "There are times when it is really hard, but you come here for necessity. ... We don't come here to rest. We come to send money back home."

TIM TURLEY

Job: Cactus police chief

His story: Mr. Turley, who has been chief about three years, thinks the problems of Cactus – from document fraud to illicit drugs and prostitution – have grown beyond his control. A mill peddling forged documents was found operating next door to his home.

He says: "We are castigated by the community at large for trying to enforce anything because we are in a community that [is] 99 percent Hispanic, and they want to run the government like they are running it in Mexico."

Processing plants' dangers don't scare off migrants

One in 10 workers injured each year at meatpacking factories

12:15 AM CST on Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Last of three parts By SUDEEP REDDY / The Dallas Morning News

Last of three parts

WASHINGTON – The opportunities lie in the punishing nature of the work, hacking at animal parts in rapid succession as carcasses fly by.

Each year, thousands of illegal immigrants gravitate toward meatpacking plants in places like Cactus, Texas, and elsewhere, in search of steady-paying jobs that many native workers avoid.

Their attraction to one of the most dangerous factory jobs in the nation, experts say, has created an environment that's increasingly difficult to monitor, complicating efforts to improve conditions across the industry.

Cactus, Texas

Part 1
"¢ An immigrant haven on the High Plains
"¢ Identity theft is paper trail to a job
"¢ Cash is king, but corruption reigned

Part 2
"¢ They come to work - and to send money home
"¢ For many in Guatemala, no choice but to leave
"¢ Despite many challenges, school succeeds with youths

Part 3
"¢ Processing plants' dangers don't scare off migrants

Tell Us: Many readers have weighed in with their thoughts on immigration. What's your opinion of the situation in Cactus, Texas?


"¢ City Manager Jeff Jenkins describes Cactus and its people
"¢ Teachers describe efforts to teach English in Cactus
"¢ Law enforcement work is difficult with the increasing number of immigrants

En español: Read Spanish-language coverage from AlDiaTX.com

Cactus, Texas: Complete coverage
About one in 10 workers is injured each year – some say it's closer to one in five – from sharp tools colliding with limbs or the painful stress of repeating the same motions with hooks and knives during a daylong shift.

"The price that's being paid in injury, in illness, is a price that most native-born workers are not willing to take, even at a good wage," says Lance Compa, a Cornell University expert in labor law and the meatpacking industry.

Worker advocates say the result is depressed wages and continued abuses:

"¢ Wages in 1960 that were today's equivalent of $20 or more – near those of the auto and steel industries – have dropped to $8 to $12 an hour in many plants, experts say.

"¢ Regulations for tallying injuries have loosened since President Bush took office. Injury counts have declined, as a result. But critics say that masks the full extent of problems inside the plants.

"¢ Illegal workers often accept harsh conditions in exchange for a chance to stay in the U.S. Many won't report injuries out of fear that their immigration status could be discovered.

Workers want to "stay underground, to not make any waves, do their job, get their pay and go home," said Jackie Nowell, director of occupational safety and health at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

The industry defends its record as one that's improved through cooperation with unions and voluntary measures. The American Meat Institute, a trade group, says meatpacking wages are often higher than the pay for workers in some key fields.

Government scrutiny
The work inside packing houses has drawn government scrutiny off and on for a century. Attention largely centered on food safety rather than the working conditions of the people who put the meat on Americans' dinner tables.

Immigrants have been a key source of meatpacking labor since the industry's inception, drawn by a job that requires little or no experience.

The harsh conditions inside plants, chronicled in 1906 by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, brought greater federal oversight and a work environment that drew more native workers. Wages rose for decades.

But the 1960s and 1970s brought a restructuring of the sector that reshaped the profile of the workforce.

Led by industry giant IBP (now Tyson), packing plants that had been unionized left big cities – a move to cut the cost of transporting cattle from rural areas. Unions lost influence, and injury rates climbed. Wages tumbled as the industry consolidated.

Today, four companies – Tyson, Cargill, Smithfield and Swift – control 80 percent of beef processing.

Immigrant workforce
At the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Cactus, Texas, officials say they do all they can to legally verify the authenticity of their employees' documents. A spokesman said illegal workers are found perhaps a dozen times a year, if that, and noted that the company takes part voluntarily in a federal program designed to spot fraudulent use of Social Security numbers.

But Cactus city officials say nearly 75 percent of the town's population is illegal and undocumented.

Immigrant workers make up as much as 80 percent of the nonmanagement workforce at some plants in Texas, Kansas and other top meatpacking states, said Donald Stull, an anthropology professor at the University of Kansas and author of Slaughterhouse Blues. They're less likely to organize and don't necessarily know their rights – an attractive combination for the industry, Dr. Stull said.

The American Meat Institute says hourly workers earn $12.03 an hour on average, or $25,000 a year, for jobs in rural areas with a low cost of living. In contrast, preschool teachers in Kansas, the largest beef state, earned $24,550 and paramedics made $21,590.

Injury figures
The industry also maintains that total "recordable" injuries have declined 70 percent since 1990, a figure that critics say doesn't account for the full extent of problems inside plants.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which oversees worker safety at U.S. companies, does not collect injury figures for every plant.

Although manufacturing facilities must log worker injuries at the plants, they are only required to do so if the injuries can be proved to have occurred onsite.

OSHA inspectors can request the records during inspections; otherwise the log sheets aren't collected. The agency inspects about 75 of the more than 5,000 meatpacking plants each year.

"It's been a long time since OSHA's been here," said one longtime employee at the Cactus plant who spoke only on condition of anonymity. "When OSHA is here, everything moves nice and slow."

OSHA's last inspection report for the Swift plant was in the summer of 2005.

Unions and labor experts say legal battles in the 1980s and 1990s brought some reforms for workers – including more-defined rules for ergonomic standards inside manufacturing facilities, a move that was expected to ease the strain.

The Clinton administration implemented a new ergonomics standard in January 2001.

But the GOP-led Congress and the Bush administration halted it in favor of voluntary industry measures. Regulatory changes a year later replaced the strict rules with general principles in support of worker safety.

Health hazards
At the Cactus plant, inspectors said employees weren't familiar with information about health hazards on the site.

In the fall of 2003, for instance, workers in the "Slaughter and Blood Pit Area where the stun and stick operation takes place" complained about chlorine mists, OSHA reported.

The calcium hypochlorite solution led to bloody noses, vomiting, headaches and irritation to their eyes, nose and throat, the report said.

Employee interviews found that Swift "had not provided training" on the hazards from the solution, OSHA said.

Twenty-six former employees of the Swift plant are suing the company for wrongful termination, saying they were let go as a result of filing workers compensation claims after being injured on the job. The workers list injuries ranging from slipping on greasy floors to falling off ladders to being struck by a forklift.

Swift has denied the charges in the suit, which was filed in a Dallas County court.

Many workers simply accept the risks even in dangerous situations, critics say.

Some immigrant workers, whether legal or illegal, hesitate to file complaints. Workers often don't know their rights or fear getting tied up with immigration authorities.

"We don't have a choice but to put up with it. Or let them fire us. We have too many years invested," said the longtime worker.

Rich Fairfax, OSHA's director of enforcement, said the agency fines plants that try to hide the number of injuries.

"We don't care about immigration status," Mr. Fairfax said. "We're there to deal with workplace health and safety and protection of the workers regardless of whether they're U.S. citizens."


DEBORAH TURNER / Al Día
Inspectors said Cactus plant workers weren't familiar with information about site health risks. OSHA figures show a decline in meatpacking injuries and illnesses in 2002, the first year of new record-keeping that omitted a special category for repetitive-motion injuries.

The percentage of workers injured dropped to less than 12 percent, from 20 percent a year earlier.

"The reporting is really going underground," said Ms. Nowell of the union. "This is the biggest category of injury that's happening across the board in this country, and we're not recording it as such."

Line speeds
Meatpacking workers' unions and other experts say many of the injuries can be avoided by reducing the speed of lines carrying carcasses in a plant. Some workers must process hundreds of animals an hour during a busy shift.

This spring, workers at the Cactus plant said line speeds were increased. Even before then, the longtime worker said, the job was tough enough.

"They're going to make the chain longer and raise it. ... You can hear the people screaming because they're exhausted. On Friday, you could hear them screaming because it was 2:37 [p.m.] and the meat wouldn't stop coming. ... The people were screaming: Enough! Are you going to pay us [for the extra time]? Regularly, they will pay."

Agencies that regulate plants point to each other to deal with line speeds.

Food safety inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture are at plants to ensure that meat is safe for consumption. But the department says that worker safety is the responsibility of OSHA regulators and plant management.

And OSHA does not regulate line speed, leaving that to food inspectors. The agency says it monitors for ergonomic hazards and requires plants to make changes to address those problems.

A Swift spokesman, Sean McHugh, said all food processors want to raise their output, but "food safety for us goes hand in hand with employee safety."

The spring increase in line speed at the Cactus plant resulted in "no appreciable change in injury rates or lost workday rates," he said.

The company declined to disclose its line speed for competitive reasons.

Swift's overall injury rate has been cut in half over the last five years and is comparable to the overall average for all manufacturers, Mr. McHugh said.

'A lot safer'
OSHA says its oversight has contributed to a better work environment, covering a broader range of safety concerns.

Mr. Fairfax, the OSHA enforcement director, acknowledges that meatpacking is a dangerous industry but says it's "a lot safer than it used to be 10 or 15 years ago."

Cooperation with industry leaders who want lower workers' compensation costs and insurance rates has made a difference, he said.

He said that most employers are recording injuries and illnesses accurately and that OSHA's industry-specific targeting system would spot violators.

OSHA tries to take a big-picture view of injuries at a plant and allow an employer to make changes, rather than focusing specifically on an issue such as line speed, he said.

Industry critics say the safety of workers needs as much attention as food safety. And pressure from consumers, much like a century ago, is the only way to force the industry and regulators to make faster improvements, said Dr. Stull, the University of Kansas anthropology professor.

"There isn't the public outcry," he said. "The general public, as long as their food is cheap, as long as it's safe, as long as the workers aren't really that much like them, they can look the other way."

Staff writer Arnold Hamilton, and Deborah Turner, an Al Día staff writer and photographer, contributed to this report.

E-mail cactus@dallasnews.com

INSPECTING SWIFT

Federal workplace inspectors conducted five reviews in recent years of the Swift & Co. packing plant in Cactus. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it could not locate two of the case files. In the others:

JULY 2004:
Complaint: An employee complained that lines were moving too fast, leading to sides of beef striking workers.
Finding: Inspectors concluded that the injuries were a result of the worker's actions, likely from making a wrong cut that caused the quarter of beef to fall off a hook and strike his foot.

OCTOBER 2003:
Complaint: Workers complained of excessive chlorine mists causing headaches, bloody noses, vomiting, headaches and irritation to their eyes, nose and throat.
Finding: An inspection found that employees were not trained regarding the hazards of a calcium hypochlorite solution used to wash cattle hides in the slaughter and blood pit area of the plant. Inspectors determined that Swift had not provided training on the hazards associated with the solution. The company had been cited for a similar violation in October 2002, with a $1,125 fine. It received a $12,500 penalty for this offense, later reduced to $7,500.

APRIL 2003:
Complaint: Numerous physical hazards led to a visit by an OSHA inspector.
Among the problems:
"¢ The lack of an exit in a cattle pen's fencing
"¢ No employee access to potable water and toilets
"¢ And a missing guard on an overhead conveyor system
Finding: Citation proposed but not issued.

SOURCE: Occupational Safety and Health Administration; Dallas Morning News research

SWIFT & CO.

Owners: HM Capital Partners LLC in Dallas and Booth Creek Management Corp.
CEO: Sam B. Rovit
2006 Sales: $9.35 billion
2005 Sales $9.67 billion
2006 Net income: - $129.5 million
2005 net income: $40.8 million
2005 Employees: 20,700
Cactus employees: 2,700
Web site: www.swiftbrands.com
Selected brand names:
Arrachera Marinada Skirt Steak
Four Star Beef
Miller Blue Ribbon Beef
Swift Angus Select
La Herencia Chorizo
Swift Natural Fresh Pork
Swift Premium Guaranteed Tender
Commodity Beef
Xtreme Trim Beef

SOURCE: Securities and Exchange Commission filings and Dallas Morning News research

No Phone Calls for Many Detainees
GAO Report Cites Violations of Guidelines for Dealing With Immigrants

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 13, 2007; Page A02

The number of immigrants detained by the United States has grown from 90,000 to 283,000 over the past five years, and many were improperly barred from making even a single phone call to a lawyer, congressional investigators reported this week.

Detainees' calls were completed 35 to 74 percent of the time each month between November 2005 and November 2006, according to the Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit arm.

The United States uses a criminal-detention model to hold immigrants, although most are charged with administrative violations of immigration laws. The detainees are not guaranteed the protections routinely provided to U.S. citizens or criminal defendants, including access to public defenders. As a result, federal authorities have agreed to 38 nonbinding detention guidelines with the American Bar Association as a form of due process, including providing telephone access to legal counsel.

"Without sufficient internal control policies and procedures in place, ICE is unable to offer assurance that detainees can access legal services, file external grievances and obtain assistance from their consulates," the July 6 GAO report said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Concern about potential mistreatment has grown in Congress and among civil liberties groups as a national enforcement crackdown has sent the detention population soaring. "The importance of meaningful access to legal representation and materials for individuals in immigration detention cannot be overstated," said Karen J. Mathis, president of the American Bar Association, whose staff praised the GAO's work. "When the detention standards are not implemented properly . . . immigrants in detention are denied due process."

ICE spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback said her agency has agreed to improve its telephone service and contractor oversight. "We are encouraged by the finding in the GAO's most recent report, which notes that detention facilities generally complied" with ICE's standards, even though the size of the detainee population had tripled, she said.

The GAO said that its investigation of 23 detention sites was not scientific and that the results cannot be projected to all 352 sites. It reported pervasive telephone system failings and isolated violations of at least one of eight standards audited -- including those on food, medical care and use of force -- at nine sites studied.

For example, four facilities did not fully comply with grievance standards. The same number reported overcrowding of as much as double their rated capacity and "triple-bunking" in detainee cells built for two. The overcrowding is the subject of pending litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The GAO report said ICE's Detention and Removal Operations unit also did not reliably track the number of complaints received or their outcome. "Standards for internal control in the federal government call for clear documentation of transactions and events" to ensure that "potential systemic problems throughout the detention system" can be detected, the investigators wrote.

The increase in detentions is a result of the stepped-up enforcement campaign that was meant to underpin the Bush administration's immigration overhaul effort, which failed. The daily detention population increased from 19,718 in 2005 to about 26,500 in February, even as officials sped up or denied additional hearings for detainees and deported virtually all the non-Mexican ones.

Illegal immigrants spent an average of 37.6 days in custody as of April, although a fourth of them, about 70,000, were held for more than 44 days, and 5 percent, about 14,000, were detained for more than four months. Federal law provides illegal immigrants 30 days to go to an appeals board and the courts before the rulings against them become final.

Stop, Stop! A North American Union!
As Some Stoke Fears of 'Dangerous' Partnership, Reality Takes a Detour

By Marcela Sanchez
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, July 13, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Those who celebrated immigration reform's defeat last month as "a glorious victory for the American people" have a new issue to exploit. Their target: the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP, launched in March 2005 by the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Haven't heard of it? Well, those merchants of fear and exaggeration wish you had. According to them, the SPP will lead to a host of undesirable consequences, from a 10- to 12-lane highway splitting America's heartland from Mexico to Canada, to the elimination of America's borders and an "end (of) the United States as we know it," according to CNN's Lou Dobbs. One Web site, StopSPP.com, depicts the ramifications with a graphic of North America in flames.

Dobbs and others believe that the SPP is a "blueprint for the North American Union" and that next month's summit in Montebello, Canada, between President Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon will further consolidate the agreement and lead to the dissolution of U.S. sovereignty.

As it turns out, the agenda for that meeting isn't so apocalyptic. The three North American leaders are expected to announce an integrated strategy to combat pandemics, with avian flu one of the central motivations. Also finalized should be what organizers call a "trilateral regulatory cooperation framework meant to enhance competitiveness, while maintaining high standards of health and safety."

As far as an attempt to dissolve the U.S. and establish a North American Union, don't look for it in the summit's plans. There is no mention of erasing borders and establishing a separate legal system, adopting a single currency or creating a secret police. Unless, of course, the team of disease-fighting scientists somehow takes a wrong turn in Kansas City and transforms into a revolutionary army for the North American Union. In sum, the SPP doesn't pose much of a threat.

Not only is the SPP wrongly maligned for doing things it doesn't, it is given credit for having the power to do things it simply cannot. The partnership's stated initiatives and aims are simply far too ambitious for an organization that has mostly proved it can do one thing very well -- get together for meetings to discuss potential agreements.

So far the representatives from the U.S., Canada and Mexico have used the SPP framework to discuss the development of e-commerce in North America. They have taken steps that decreased transit times at the Detroit/Windsor border crossing by 50 percent. They have even delved into environmental affairs by signing a trilateral agreement (nonbinding, of course) to cooperate in conserving the continent's bird species and habitat.

But in Dobbsian logic, all of these steps smack of integration and therefore the loss of sovereignty. To this end, perhaps one of the SPP's most pernicious achievements has been an agreement to discuss how to harmonize care instructions on apparel labels. One can imagine no greater threat to U.S. sovereignty than consumer confusion over "Dry Clean Only" or "Only Dry Clean." Yes, the sky is falling.

You have to give Dobbs and those of his ilk some credit for creativity. They have grafted onto the government initiative some of the more forward-looking elements of a theory proposed by Robert Pastor of American University.

Pastor, director of the school's Center for North American Studies, has envisaged what he calls a North American Community, an affiliation of sovereign states whose economic, social and security ties are so intertwined that they require deepening cross-border cooperation. Pastor has no official connection to the SPP and in fact has often criticized it as too weak. "The truth is that (the SPP) is a timid bureaucratic operation that measures progress by the number of meetings that are held," Pastor told me.

One Canadian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of how sensitive the issue has become, said that what is missing in any search for deeper North American integration is "the vision thing" -- a leader, or leaders, asking how integration can work, rather than, as it is today, a line of lawyers on either side of the borders, listing why it can't. As long as that leadership is missing, the result is "a void that people like Lou Dobbs ... are rushing to fill," the official said.

In a Dobbsian world, the U.S. will always be under siege, whether it be from illegal immigrants or those trying to address crucial economic and security concerns by involving decision-makers across the continent. There are trilateral threats that do need to be taken seriously. But even if there weren't, rest assured that Dobbs and his followers are vigilant and will let no fact stand in the way of vitriol and paranoia.

Restaurateurs Arrested for Illegal Workers Federal Investigation Targets Employment Practices at Wheaton MD's El Pollo Rico

By Ernesto Londoño and Mariana Minaya
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 13, 2007

Four members of a family that owns popular chicken restaurants in the Washington area were arrested by federal agents yesterday for knowingly employing illegal immigrants and laundering the money earned from that business, according to immigration officials.

Francisco Carlos Solano, 55, and his his wife, Inés Solano, 59, of Germantown; Consuelo Solano, 69, of Arlington County; and Juan Faustino Solano, 57, of Kensington were charged with employing and harboring illegal immigrants, money laundering and structuring deposits to avoid financial reporting requirements, according to a criminal complaint unsealed yesterday. Nine employees of their El Pollo Rico restaurant in Wheaton were taken into custody and will be placed in deportation proceedings, authorities said.

According to an affidavit filed with the complaint, the Solanos housed many of their workers, some of whom were in the county illegally, at houses in Kensington and Wheaton.

The restaurant, at 2541 Ennalls Ave., accepted only cash. The Solanos paid employees who were in the county illegally in cash and wrote checks to those who were here legally, prosecutors said.

Federal agents say the Solanos deposited more than $6.6 million into a business account between June 2002 and September 2006 in increments of $7,000 to $9,000, which authorities say was done to avoid filing currency transaction reports that must be submitted with deposits that exceed $10,000.

The Solanos deposited checks from the business account into their personal accounts and used the proceeds to purchase residences, vehicles, loan and life insurance policies, and retirement accounts, according to the affidavit. Federal agents seized more than $2 million in cash and jewelry from the Solanos' residences and vehicles, authorities said.

James ****ins, the special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, said the investigation began a year and a half ago, when suspicious bank deposits were brought to the agency's attention.

Court-appointed attorneys who represented Francisco and Inés Solano during brief arraignments in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt declined to comment on the allegations. Francisco Solano and his wife were released after being arraigned.

Consuelo Solano and Juan Faustino Solano were taken into custody by immigration agents in Las Vegas and are expected to return to Maryland to be arraigned in Greenbelt on Monday.

Francisco, Consuelo and Juan Solano are siblings. They were born in Peru but became U.S. citizens. Consuelo is a former employee of the World Bank, according to the affidavit. Inés, who is originally from Colombia, is also a U.S. citizen.

El Pollo Rico opened in 1988 and became hugely successful among Peruvian immigrants. Its popularity soon spread.

The original restaurant was in Arlington, and the family owns at least two in the Washington area. The only target of the investigation was the Wheaton franchise, law enforcement officials said.

Restaurateurs Arrested for Illegal Workers
"They have been pioneers for as long as I've known," said Martin Cuzzi, a Peruvian immigrant who owns a real estate firm in Gaithersburg. "My gosh. We stopped by to eat their pollo al brasa so many times when we were undocumented."

A Guatemalan who works at El Pollo Rico -- which means "the tasty chicken" -- said in a phone interview that Francisco Solano knew many of his employees were in the country illegally.

"He just didn't ask you for papers," said the employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid legal problems. She described Solano as "a good boss" who did not exploit his workers. She said she was devastated to learn that one of her cousins was taken into custody. "He had already built half of a house in Guatemala. Now none of his dreams will come to pass."

Word of the arrests spread throughout the community yesterday, with callers on local Spanish-language radio stations warning listeners to stay away from Maryland.

Sergio Antonio Martinez, 52, of Rockville, a legal immigrant from Nicaragua, said he was coming to the restaurant to buy chicken when he saw a group of restaurant employees being taken from the restaurant in handcuffs.

"What occurred here was not right," he said. "We work; we pay taxes. They took those poor guys as if they were criminals. It's not right."

At least four Montgomery County police officers helped federal agents conduct the investigation, according to the affidavit written by ICE special agent Brian Smeltzer. The officers' role was to interview El Pollo Rico employees to gather information about their identity and employment, according to the affidavit.

The workers provided the officers -- some of whom speak Spanish -- their names, dates of birth and other information that was later used by federal agents to establish that many were illegal immigrants.

The extent to which Montgomery officers get involved in immigration matters has become a hotly debated issue in the county.

Police officials in the county have said officers generally don't inquire about people's immigration status unless they are targets of a criminal investigation, have been arrested or have an outstanding administrative immigration warrant.

"We were interviewing witnesses to a crime," said Lt. Ron Hardy of the Montgomery County police special investigations division.

"No action was taken against any of these people when we interviewed them. I don't know if any of those who were interviewed were eventually arrested" by immigration agents, he said.

Immigrant inmates:
Status after their release is shielded

By LEIGH BELL World Staff Writer
7/12/2007

A federal immigration official wouldn't say this week what has happened to more than two dozen deportable immigrants recently released from Oklahoma prisons after serving time for crimes including first-degree rape, drug trafficking and lewd molestation.

The state Department of Corrections provided a list of foreign-born inmates released during May and June to the Tulsa World.

At least 25 of them were supposed to face Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that imposes immigration detainers.

Officials were unable to verify that, saying it would be an "administrative burden" to give the status of each of the inmates.

The task would be too time-consuming, said Carl Rusnok, a spokesman for the immigration agency.

Asked to give the status of 27 released inmates, he said it would take too long to get the information unless he had the alien identification number for each. Such numbers are not public.

"No federal agency can or should provide them to the public or media," Rusnok said.

The status on each detainee can be obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, he said.

At the request of the Tulsa World, the agency did provide information on three "deportable detainees" convicted of the harshest or most numerous crimes.

One was deported to Mexico on June 1. Another is to be deported to Vietnam, and the third, a legal permanent resident, will go before an immigration judge.

Immigration officials can place detainers on state prisoners who are illegal immigrants or legal permanent residents who are convicted of aggravated felonies or certain crimes against children.

The Corrections Department's report on those with immigration detainers does not distinguish between illegal immigrants and legal permanent residents.

Records show that 27 deportable detainees were released from prison in May and June, but two of them were not listed as having been released to immigration officials.

It's likely that the immigration detainer was lifted from those two while they were in prison, said Jerry Massie, a Corrections Department spokesman.

Those with detainers are handed over to immigration officials after they serve their prison time.

Rusnok said each illegal immigrant who served time for an aggravated felony is processed for deportation and is returned to his or her home country.

Legal permanent residents, however, have the right to face an immigration judge before any deportation can be ordered.

Some of the released prisoners with immigration detainers are on probation, but that should not affect immigration proceedings, Rusnok said.

Immigration officials most often pick up deportable detainees from prison when their sentences are finished, but prisons must notify the agency of the release, he said.

"It would be nice if all jails let us know," he said. "It would be nice to tour all the facilities. We just don't have the resources for that."

Massie said the Corrections Department's policy is to notify immigration officials when an inmate with an immigration detainer is to be released.

Federal law allows prisons to hold inmates with detainers for two days after a sentence is served, to give immigration officials time to take custody of the inmate.

"They (immigration officials) have been pretty good about that," Massie said.

Although more than two dozen deportable detainees were released from prison in May and June, more than 50 others were admitted, prison records show.

During the same period, detainers were placed on an additional 21 inmates.

Foreign-born people account for 4.5 percent of Oklahoma's 3.4 million residents, and slightly more than 1 percent of the state's prisoners.

The state expects to spend nearly $8 million during fiscal year 2007 to incarcerate the prisoners, an earlier report by the Corrections Department said.

The department has custody of roughly 56,000 inmates, including 31,000 on probation or parole.

Massie said the numbers of inmates with immigration detainers have remained fairly steady.

Because the Corrections Department is crunched for money and space, it asked the state parole board to create a separate docket for deportable detainees convicted of nonviolent crimes.

The request was rejected, and it will not be resubmitted, Massie said.

17 illegal immigrants discovered in van in Tulsa

By LEIGH BELL World Staff Writer
6/26/2007

Seventeen illegal immigrants from Mexico were found crowded in a seven-passenger van during a traffic stop early Monday on a Tulsa highway.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned five of the immigrants to Mexico later Monday, and the remaining people will likely be sent back Tuesday, said spokesman Carl Rusnok.

The driver of the 1999 Chevy conversion van could face more serious charges because he was in the process of transporting illegal immigrants.

The driver will remain in federal custody to appear before an immigration judge, and he may be investigated for criminal prosecution in the United States, Rusnok said.

It is yet to be determined if the driver was smuggling illegal immigrants.

"That is still under investigation, and I don't know when that will be determined," Rusnok said.

The federal government doesn't release names of those who have been administratively arrested for violation of immigration law.

The driver reported that he picked up the 16 passengers in Las Vegas and was on his way to Chicago when an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper pulled the van over because a headlight was out, the OHP reports.

The stop was made on eastbound Interstate 44 near Sheridan Road.

Trooper Shaun Vann said he looked in the back of the van and saw a "significant number of individuals that exceeded the van's occupancy."

"The driver could not produce any identification, and when asked if he and his passengers were in the country illegally, he said 'Yes,' " Vann said.

The passengers, 13 men and four women, told Vann they were all from the same family, but did so in broken English, so Vann couldn't be certain that was the case.

OHP contacted federal immigration officials.

Passengers of the van accepted voluntary return to Mexico, which means they confessed to being here illegally and did not exercise their right to see an immigration judge, Rusnok said.

People eligible for voluntary return can request a hearing before an immigration judge, but that's extremely rare, he added.

Rusnok said an illegal immigrant who appears in immigration court is likely to receive final orders of deportation and then be deported.

Voluntary return is different from deportation.

Anyone who is deported and then re-enters the United States commits a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Voluntary return is not an option for illegal immigrants from anywhere else but Mexico, immigrants who have criminal convictions or who have been deported before, Rusnok said.

Illegal immigrants are returned to Mexico by the federal government usually by bus, or less commonly, by air on the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System, which is overseen by the U.S. Marshals Service.

Missing soldier's wife granted green card

MISSING:
Spec. Alex Jimenez: He has been missing since his unit was attacked in Iraq on May 12. His wife, an illegal immigrant living in Pennsylvania, was recently granted a green card.

By AP Wire Services
7/2/2007

BOSTON (AP) -- A woman whose soldier husband is missing in Iraq has gotten her green card after authorities threatened to deport her for entering the U.S. illegally.

Yaderlin Hiraldo Jimenez walked out of a Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Buffalo, N.Y., on Friday with her permanent residency papers, her lawyer said.

"She was moved to tears," attorney Matthew Kolken, who accompanied his client, told The Boston Globe for Sunday's editions.

"Her immigration problems have been solved in their entirety and now her focus is completely dedicated to her hope and desire that she's going to see her husband again," Kolken said.

Army Spec. Alex Jimenez, of Lawrence, Mass., has been missing since his unit was attacked in Iraq on May 12.

His wife illegally entered the U.S. from the Dominican Republic in June 2001, paying $500 to a smuggler and walking three days from Mexico to California. She and Jimenez were married in 2004.

Jimenez's request for a green card and legal residence status for his wife alerted authorities to her situation.

She has been living in Pennsylvania and had been facing deportation but an immigration judge put a temporary stop to the proceedings after Jimenez was reported missing.

Last month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his agency would end the deportation case. He said in a letter to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., that "the sacrifices made by our soldiers and their families deserve our greatest respect."

Kolken said his client hopes to apply for citizenship and to attend college.

"She commented about how much she loved this country," Kolken said.

On Friday, the Pentagon changed the status of Jimenez and a comrade, Pvt. Byron Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Mich., from "whereabouts unknown" to "missing/captured."

The change reflects an official determination that the two were seized by hostile forces, but it does not mean the military has gained any new information about their whereabouts.

An Iraqi insurgent group claimed in a video posted on the Internet last month that the missing soldiers were killed and buried, but offered no proof they were dead.

Facts about the Basic Pilot Program

It is the federal government's employment eligibility verification system to see if a person is legally in the United States and authorized to work.


It is voluntary and free to use.


It is an automated, Internetbased system that allows employers to verify newly hired workers. Information is taken from the new employee's I-9 form.


The information goes through the Social Security Administration (SSA) to check validity of the Social Security number, name, date of birth and citizenship provided by the worker.

The data on noncitizens is verified by the SSA and then sent to the Department of Homeland Security to verify work authorization against the agency's immigration records.


Verification arrives in about three seconds.


92 percent of queries are authorized automatically.


If a new hire isn't authorized, the employer must notify him or her.


A new hire who isn't immediately authorized has eight business days to contact an SSA office to correct the SSA record. The employee cannot be fired during this time because of the nonconfirmation.