Yeah, it could be any number of things.
But I doubt, PUSC, that it would be in the paper. It was all very quiet. The only people outside with the suitcases were the Muslim group, and nobody else.
I doubt the news even knew what was going on, and I doubt immigration wants advertising. They'd rather keep it under wraps.
The people looked somewhat rushed and grim. It reminded me a solemn occasion such as a funeral.
If I hear anything I'll tell you but like I said a thousand times already I doubt it.

Illegal Mexican Exploitation is a very serious issue, and one that should concern EVERY American.

The arrogance with which illegal Mexicans (and Mexicans in general) exploit America is quite spellbinding. If it wasn't for America's generosity and willingness to help, despite the ungrateful whining of our neighbor to the south, Mexico would be even more uninhabitable than it is already!!

Mexicans need to stop exploiting America.

devildoll,

Thanks for reading the articles. I knew you were peeking! Maybe they'll enlighten you and we can all become friends!

LETTER FROM AMERICA
HOW TO KILL A GOOD IDEA: JUST ADD ANGRY PUNDITS



Internation Herald Tribune
By Richard Bernstein
Published: October 21, 2007

NEW YORK: Lou Dobbs, an anchorman for CNN, is furious, and he has his reasons.

He's not only upset that the governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, is being "absolutely irresponsible" in a decision about giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. He also finds it an offense against nature and common sense that Spitzer has so far declined to appear on Dobbs's evening news program.

"The man hasn't shown the gumption to come on the air and debate the issue with me," The New York Times quotes Dobbs as saying.

Amazing - the temerity of "the man" not to come when Lou Dobbs calls! No wonder Dobbs accuses Spitzer of an "abuse of power."

Outside the borders of the United States, there surely are people who have never heard of Lou Dobbs, or Eliot Spitzer for that matter. For them, a few words of explanation:

Last month, the governor made one of those sensible but impolitic proposals that are particularly subject to demagogic and sensational attack. His idea was that since illegal immigrants are in New York in the hundreds of thousands anyway, and since there's no sign that the U.S. government is going to round them up and send them away, they might as well be allowed to get driver's licenses.

Spitzer maintained that several benefits would accrue from this, not least that the roads would be safer because there would be fewer unlicensed drivers (many of whom now leave the scene of accidents because they are afraid to have any contact with the police.)

Driver's licenses would also help the illegal aliens improve their economic situations - and there's no point in contriving to keep them desperately poor given that many of them work very hard at jobs that the rest of us don't want to do. And beyond that, Spitzer says, by bringing them "out of the shadows," a record is created that can help law enforcement agencies in both preventing and solving crimes.

"We are talking about being practical and moral about those who are already here," Spitzer said when he announced the new measure. "We can't ignore the reality that when hundreds of thousands of people don't have driver's licenses, they suffer, and we as a society suffer."

Not a bad idea, it seems to me, certainly one with some merit to it. Certainly we ought to be able to discuss it in civil fashion.

But it's at this point that Dobbs's jowly, portentous, gravelly-voiced stupefaction over the imbecility of others enter the picture. "This governor needs training wheels," Dobbs said in one of the several editorial comments he has made in the several broadcasts he has devoted to this historic question, adding that Spitzer's decision on driver's licenses was so disappointing as to be "breathtaking."

The other day Dobbs hosted a debate between two New York legislators, one for Spitzer, the other against him.

The pro-Spitzer guest, State Senator José Serrano, Jr., was allowed to make a few points, but more often he was hectored and interrupted by Dobbs, making it no wonder that Spitzer himself would not be eager to appear on the show. Why bother when Dobbs hardly lets you get a word in edgewise?

The other guest, State Senator Martin Golden, illustrated what may be the worst element in the picture. His main argument was not (as Dobbs's seems to be) that it would be wrong to aid illegal immigrants in any way because they are just that - illegal.

Instead, Golden's argument was that giving driver's licenses to undocumented aliens would increase the threat of terrorism, though Golden waxes a bit vague on exactly how that tragic result would actually come about.

"It's the terrorists that are coming in," Golden said, "those cells that are being set up in this state and in this country."

To be fair to Dobbs, he did allow Serrano to respond to that. "There is no correlation between immigration and terrorism," Serrano said, correctly.

But on that same broadcast where Dobbs talked about training wheels for Spitzer, he made the same suggestion about terrorism that Golden did. First he aired a correspondent's report on state and U.S. laws that, Dobbs alleged, would be broken by the Spitzer plan - most importantly U.S. laws that make it a crime to help somebody enter or reside illegally in the country.

Dobbs presented not a single legal expert to substantiate his claim that the law in question would indeed be violated, but never mind. As the legal segment came to an end, the scene shifted, and there suddenly was a grainy security camera image of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attacks, on the TV screen. His image was accompanied by a voice-over saying that Atta had been unable to get a license in New York, but that the 9/11 hijackers were able to get them (they needed identification to board the planes they hijacked) in other states.

The obvious implication: Before Spitzer, when New York refused licenses to undocumented aliens, we were safe, but now that that is going to change, the likely consequence will be another 9/11-like attack.

There's so much wrong and misleading in this suggestion that it's hard to know where to begin. First, Atta and the other hijackers were not illegal aliens but legal visitors to the United States. Moreover, they got their licenses in states that, like pre-Spitzer New York, don't give licenses to illegal aliens, so that wasn't much of an obstacle.

In any case, giving driver's licenses or withholding them from the illegal immigrants who happen not to pose any terrorist danger is not going to be an important element in the fight against terrorism. If licenses are needed to effect an attack, today's hi-tech terrorists, who have proven themselves perfectly capable of forgery, will surely find a way to get them.

The sudden appearance of Atta on CNN in connection with the Spitzer plan wasn't journalism; it was fear-mongering, a reflection of our proneness to hysteria in the post-9/11 world. Polls show that something like 70 percent of the public is against Spitzer's basically harmless initiative. Osama Bin Laden must be chuckling.

Is Dobbs simply careless or is he being absolutely irresponsible in encouraging this dubious connection between Spitzer's initiative and terrorism? Either way, he may be increasing his ratings, but he's doing the rest of us no good.

SUPPORT LICENSING OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

Editorial
timesunion.com
First published: Sunday, October 21, 2007

We have to support the courageous efforts of Governor Spitzer to stand up to the misguided efforts that place the burden of making and enforcing immigration law on state and local agencies. The right of the undocumented to qualify for a driver's license will make our roads safer for everyone.

Political leaders who want to show how tough they are need to re-examine their motives. The politics of fear make us look weak and impotent. The opponents of comprehensive reform are the same people who oppose the new drivers license policy.

The undocumented workers in the U.S. are not terrorists. They are people who work hard, and make sacrifices in difficult circumstances to provide for their families. They are not a threat to us. They are our friends and allies in the war on terror.

ED FREDERICK

Hillsdale

STAFFING AGENCIES SUPPLY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT WORKERS TO THE MEMPHIS DISTRIBUTION INDUSTRY

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/oct/21/briefl...immigrations-impact/
By Daniel Connolly
Sunday, October 21, 2007

This article is part of an occasional series examining the impact of immigration on Memphis and the Mid-South

Williams-Sonoma, a high-end retailer of everything from candlesticks to mahogany dining tables, produced $3.7 billion in sales last year. Christina Arce, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, says she helped generate some of that revenue.

For years, Arce says, her life revolved around her job at one of Memphis' huge warehouses -- sewing monograms onto backpacks, sheets, pillowcases and other goods for Williams-Sonoma.


Matthew Craig/The Commercial Appeal
Temporary workers with the Staff Line agency line up to enter a Technicolor Home Entertainment Services facility on Pleasant Hill Road on a Friday morning in August. Staff Line says it checks applicants' employment eligibility carefully and compensates temps if it has to send them home because of unexpected changes in the need for labor. During busy times, Technicolor's Memphis facilities employ more than 3,000 temps from various staffing agencies.
video

Two former warehouse workers tell their stories. Watch »

Most workers in the monogram department, Arce asserts, were Hispanic immigrants sent by a staffing agency -- just like she was.

"Fortunately for them," Arce said, "we're the workforce that's bringing Williams forward."

Battalions of immigrants from Mexico and central America are an unseen force at the bottom rungs of the Memphis area's most important industry, distribution. They're participating in a sector that's booming as increased international trade has led big corporations to set up mega-warehouses here to distribute goods nationwide.

In recent years, the demand for labor to feed the gargantuan appetites of the American consumer has led many companies to use immigrants hired through staffing agencies. No hard numbers exist, but there are likely thousands. Many are here legally, but many lack legal status, which raises questions about exploitation and competition with unskilled Americans.

An army of temps

When San Francisco-based Williams-Sonoma announced, in 1983, that it planned to place distribution operations in the city, it was a major coup for local leaders trying to transform Memphis into a global logistics hub. Williams-Sonoma now occupies 4.8 million square feet at several facilities in Olive Branch and Memphis that supply retail stores and fulfill catalog orders for brands like Pottery Barn.

The firm needs workers for time-sensitive tasks like monograms and packaging, and it relies heavily on temporary workers to manage seasonal demand.

Williams-Sonoma declined repeated interview requests but released a short statement.

"We value our workforce and, to maintain our success and reputation, we take every measure possible to ensure our compliance with laws and regulations regarding hiring and all other aspects of our business," it reads in part. The firm uses audits to ensure the legality and fairness of its hiring practices and those of the companies that serve it.

Arce said her temporary assignment lasted for years. Now 36, she grew up in Jilotepec in central Mexico as one of eight children and said she struggled economically despite professional training as a nurse and a secretary. One of her last jobs in Mexico was sewing together shirts six days a week for 350 pesos, or roughly $35.

Then she met a smuggler "who told me that there was work, that here the construction workers make a lot of money, that they have a car in the garage. That they have a house," she said in Spanish. "You think 'Wow! Then I'm going!'"

Arce is dark-eyed and round-faced and wore carefully applied lipstick in recent interviews.

She said a group of 13 -- 11 men, two women -- spent a week walking at night to cross the border. A car took her to Memphis, where the smuggler placed her in an apartment with other immigrants. She said she arrived in April 2000 and paid a $1,500 fee over time.

"The first impression is that you're scared," she said. "Because you don't know how to -- well, it's as if you've arrived on another planet."

Her ticket to the American economy cost $120 -- the cost of a manufactured ID card and a document with an invented Social Security number.

Without access to transportation -- and unable to speak English -- she walked in search of work. Despite her illegal immigration status and forged paperwork, she had a good chance of finding it.

Although hiring illegal immigrants has been against the law since 1986, it is hard to enforce because authorities must show that employers are "knowingly" hiring illegal immigrants.

Employers must ask workers for documents showing they can work legally, but they don't have to confirm that the documents are real. In many cases, employers who hire illegal immigrants aren't breaking the law.

Arce's fake documents and another immigrant's help quickly led to a $6.50 per hour job as a kitchen aide in a restaurant.

She says she also worked for a time in a pillow factory before turning to a staffing agency.

These temporary agencies -- there were 135 active in Memphis in 2005 -- are an economic lifeline for new immigrants, and many agencies recruit Hispanic workers by advertising in Spanish-language media, with bilingual recruiters and by training and supervising in Spanish.


Matthew Craig/The Commercial Appeal
Vivianna Gonza*** (right) and Armando Ruiz (background, right), personnel supervisors with Select Staffing, interview applicants looking for temporary work. Representatives say the firm checks carefully to ensure that applicants have the right to work in the United States. The screening includes a drug test and background check. In a recent week, the company had 1,500 on its payroll.
Social scientists at the University of Memphis, in articles published between 2003 and 2006, concluded that many local staffing agencies accepted low-quality fake identification.

Marcela Mendoza, an Argentinian anthropologist, negotiated inside access to warehouses and temporary agencies, and she and other researchers confirmed that many immigrant workers were here illegally.

Although no reliable data exist on total numbers of Hispanic workers in Memphis warehouses, federal data from 2006 found that one in four warehouse workers in the U.S. was Hispanic.

The researchers said that FedEx Corp., the city's largest employer, paid good wages and benefits, and found no evidence that the firm was hiring illegal immigrants. The Commercial Appeal's inquiry reached the same result.

But Memphis' big warehouses are located here because of FedEx, and many have long used temporary agencies to manage surges in volume.

Researchers also said using temps lets the companies avoid responsibility for hiring illegal immigrants, whose motivation to work and vulnerable status made them ideal for industry based on the unpredictable rhythms of global trade.

According to a 2005 article: "Lacking fringe benefits such as health insurance and pensions, as well as ... sick leave and paid vacations, Latino immigrants may be hired briefly, cheaply and flexibly."

Arce's path to the warehouse sector went initially through the Manpower staffing agency.

Manpower declined comment, but Arce said the firm sent her to Williams-Sonoma. But after three months, her bad Social Security number was found.

Every year, the Social Security Administration sends "no match" letters to employers and employees explaining problems with specific Social Security numbers. The letters can result from clerical errors but often are related to fake documents.

For years, employers didn't have explicit instructions on what to do. But this summer, the Bush administration issued new rules requiring employers to fire workers who cannot clarify discrepancies within three months. But a coalition that included labor unions and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed suit, and a federal judge earlier this month put an indefinite hold on implementation of the new rules, saying they would harm innocent workers and employers.

Back to work

It wasn't long before Arce returned to Williams-Sonoma -- this time, she said, by using the same fake number to sign up with locally owned ASAP Staffing Services.

Arce and other immigrants say staffing agencies know that applicants use fake identification to obtain jobs.


Karen Pulfer Focht/The Commercial Appeal
Christina Arce said coming to Memphis from rural Mexico was like arriving on another planet, but she said she found warehouse work and other jobs despite her illegal immigration status and lack of English. "They know going in that you're mojado ('wet'), as they say -- to put it in an ugly way. But even knowing that, they hire us. ... Although they treat us badly ... we have to put up with it."
"They know going in that you're mojado, as they say -- to put it in an ugly way," she said, using a Mexican slang term, "wet," for illegal immigrants. "But even knowing that, they hire us. For that reason I also think that it's a very low salary."

Arce says the company is exploiting illegal immigrants by reducing the starting wage from $9 per hour for all monogram positions to $7 and $8 for some new workers. The conditions led American-born workers to leave, and immigrants became a bigger part of the workforce, she said.

"Although they treat us badly, we continue there because we have to put up with it," she said.

Bob Phillips, vice president and general manager of ASAP Staffing Services, strongly denied that ASAP knowingly hires illegal immigrants. He said the firm runs background checks, turns away those with fake documents and fires employees it discovers used false papers.

Last month the agency started using the government's E-Verify system to confirm Social Security numbers, he said.

Phillips wouldn't confirm that any given employee had worked for his company or that ASAP has a contract with Williams-Sonoma. It was unclear precisely when Arce started working for the firm. However, Arce has an ASAP award certificate given to her in April 2006 for perfect attendance, and others confirmed parts of her story.

Two illegal immigrants, including one who works in the firm's monogram division, said they used fake documents to obtain jobs at Williams-Sonoma through ASAP.

Christopher Perez, 26, a legal immigrant from Mexico who formerly worked for ASAP in Williams-Sonoma's monogram division, said most of the machine operators are Hispanic but that he never asked about their legal status.

According to Cesar Yzaguirre, 46, a naturalized citizen from Peru who said he works for ASAP at Williams-Sonoma, the firm's labor force is overwhelmingly Hispanic. "Williams-Sonoma, they have like 20 percent people from here," he said. "Eighty percent, immigrants."

Like Arce, he said his pay has remained at $9 for the nearly two years that he has worked there. He said new workers are starting at $7.50 and said some of the temp workers at Williams-Sonoma have discussed their illegal status with him.

Some immigrants are unwilling to complain about working conditions. Arce, however, says she did just that, and it led to her eventual departure.

Arce said she had been responsible for operating sewing machines that automatically stitched personalized monograms onto Williams-Sonoma products. On most days she rose at 3 a.m. to arrive for the start of her 4 a.m. shift.

She said her problems started last year when a new manager demanded increased production. She complained to managers, in broken English, that she wasn't paid for the extra work.

She said this angered them and that in June, she was demoted to a position as a "clipper" who cleans up the monograms.

So she resigned.

Phillips wouldn't comment on specifics, but insists ASAP pays employees well and has few worker complaints.

"I walk away from business where customers don't value the employee," he said. "If the employee is just a body to them, I don't want to be part of that customer's equation for staffing."

Day laborers

Williams-Sonoma is the largest company-owned distribution operator in the Memphis area, according to statistics compiled by the Memphis Business Journal. The second largest is Technicolor Home Entertainment Services, a division of French media conglomerate Thomson, whose Memphis operations distribute millions of CDs and DVDs for media giants like Disney, Paramount and Universal.

Technicolor operates a total of 3.9 million square feet in eight facilities in the Memphis area. It has roughly 2,600 permanent employees and is offering signing bonuses in its efforts to attract 200 more. During busy times, the firm can hire more than 3,000 temps.


Matthew Craig/The Commercial Appeal
Applicants fill out forms at a Select Staffing office in East Memphis. Representatives say the firm checks carefully to ensure that applicants have the right to work in the United States.
At 4:38 a.m. on a Friday morning in August, a blinking white strobe light helped temps find their way through the predawn darkness to a small door in the side of Technicolor's Memphis Oaks facility on Holmes Road.

Over the next hour, more than 100 people, most of them Hispanic immigrants, filled a cafeteria. They arrive long before the scheduled 6 a.m. start of the shift because they know sometimes only a few will receive jobs, which start at $7 per hour.

In essence, it's a day labor market. But it's one that a staffing agency manages for a multinational firm that last year showed revenues of 5.9 billion Euros, or $7.4 billion.

A similar scene regularly plays just down the road, where workers in blue shirts wait outside another Technicolor facility that distributes Microsoft products including X-Box games and antivirus software.

Technicolor's operations are an extreme example of a larger trend. Warehouse companies rarely need the same number of workers year-round. Technicolor, which is subject both to the busy holiday season and unexpected orders from studios, recalculates each day how many workers it will need for its 24-hour operations. Sometimes it guesses wrong and sends workers home.

Select Staffing of Santa Barbara, Calif., provides workers to the Memphis Oaks facility, and Staff Line, a Memphis-based firm, supplies workers to the Microsoft facility.

Representatives of Technicolor and the staffing agencies involved recognize how waits frustrate workers but say they're necessary for security.

Select calls more workers than it needs because many don't show up, said Mary H. Collier, vice president of human resources for Technicolor Home Entertainment Services.

Melissa Porter, Select's executive vice president, said workers are rarely turned away.

Rod Rodriguez, Staff Line's executive director, said workers standing in line outside the Microsoft facility have been assigned to work and aren't competing for jobs, though he said unexpected events sometimes mean Technicolor needs fewer workers than planned.

Select and Staff Line said they give rejected workers two hours of "show-up" pay, and that not all temps must wait in line.

Legal status is an issue at Technicolor. The Commercial Appeal interviewed four Mexicans who said they used fake IDs to get jobs at Technicolor through staffing agencies.

The staffing firms say they go further than immigration law requires and run background checks. Still, some unauthorized workers get through.

"I believe that's probably possible," Collier said. "I think most people understand that in today's world that obtaining false documentation that looks very valid oftentimes happens. It's beyond our control."

Job competition

On the morning of Aug. 2, one of the people sent home without work from Technicolor's Memphis Oaks facility was Nekita Green, an African-American.

She was angry.

"They put the Latinos in front of us, you know what I'm saying?" she said. "We can come here earlier. They tell us to be here at 5. We come at 5, they still don't pick us."

Illegal immigrants and their defenders often say that they are doing jobs Americans don't want, but that doesn't always reflect the reality of Memphis, where logistics work is mainstream. An estimated 61,000 people in Crittenden, DeSoto and Shelby counties worked last year in fields related to transportation and warehouses.

Warehouse jobs are traditionally the realm of the black working class, and tensions between black and Hispanic workers are so strong that some warehouse companies have set up separate areas for the groups, according to the U of M researchers.

A Commercial Appeal reporter saw a group of young black warehouse workers taunting Hispanic workers outside a staffing agency. And Arce and other immigrants expressed prejudice against black workers, saying Hispanics work harder.

For Green, a mother of five who has dyed red hair and a ready smile, occasional warehouse jobs were part of her efforts to leave behind her former life as a dancer in Memphis' notorious strip clubs. Yet, she estimated out of her 15 attempts to find work at Technicolor, she was brought inside just once.

"We go out there for that opportunity and they slam the door in our face," she said. "That's rejection. So how else are we going to get money?"

Representatives of Select say the firm doesn't discriminate.

Experts continue to debate the effect of immigration on low-skilled workers. Given the lack of solid data about immigrants in the local warehouse sector, it's difficult to determine if they are driving out native-born workers.

Green said she planned to start work in a salon and won't return to warehouses.

Since leaving Williams-Sonoma, Arce has taken a similar path. She now runs a small business selling health and beauty products with her husband, another Mexican warehouse worker. They have no children and earn enough to send money to relatives in Mexico.

In an interview this summer, Arce said she was still adjusting to a life that didn't involve waking up before dawn.

"But you can get used to everything," she said, "except not eating."

INDIANA, FRANKFORT

FRANKFORT ROLLS UP ITS WELCOME MAT

By TED EVANOFF and TANIA E. LOPEZ
The Indianapolis Star

FRANKFORT -- She's a stay-at-home mom with pink roses blooming outside her spotless home. Her husband's steady factory job helped pay off the modest house. Their five children speak flawless English.

For these newcomers, life in this old railroad city could be a cozy scene of middle-class serenity but for one glaring fact.

President Bush would send her and her husband back to Mexico. So would many Frankfort officials. Being deported is often on her mind.

The reason: They are not legal U.S. residents.

"You live in fear because you aren't ever calm," said the woman, who requested anonymity because of her illegal status.

Playing out in this Clinton County city of 16,662, where one in four residents is Hispanic, are the fears and hopes brought on by America's immigration surge.

An estimated 13 million immigrants have entered the United States in the past seven years, including an estimated 50,000 who have helped revive older pockets of the Indianapolis metropolitan area.

But the migration has unsettled smaller Indiana cities even as the Bush administration and the courts wrangle over a key issue. The administration contends America's illegal immigrants -- about 6 million have arrived this decade -- should be forced out.

It's a dispute central to Indiana's economy, where Hispanics such as the stay-at-home Frankfort mom's family have become solidly embedded.

In the past seven years, according to various estimates, the state's Hispanic population has soared 39 percent to 300,857, including 50,000 to 85,000 immigrants deemed illegal because they entered the United States unlawfully without proper visas and work permits.

Employers have welcomed the migrants and their strong work ethic. Manufacturers employ about 30 percent of the state's working Hispanics. Clerical and sales jobs are held by another 20 percent.

"It's going to be hard on immigrant workers if they get fired,'' said Jorge Chapa, Indiana University's former Latino Studies director. "It's also going to be a real hardship for employers. They're going to have to scramble to get new workers from someplace else.''

As the government sorts out the answer, some Indiana cities are becoming tense. Among them is Frankfort, one hour northwest of Indianapolis on a fertile finger of the Midwest.

"If this continues, in time we could have a Hispanic mayor, a Hispanic council, a Hispanic chief of police. Not that that is bad. But illegal is another thing,'' said Vern Kaspar, retired owner of Frankfort radio station WILO, which airs his editorials lamenting the great migration of undocumented workers.

Frankfort blues

A quiet factory city that processes soybeans and makes candy and auto parts, Frankfort has been overwhelmingly white for generations. Since 2000, though, the Hispanic population has doubled. Most newcomers are Mexican, El Salvadorian and Guatemalan nationals who arrived from Chicago, Los Angeles and Texas.

Frankfort Mayor Don Stock said the sudden influx has jarred many longtime residents. Their concerns about graffiti, drive-by shootings, overly crowded Hispanic homes and plunging test scores at Frankfort High and Kyger Elementary have caused local leaders to respond, the mayor said.

"When the migration started to happen, we embraced it as a good thing,'' Stock said. "Then we realized we had a challenge. In our town, we have a lot of people who have low incomes or are on fixed income. We can't handle easily the extra costs."

Pressed to pay for more trials, public aid lawyers and 10 percent more police overtime, Stock said, Frankfort officials decided the community should take away the welcome mat for undocumented workers.

"This should have been handled by Washington, but they want cheap labor," said Kaspar, 85, a plain-spoken U.S. Navy veteran of World War II. "We're paying a high price for Washington's betrayal."

Last month, the Chamber of Commerce distributed a letter that recommends agencies and employers ask job seekers and others who speak poor or no English for proper documents.

If the papers are insufficient, officials are advised to deny services except where legally required, such as in the St. Vincent's Hospital emergency room or in public schools.

"It's not intolerant," said Gina Sheets, the chamber's economic development director. "It's upholding the laws.''

Crossing over

Today, various estimates figure 25 percent to 70 percent of Frankfort and Clinton County Hispanic residents arrived illegally, part of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants employed nationwide.



!!!
Included in the number: the 1990s wave of migrants. Back then, America's longest economic boom left companies desperately short of workers. While the federal government looked the other way, employers eagerly absorbed millions of job-seekers crossing from Mexico, including the husband of the stay-at-home Frankfort mom.



He wound up in Frankfort, known in the 1960s as a hospitable camp town for migrant farm workers. He found a Lebanon factory job, bought a century-old house near Frankfort's old Nickel Plate railroad yard and saved.

In 2000, his wife and three kids arrived. Since then, two other children have been born in Frankfort.

When he migrated, he said, he trekked across the Mexican desert, but he didn't want his family braving the danger. He bought passage for them on a large bus set up expressly to haul illegal immigrants into the United States. Asked the trip's cost, he replied, "A lot."

His wife, who speaks poor English, said she takes basic courses. Her lessons began three years ago, she said, when she realized she couldn't fill out school forms or help her children with homework.

"A lot of Mexicans came in. This town was down,'' said Frankfort real estate agent Frank Martinez, a resident for three decades. "They helped this town economically.''

Throughout the nation, illegal immigrants have steadily bought cars and houses, boosted by manufacturing wages that tend to be higher than in the service industry.

Budding entrepreneurs also play a role. In Indiana, more than 890 Hispanic-owned firms with employees generate annual sales in excess of $652 million, IU reports.

Frankfort's four main Hispanic groceries are owned chiefly by entrepreneurs from other cities, including Chicago. An additional 18 Latino-operated businesses -- including bakeries, restaurants, taxis, car dealerships and beauty salons -- cater to the city's 4,200 Hispanics, many of whom work in factories in Lafayette, Lebanon and Logansport.

In factories throughout the nation located outside big cities, 40 percent of all machine operators, inspectors and production workers are Hispanic.

"As manufacturers, we put a lot of money and effort in training our people,'' said Edward Nelson, president of Indiana Packers Corp., a pork processing plant near Frankfort that employs 1,700 workers, primarily Hispanic. "We notice an awful lot of our employees getting into 401(k)s and buying houses.''

Ethnic divide

While America's new Latino population continues to grow, Frankfort officials appear unwilling to unify the Hispanic and traditional residents, said Martinez, the soft-spoken Realtor who also is pastor of the 300-member Pentecostal church, Iglesia Jesucristo.

"We need to change,'' Martinez said. "It would be nice, but we need leadership in this town.''

Frankfort's established Hispanics don't dispute declining school test scores, but they say crime problems appear exaggerated.

"To me, this is a pretty quiet town,'' Martinez said.

Hiring Hispanic police who know the Latino community could help, he said. So could more discussions. Recently, the mayor proposed a community meeting to calm concerns.

But even established Hispanic residents have felt a chill from recent events. Unsettled by rumors of a pending raid by federal immigration police, Latinos canceled Frankfort's Hispanic festival in September, said Zenaida Loveless, head of Hispanic Community Services, a Frankfort social agency.

Though no raid occurred, concerns were heightened by Kaspar's radio editorials and the national news. At the time, the Bush administration had been proposing a crackdown on illegal immigrants' employers.

"Up until now, no one has bothered us," said the stay-at-home Frankfort mom, but she quickly pointed out: "I am scared. We were just talking about it the other day. I told my husband, 'If they come to get you, I want to come with you. I don't care what we have here. We will leave everything and take the children. Our family cannot be separated.' "

Bush's response

Early this month, a federal court in California blocked President Bush's proposed crackdown. Bush would have had employers fire workers whose names and Social Security numbers did not match official U.S. Social Security Administration records.

White House officials said they will appeal. Meanwhile, hundreds of Indiana companies employing undocumented workers face a question: What happens now? Many hope the political pressure on Bush to deal with the matter fades.

"A lot of the employers that have large Latino work forces, those workers are very important to them. The last thing they want to do is have anybody go,'' said Indianapolis lawyer Jeff Malamud, who advises companies on immigration matters.

Many companies check Social Security cards and driver's licenses against a federal database known as E-verification. It is illegal for businesses and companies to hire workers without the proper documentation.

Martinez, the longtime pastor, recommends another, discarded solution Mexico proposed: Create an identity card for everyone in the United States. Then verify backgrounds, he said, and let law-abiding Mexicans stay but deport felons, thugs and drug runners.

"Let's be smart,'' Martinez said. "Let's have a national identification so we know who is here, we know where they came from, we know if they are in trouble with the law in Mexico.

"Make people bring papers from where they are from. The way it is now, we don't know what we have.''

quote:

Illegal Mexican Exploitation is a very serious issue, and one that should concern EVERY American.

The arrogance with which illegal Mexicans (and Mexicans in general) exploit America is quite spellbinding. If it wasn't for America's generosity and willingness to help, despite the ungrateful whining of our neighbor to the south, Mexico would be even more uninhabitable than it is already!!

Mexicans need to stop exploiting America.

Devil's Advocate, is this your load of c.r.a.p?

STATES IN REBELLION (WHY RELY ON CONGRESS?)

Ernest Istook
October 21, 2007

Once again, the states are rebelling against Washington. Fed up with dithering in D.C., states are proving enforcement works. Enforcement not only can prevent illegal immigration, but actually reverse it.

Illegal immigrants by the tens of thousands are leaving states that have adopted tough new laws — Colorado, Georgia, Arizona and now Oklahoma. Local efforts are being launched too quickly to count, involving more than 100 communities so far.

When denied jobs or public benefits, many illegals return to Mexico. Others move within the United States to areas with local amnesty policies. That migration may spark a new outcry from citizens in amnesty cities.

Left-leaning groups are on the move, too, flocking to the courts in efforts to block state and local enforcement. Only Congress is standing still — except for back-sliding efforts to push more back-door amnesty.

Details of state and local laws vary, but the impact is consistent. Typically, they deny public benefits to illegal immigrants and try to make sure employers don't hire them.

Oklahoma's law kicks in soon — Nov. 1 — and Hispanic leaders claim 25,000 illegals have already departed the Sooner State. Businesses that catered to them say their sales are down 20 percent. They're backing a lawsuit challenging the new crackdown.

But the crackdown is a gain for taxpayers. Estimates show illegal immigrants cost Oklahoma taxpayers $200 million a year, mostly for education and health care.

Arizona's new employer sanctions don't start until Jan. 1. A half-million undocumented people supposedly await the outcome of court challenges, but the Arizona Republic still reports the outmigration already tops 100 per day.

Due to Georgia's new law, businesses with an illegal alien customer base have seen sales drop as much as 40 percent. And money wired from Georgia to Mexico and Central America declined. Similar sales drops are reported elsewhere.

Colorado supplemented its new laws with a special detachment of state troopers. An Aug. 31 report to the governor said the first month's results "exceed anyone's expectations," catching 150 illegal immigrants plus those who smuggle them.

State legislators this year introduced some 1,400 immigrant-related bills, and 182 became law. Local ordinances were proposed or adopted in 104 cities and counties.

Bucking the trend is Illinois, which passed a law prohibiting employers from using a federal database to screen out illegal immigrants. That's where the litigation trend cuts both ways: The Department of Homeland Security is suing Illinois to force it to comply, saying they can't pick and choose which federal laws to obey.

Ironically, Washington spent years picking and choosing when federal enforcement would have prevented today's epidemic problem. Current federal enforcement remains limited, focused on illegals who have committed violent crimes but not on illegal immigration generally. So-called sanctuary/amnesty cities are clearly violating federal law, as New York City learned from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2000. It's time for the feds to use that precedent and take other cities and state scofflaws to court.

In Congress, the Democrat majority and some Republicans still push back-door amnesty. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, proposed amnesty for almost 2 million illegal farm workers to pick crops. Sen. Richard Durbin, Illinois Democrat, used children as bait for amnesty, proposing in-state college tuition and federal financial aid to children of illegal immigrants — and letting them and their parents stay in America. Mr. Durbin calls it the "DREAM Act." The Heritage Foundation's Kris Kobach properly calls it "a nightmare."

The battleground is swiftly shifting into court, where activist judges are eager to side with border violators. One judge blocked federal officials from notifying millions of employers that their workers may be using false Social Security numbers. Hazleton, Pa., had its local ordinance struck down. More lawsuits are pending. Enforcement works, but liberals want it stifled before people realize that.

The big claim is that immigration is solely a federal issue. If activist judges block state and local enforcement, the public reaction could rival the anger over decisions about abortion and forced busing. But there's a difference this time: Those controversial rulings claimed that the Constitution barred action by any level of government. Immigration rulings would have the side-effect of confirming that Washington has the ability to act. Congress isn't helpless — just hopeless.

By demonstrating that enforcement works, state and local governments are clarifying the issues, and tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are self-deporting. The public outcry that defeated the amnesty bill this spring has found a new outlet, keeping the heat on Washington all the way into the 2008 elections.



Ernest Istook served 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives from Oklahoma's 5th Congressional District and is a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

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WITNESS: CHASING A THIEF ALONG THE RIO GRANDE



Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:51am EDT
By Jeff Franks

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - When I walked from downtown Brownsville to the nearby Rio Grande the last thing I expected to see was an illegal immigrant fresh from the river, crouched behind a bush.

Border patrol agents have stepped up security but he had made it across in his bathing suit. Now, carrying a plastic bag, he was trying to hide as cars whizzed past on a road beside the small river that divides the United States from Mexico.

He looked to be in his late 20's, and when he saw me staring at him, he grinned and asked in Spanish if I saw "la migra," or Border Patrol agents, coming. I looked at the empty riverbank below and shook my head.

Downtown Brownsville abuts the Rio Grande, or the Rio Bravo as it is called in Mexico, so there were people around, and it was the full light of day.

But when the traffic passed, he brazenly trotted over to a small side street, pulled a brown T-shirt, fashionably baggy shorts and running shoes from the bag and put them on. "So, it's easy to cross the river here?" I asked.

Yeah, it's really easy, he told me. Then he hurried away, saying he had to call someone to pick him up.

I looked back at the river, and now saw that two Border Patrol agents were standing less than 100 yards (meters) away under the bridge linking Brownsville and Mexico's Matamoros.

Bizarre, I thought. Here I am working on a story about the U.S. proposal to build a border wall to keep out illegal immigrants and no sooner do I get to the Rio Grande than this guy swims across as if he were making his daily commute.

Given that billions of dollars are being spent to stop him and his compatriots, he must be a clever fellow, I thought.

I tried to speak to the agents, assuming he was long gone but I could at least ask them questions. They didn't notice me.

I turned again to look at the greenish river, which winds through a small valley in the border flatlands and is narrow enough to throw a rock across.

Something in the same side street where the immigrant had put on his clothes caught my attention.

There he was again, pushing a very frightened woman into her car. I'll be ****ed, I thought, and shouted for him to stop.

STOP THIEF

He turned, and after a flash of recognition, grabbed the woman's purse and took off running for the river. Without thinking, I ran after him, still shouting.

As we raced along the upper bank of the Rio Grande, I could hear the woman crying out "mi bolsa, el tiene mi bolsa." My purse, he has my purse.

I wanted to get her purse back, of course, but anger spurred me on too. It was bad enough he had swum the river to commit a crime and scare this woman, but he also had hurt his own people by giving ammunition to those who demonize illegal immigrants.

The man slid down the muddy riverbank and disappeared into the high weeds at the water's edge, and that was it for me.

I had hoped the two Border Patrol agents would see the chase and join in, but they were sitting chatting, oblivious to all.

I heard a splash in the river and saw the robber, using his plastic bag as a floater, swimming back to Mexico. He melted into the thick brush up the slope to Matamoros and was gone.

I went back to check on the woman, but to my surprise she had taken off, too.

Then I trekked down to question the Border Patrol agents about why they had done nothing. "What happened?" they asked.

"A guy swam across the river right over here, went up to the street, robbed a woman, came running back to river with me chasing him, then jumped in and swam back to Mexico," I said.

"Did you get a description?" one of them asked sheepishly.

Yeah, he's wet, very wet, I thought to myself. What did it matter at this point? They went to look where he jumped into the river, but this little saga was water under the bridge now.

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