4A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2008
CROSSING OVER
Alejandra's mom first took her and her younger brother across the border in 1983. Her father worked as a ranch hand in Corona, N.M., and her family was tired of being separated.
They tried several times before they made it into the United States for good. Once, her mother paid a guide to help them across. He was supposed to get them to Alejandra's father, but the guide left the mother and two young children in some bushes just past the border highway between Mexico and the United States.
Rather than trusting another guide, they took a bus on their next attempt. Alejandra's aunt and cousins joined them and they changed their names before they rode across the border. They thought they had made it when they got to El Paso, Texas. Then the bus stopped in a small town in Texas where officials told her family to get off the bus. They were held in a county jail cell until they could be deported. Alejandra said the sheriff fed them microwaved burritos.
"I'm like, 'Dang it, just because we are Mexican doesn't mean that we love burritos.' Alejandra said. "They could have fed us something else. I just remember thinking, 'God this is like the worst stuff that I've ever had.'"
Alejandra said her family left Mexico out of necessity. Her father tried to get work in Mexico as a mechanic but couldn't earn enough money to provide for the family. He started going back and forth between Mexico and the United States, working as a migrant ranch hand. He would spend eight months away and four months with the family. Alejandra said her family grew tired of being separated, so they decided to move to the United States so they could be together year round.
Judy Ancel, director of the Institute for Labor Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said a lot of families emigrated from Mexico, legally or otherwise, out of necessity or economic desperation. She said globalization took a hard toll on Mexico, and the cost of living rose sharply after the implementation of NAFTA, while wages remained stagnant. She said one person would have to work 48 hours a day at the minimum wage in Mexico, barely $5 USD per day, in order to earn a living wage.
"We are talking about real hunger and desperation of Mexican families," Ancel
said. "People don't voluntarily split up their families in order to eat. They do it when they have to"
Alejandra's family lived in a one-room house in Chihuahua, Mexico before they immigrated. She said they lived in poverty, and that she and her brothers were not allowed to go out by themselves because of gangs. A gang burned the house to the ground shortly after the family moved to the United States, erasing all the photos and physical childhood memories from Mexico save for the blue plaid blanket Alejandra's grandmother wrapped her in before she crossed the border.
Alejandra said many of the students she encountered were offended and confused by the language of the immigration debate.
"When they say 'illegal immigrant' I feel like they are saying that this person is illegal." Alejandra said. "I think it's just a little too harsh to be using, especially if you are a student or a kid who doesn't really know what's going on and you are being referred to as illegal."
Eric Haas, senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute, a non-profit group
in Berkeley, Calif. that analyzes political rhetoric based on cognitive science, said people tended to link social problems to illegal immigration.
"If we have unemployment it's because immigrants are taking jobs; if there are environmental issues, it's because immigrants are using resources," Haas said.
Haas said that if the "illegal immigration problem" was called something different, different solutions would be possible. He suggested the term "economic refugees" would better describe the vast majority of people who are desperate enough to risk their lives and leave everything they have to come to the United States.
"When they say illegal immigrant'I feel like they are saying that this person is illegal."
"How we think about things changes by the language we use." Haas said.
He said the solutions to those problems were jobs with livable wages and proper environmental laws, not mass deportation and expensive border walls.
"If we could secure the borders in Iraq, we would do that," Hass said. "If we can't do it there, we aren't going to be able to do that here. I can't think of a wall in history that worked."
The terms "illegal immigration" and "illegal alien" create subconscious stereotypes and overemphasize the criminal activity of immigrants, Haas said. There are differences between criminals and lawbreakers. For example, we don't call joywalkers illegal walkers; we don't call speeders illegal drivers.
Alejandra said that every time her family was caught or sent back, it gave them more motivation to get back into the United States. She said the last time they crossed the border, they went before a judge who told them to stop going back and forth or they would never get residency in the United States; so, her family stayed in the United Sates until they got legal documentation.
THE (IL)LEGAL DEBATE
Under President Ronald Reagan, Alejandra's father was granted amnesty in 1986. Alejandra, her mom and little brother then began the process to get legal status in the United States, because they now had a family member with legal status in the country. She might not
ALEJANDRA Harvest of Hope recruiter
have had the same opportunities for legal status had she started her application today.
Lauren Reinhold,
an immigration lawyer
in Lawrence,
said there were limited forms of relief
for undocumented immigrants today.
She said the limited
number of visas made it more difficult to enter the country legally, and family members would just cross the border illegally because it was easier and faster.
"They are just scared." Reinhold said. "They are just hoping for change in the law. They are not trying to put one over on America; they are not trying to be illegal. They migrated for whatever reason, usually for economic reasons."
She said her heart broke for the people who came to the United States as children with their parents. She has had several young adults come in to her office for whom she can't help.
"There are people everywhere in that situation," Reinhold said. "It might not always be the people you expect. It may be someone who speaks accent-less English because their parent brought them here as a child."
Alejandra has no accent. She goes by the
name "Alex" to her colleagues. And when she is out recruiting, some students are surprised that she speaks Spanish, like the kids making jokes at Ulvsses.
"I'm not the typical Hispanic immigrant girl from western Kansas," Alejandra said. "I get a lot of phone calls, and I talk to a lot of students that say 'I'm undocumented, and my teachers are telling me that I can't do anything.'"
Reinhold said immigration reform should focus on the people.
"We need to pass a reform to alleviate the concern of undocumented immigrants," Reinhold said. "We need to give them a chance to become documented. It's the only thing that will fix it."
Congress tried and failed to pass immigration reform at the federal level. Now many states, including Kansas, are working to pass reform at the state level. The Kansas Immigration Enforcement and Reform Act has been making its way through the Kansas Legislature in the 2008 session.
House Bill 2836 and Senate Bill 458 were the first immigration reform bills considered by the Kansas Legislature. The bills required business owners to check the immigration status of employees, allowed state and local authorities to enforce federal immigration law, revoked in-state tuition for undocumented students, and prohibited undocumented immigrants from receiving state services. HB 2836 died in committee in early February. SB 458 was referred to the House Federal and State Affairs Committee for amendments before the legislative session recessed for spring break.
State Representative Lance Kinzer (R-Olathe), one of the sponsors of HB 2836, said reform was needed because Kansas was a magnet for undocumented immigrant workers.
"The bottom line is that, when people come here in violation of existing laws in the United States, it is particularly unfair to those who are taking time and effort and patience to go through the law that we have set up," Kinzer said. "There is room to criticize existing law, but the fact that it may be frustrating in some ways is not an excuse to ignore it."
Kinzer said he voted against the reform after it was gutted by the committees, saying it no longer included meaningful immigration reform. One of his main complaints was the omission of e-verify, which would have required employers to use a federal database to check employees immigration
hiring. He was also concerned about prohibitions against the removal of in-state tuition and state services, and the remittance of strong penalties for anyone who violated immigration laws.
The bill went through to the Committee on Federal and State Affairs for amendments just before the session was dismissed for spring break. The Kansas legislature reconvenes Wednesday to decide the final language of the bill and vote on it.
Senate Bill 329, a compromise bill between the two original pieces of legislation, was blocked by a 57 yea to 59 nay vote, with the majority republicans voting against it. When the legislators reconvene, SB 329 will continue in the House conference committee then go back for a final vote.
Kara Lineweber, public policy associate at El Centro Inc., an organization that addresses the needs and seeks to improve the lives of Kansas City's Hispanic residents, lobbies in Topeka to educate senators about the unintended effects the reform could have on the immigrant population in Kansas. She said the issue was complex; the biggest issue was a lack of communication about the benefits immigrants bring to the state of Kansas.
"I think emotions are so high right now and this debate is so highly charged, people are getting tidbits of information and running with them." Lineweber said. "People are craving an answer to the problem."
Lineweber said she was pleased that the leadership in the Kansas legislature had not made a hasty decision. A lot of immigrant families in Kansas are of mixed status; for example, a husband who had legal status, a wife who didn't and a child who was a citizen. She said if the final bill were punitive, there could be a mass exodus of immigrants to some other state, similar to what happened in Oklahoma after the state passed its own immigration reform. She said the issue should be dealt with at the federal level.
"There is a lot of hateful rhetoric, stereotyping and misjudgment," Lineweber said. "It really affects the solidarity of our community and it is hurtful to the immigrant community."
When Alejandra first moved to Hugoton, her family was one of the few
status before