Posted on 03/31/2005 7:38:08 PM PST by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Undocumented immigrants from Mexico are staying longer and are more likely to bring their families to the United States as a result of stepped border security, experts said at a conference on immigration and homeland security Thursday.
"They are staying in the U.S. longer because we've succeeded in making it too costly and dangerous to cross back," Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego, told the audience of federal and local officials, immigration attorneys and community activists.
The conference, hosted by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, began with a minute of silence in honor of farmworker activist Cesar Chavez's birthday Thursday.
Cornelius, who recently completed a study of potential migrants in towns in the Mexican states of Zacatecas and Jalisco, said the increased security appears to be doing little to deter these immigrants.
The amount of time undocumented Mexican immigrants stayed in the United States on a typical trip increased somewhat between 1993, when the Clinton administration began tightening the border, and 2000, according to recent studies by the Mexican government.
Overall, the number of weeks the migrants stayed in this country climbed from an average of 40 weeks to 50 weeks. The reasons for their departures varied.
That number, however, jumped from 50 weeks to an average of 70 weeks between 2000 and 2002.
Meanwhile, nearly half of Mexicans living in the country illegally today are women and children, a far cry from days when a male relative would come to the United States and send money to his family back home, Cornelius said.
"We always want to think about these people as labor, but these people are often family people and there families do come," said Harry Pachon, director of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute.
For his study, Cornelius interviewed about 600 potential migrants. While nearly 90 percent called crossing the border "very dangerous," only 20 percent cited tougher border enforcement as a reason they didn't plan to make the trip this year.
If they were deterred, it was indirectly due to border patrols. The cost of crossing shot up from $1,500 in 2001 to an average of $2,500 in 2003, Cornelius said.
Tighter borders in California and Texas have also channeled migration to Arizona and New Mexico, with harsh desert climates making crossing more dangerous and forcing more immigrants to rely on smugglers.
In his survey, Cornelius found that 84 percent who crossed recently had used smugglers, whereas in a 1989 study he found that less than half relied on them. Despite the increased security, more than half said they were able to get into the United States on their first or second try.
Speakers in the conference called on Congress and President Bush to reach an agreement on immigration that would combine a guest worker program with some kind of an amnesty.
The conference was held a day before hundreds of volunteers, some of them armed, were expected to take up position along the Arizona-Mexico border to patrol for illegal immigrants.
"Tomorrow, thousands will be on the border to enforce laws and take the laws into their own hands," said Jose Calderon, professor of sociology and Chicano studies at Pitzer College said during a break in the conference. "People are scared. This is the time to find some solutions."
The local Tucson news did not mention much on the Minutemen tonite just a bunch of remembrances of Chester Chavez. A small spiel about a new medevac helicopter which they hope they will not have to use this weekend.
That sounds like AgJobs.
"They are staying in the U.S. longer because we've succeeded in making it too costly and dangerous to cross back," Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego, told the audience of federal and local officials, immigration attorneys and community activists."
Well let's just throw out the "Welcome" mat and give up huh???? If we try to enforce our border security we're just making it easier for them????
This writer has sh!t for brains.
Illegals have been staying here longer and are more likely to briing their families since the early 70's.
Guess what this coincides with? Maybe an expansion of welfare laws and progrmas?
This passes for reporting? Take her note pad away! Break her pencils over her b*tt.
The average newsperson is so historically ignorant.
By MICHAEL COLLINS Scripps Howard News Service March 31, 2005
WASHINGTON - Lauro Barajas knows it's going to be tough to persuade Congress that farm workers who entered the country illegally should be given permanent residency status.
"But sooner or later, it's going to happen," said Barajas, a regional director of the United Farm Workers, AFL-CIO in California.
Judging from the reception the proposal is getting on Capitol Hill, it will probably happen later, if at all.
A bill that would allow farmworkers who entered the country illegally to stay permanently in the United States stands little chance of passing this year, say supporters and opponents of the legislation.
While there may be enough votes to pass the measure in the Senate, opposition is much stronger in the House, and the bill will almost certainly die there, said Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that opposes the legislation.
Even in the Senate, support is tepid at best, Camarota said.
"I think they have the votes to pass it in the Senate - in theory," Camarota said. "But it's sort of like heaven. Everybody knows it's supposed to be a good thing. But nobody seems anxious to get there."
The legislation, known as the AgJobs bill, was reintroduced in Congress last month by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Reps. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, and Howard Berman, D-Calif.
Under the bill, undocumented farm workers could be granted temporary legal status if they could prove they worked in U.S. agriculture for a minimum of 100 days in the past 18 months. After they work 360 days on a farm, they could apply for a green card, the first step toward becoming U.S. citizens.
Supporters argue that the bill would guarantee farmers a stable work force, protect workers' rights and encourage families to stay together while recognizing immigrants' contributions in putting food on American tables.
Opponents counter that the legislation would reward those who entered the country illegally and would simply give the farm industry years of low-wage labor.
A similar bill died last year in both the House and the Senate without being put to a vote. But Craig spokesman Dan Whiting said a vote on the latest version could be scheduled in the Senate as early as this spring.
Both sides in the debate are watching closely to see whether the White House gets behind the proposal.
President Bush has said he would like to see broader immigration reform that deals with all undocumented workers, not just farm labor. He has proposed a "guest worker" program that would allow undocumented workers to obtain temporary but not permanent residency.
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, speculated that the AgJobs bill could be part of a larger effort to enact a general amnesty bill or a "guest worker" program.
"They may resort to trying to pass it in pieces," said Mehlman, whose organization opposes both measures.
If Bush backs the AgJobs proposal, "you cannot discount the power and influence of the White House," Mehlman said.
White House spokesman Ken Lisaius noted that there are many ideas about immigration reform being discussed in Congress. "We continue to work with Congress as they draft legislation that is hopefully consistent with the president's principles," Lisaius said.
If it is that important to you, you need to contribute to the "tax me more fund"
Despite the fact that Chávez is these days revered among Mexican-American activists, the labor leader in his day was no more tolerant of illegal immigration than the Arizona Minutemen are now. Worried that the hiring of illegal immigrants drove down wages, Chávez – according to numerous historical accounts – instructed union members to call the Immigration and Naturalization Service to report the presence of illegal immigrants in the fields and demand that the agency deport them. UFW officials were even known to picket INS offices to demand a crackdown on illegal immigrants.
If you want to have a conference on immigration, you can't stack it with "open border liberals"!
Sounds more like AlGore to me.
That is where the Kennedy-McCain negotiations/bill comes in. They began working on that a few days after the elections. From time to time it is mentioned but the details are being kept secret.
When AgJobs was negotiated by the growers and the unions, one of the stipulations was that there could be no changes or both parties would back out. So what ever comes out of Congress has to include AgJobs as it is composed. Otherwise, it has to be negotiated again.
Prior to the elections, there were 67 yea votes in the Senate for AgJobs. Frist kept it off the floor at Bush's request.
In the House, passage of AgJobs would require only 15 Republican defectors joining with the dems.
Fine them 2000 bucks and give them a work permit.
Negotiations on AgJobs began before Election 2000 so if Gore had won the election, we would still be talking about AgJobs.
http://grounds-mag.com
Mar 14, 2005
More than 100 business owners, state association executives and labor contractors flew into Washington, D.C. to lobby members of Congress in support of H2B reform. The members of the H2B Workforce Coalition, co-chaired by the American Nursery and Landscape Association (ANLA) and the National Restaurant Association (NRA), were seeking reform of the H2B program, which provides work visas to temporary seasonal workers. As a result of the visits, over a dozen Senators and Representatives signed on as cosponsors of recently introduced Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act (S352 and HR793).
The H2B program limits temporary seasonal immigrant labor by capping visas at 66,000. This limit threatens many small businesses, including landscape firms, with a shortage of labor and inability to operate this year. The Save Our Small Businesses Act would exempt workers who had participated in the H2B program over the past three years from being counted toward the cap for the next two years, allowing their employers access to the labor they have become dependant on to meet their seasonal needs.
The 100 members of the H2B Workforce Coalition, through one day of over 150 Senate and House office visits, secured co-sponsorship support from Senators Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Herbert Kohl (D-WI), Joseph Biden (D-DE), Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Congressmen Candice Miller (R-MI), Dennis Moore (D-KS), Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Jerry Weller (R-IL), Todd Platts (R-PA), Ron Paul (R-TX), Albert Wynn (D-MD) and Joe Schwarz (R-MI) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD). During the week leading up to the fly-in visit to Washington, DC, members of the coalition engaged in grassroots efforts at the state level gaining even more House and Senate cosponsors.
Landscape professionals were the single largest single sector represented during the H2B Fly-In. Members of both ANLA and the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) comprised over 35 percent of the group which also included representatives from the stone, seafood, hotel and lodging, travel and tourism, amusement and theme park and salvage industries.
If the same criteria is applied to the H2B Visa, the unions will be allowed to organze those workers as well.
Is this really from a newspaper? The errors make it look like an article written and edited by a bunch of kids who couldn't get into Wood Shop.
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