Posted on 07/20/2005 10:56:08 PM PDT by Happy2BMe
Associated Press
GOLDSBORO, N.C. - One of the 48 illegal workers arrested this month at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base will return to Mexico richer by $31,700, thanks to his hard work and the cooperation of immigration officials.
That's the amount of money that Cristobal Chavez Torres saved in $100 bills from seven years of bone-crunching labor and buried in a well-sealed glass jar the yard of the rundown trailer he rented in Goldsboro.
Chavez, who began the bus ride home to Mexico on Wednesday, was allowed to return to the trailer to retrieve both his money and his 16-year-old son, Arturo, before he was deported.
"I didn't want to lose it," he said. "It was sweat from my brow."
Chavez, 66, has lived in the United States off and on since 1970, when he crossed the Rio Grande River in search of work. He came to North Carolina seven years ago and got a job with a private construction company after doing farm work and construction in California, Texas, Florida and Kentucky.
His son came to live with him six years ago after Arturo's mother died in Mexico.
Chavez never earned more than $7.25 an hour but was able to save, thanks to his thriftiness and stamina for long work weeks. When he had accumulated about $10,000, he decided it would be best to find a hiding spot other than the pockets of his pants. And he wanted somewhere outside his trailer.
"If there were an electrical short and my home caught on fire, I'd lose everything," said Chavez, who never tried to open a bank account because most of his documents were fake.
Randy Chambers, treasurer of the Latino Community Credit Union in Durham, said the credit union's surveys indicate that up to 80 percent of Latin American immigrants in North Carolina have never had a bank account, either in the United States or in their home countries.
Many say that they don't trust financial institutions or that bank employees don't speak their language, Chambers said. Others don't have the proper documents.
On July 6, Chavez was among 48 illegal immigrants working for private construction contractors at the Air Force base who were rounded up after a two-month investigation. He told his secret to a staff member from the Mexican Consulate in Raleigh, who had come to the jail July 8 to make sure Chavez and the other detained Mexicans were being treated fairly.
The staff member relayed the story of Chavez's treasure to Mexican Consul Armando Ortiz Rocha, who called Tom O'Connell, head of the local office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Ortiz asked whether O'Connell would consider releasing Chavez if the consulate ensured that Chavez returned to Mexico after retrieving the money. O'Connell agreed and turned Chavez over to the consulate July 11.
O'Connell said he was swayed more by the plight of Chavez's son than the money.
"The main reason was the 16-year-old kid," O'Connell said. "I don't like to leave minors unattended."
After digging up his money, Chavez turned it over to consulate authorities, who placed it in a bank account. They'll transfer the money to Chavez once he returns to Mexico.
The first thing Chavez plans to do is build a concrete house on the small plot of land he bought years ago in El Mante, his hometown in northern Mexico.
Then he'll build a cart from which to sell fresh fruit juice in the town square. He doubts that he'll add to his savings as he did in the United States.
"In Mexico, who will pay me $500 a week?" he asked.
I don't see any comparison there...someone in the country illegally, who isn't a citizen, is using fraudulent documents and avoiding being answerable for their very existence while here (not paying taxes, presenting false identification, etc.) does not have the protections, or at least should not, of citizens.
And, driving too fast, other similar violations of the law, are far less complex and less offensive than is illegal immigration what with all the other illegalities/fruads that are necessary inorder to maintain illegal residence, even to make an illegal immigration.
It's not so much JUST a case of "breaking the laws" but abusing the entire trust of the country by illegal immigrants, for starters. A citizen who drives too fast but is licensed, paying his reasonable due, is truthfully identified and all that, that person gets a citation for his action but is otherwise an honorable, credible citizen.
An illegal immigrant uses false information, lies and deceives the greater society...it's not just one simple violation of a law but a multitude of violations. The illegal immigration is the first violation and while not even a citizen of the country (nor a permitted resident), they then carry on to violate other laws in multitudes to support their illegal status here.
Someone driving too fast, but otherwise a citizen with a viable, credible license and identity and insurance, all that, they're breaking one law and are held accountable for that violation (and there are consequences if they don't account for their violation, as a citizen, they can be found and held accountable).
Illegal immigrants not only violate driving laws but even if they do so much as "drive too fast," most can't even be found afterward, or same with other violations of our laws, illegal immigrants simply disappear under ruse of false identification, don't make good to society on their citation, just disappear under cover. All that on top of their illegal immigration, all that possible because they are illegal immigrants.
All told, hardly a comparison between those two issues you raise.
Well given the continual Fox-trot that is the US-Mexico "border" that contention would draw a horselaugh.
That's only if he could prove that he earned over the years and not all in one year.
That's right. We should petition the governmnet to allow millions of people here legally so that many Americans can be undercut in wages. Makes perfect sense to a super-capitalist.
Has the IRS been notified?
They certainly are due their piece..
This is the kind of immigrant that should be handed citizenship, he is a criminal because some bean counter wont give him a green card. Hard working guys that have the guts to save money are an asset. It is immigrants like this that made this country strong. However, it is the welfare freeloaders that the dims want. THEY can get papers.
"I doubt if I went to another country illegally and made money that I would get to keep it once their government found out."
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I kinda doubt it also . .
I keep looking for the part that says, "...less 20% withheld to pay taxes." BTW, since we now know where this guy has been working, the DHS is going to arrest the officers and directors of the company, right?
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In this instance (and most others), it is the United States Government that is in violation of the law. The U.S.G. aids and abets the breaking of federal immigration law by setting such precedences and rewards illegal alien immigration by disengaging from enforcement, thus breaking it's own laws.
It's a lose-lose proposition for everyone except the illegal alien.
Thanks to a government now ruled by a duplicitous and anemic legal system that rewards crime and punishes the very people it is designed to protect - the chances of him being back in the United States as we speak are much better than the chance of him having stayed in Mexico.
This is the exact recipe for the extinction of a nation.
A nation has only as much authority as the laws it enforces.
================================================
Main Entry: du·plic·i·ty
Pronunciation: du-'pli-s&-tE also dyu-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
Etymology: Middle English duplicite, from Middle French, from Late Latin duplicitat-, duplicitas, from Latin duplex
1 : contradictory doubleness of thought, speech, or action; especially : the belying of one's true intentions by deceptive words or action
2 : the quality or state of being double or twofold
3 : the technically incorrect use of two or more distinct items (as claims, charges, or defenses) in a single legal action
"BTW, since we now know where this guy has been working, the DHS is going to arrest the officers and directors of the company, right?"
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See #51.
Answer: No employers of these illegal aliens arrests have been made for breaking immigration laws to date.
Precisely. Immigration laws have become a farce because the political establishment wants to simultaneously kowtow to business interests by letting in lots of cheap labor and kowtow to labor interests by restricting the influx. They square this circle by passing laws that set a fairly low limit, and then not providing the resources to enforce them.
Oh!... (sob) CRY me a river!
My husband's done 'bone crunching' labor for a hell of a lot longer than 7 years, and we haven't managed to save much at all.
WHY?
Because every year the government STEALS over half of what he manages to earn for their various Ponzai schemes and support-the-parasite programs while we pinch and scrape just to pay the bills, that's why!
And politicians still don't understand why Americans have been screaming for decades:
CLOSE THE F*&%ING BORDER!!
"Working hard and saving is not a crime which is how he accumulated his money. Illegally crossing the border is a crime, but illegally crossing does not get you 31,000 dollars."
Yep, but he wouldn't have gained it unless he crossed illegally. Tainted tree and all that.
The money should be seized and used to pay for more border agents.
Actually, I admire the man's thriftiness. It doesn't sound like he was selling drugs to make his money, or engaging in other types of illegal or violent activities during his time here.
We have too many violent illegal alien offenders, to be worrying about some guy like this. Let him have his money, and send him back to Mexico.
Let's concentrate on the violent illegal aliens: the MS-13 gangs banger types, the drug sellers, and the smugglers.
Regards
1.3 billion Muslims want to slit our collective throats, and we can't even share opportunity with neighbors who share our values.
Our time will come with the will of a vengeful God, you selfish hypocrites.
that's interesting info, I hadn't heard of those tricks, thanks. I did the math on that too, and wondered about the figures.
I'm stil for letting this guy keep his money, provided he earned it working at a job. I'm not for the Federal govt. confiscating any more wages then they already do.
Who wants to see the IRS getting any more powerful then it already is. In fact, I'd like to see it dismantled, and go with a national sales tax, collected by the states. That would eliminate all those BS earned income tax freebies in the process. Wishful thinking on my part.
Regards
@ $7.25 an hour, he had to work some hours to make $500.
Seven days @ week and ten hours a day would get it.
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