Posted on 01/07/2006 11:54:24 AM PST by John Jorsett
AUSTIN, Minn. — In Minnesota towns where hogs and turkeys meet their ends at the hands of workers from foreign lands, local officials often find themselves asking newcomers a simple question.
Who are you?
A worker with questionable immigration status may be carrying equally questionable identification. In Austin, where immigrants are lured by pork processing jobs, Mower County Attorney Patrick Flanagan has seen enough bad-ID cases to worry about a sizable "ghost'' population of misidentified residents.
"If you're a ghost, how can we help you? How can anyone help you?" he asked.
Imagine a small, rural community where people are used to knowing one another and where an unknown number of immigrants live and work under dubious names. Police agencies, courts, schools, health clinics and banks — all could be sitting on a shifting foundation.
In Worthington, another town transformed by immigrant workers, Sgt. Kevin Flynn is used to being told the name on a driver's license is just a "work name'' — not the name the motorist was born with, but the one that gets him a paycheck.
In Willmar, home of turkey processor Jennie-O, Police Chief James Kulset hears from out-of-state callers who find that they owe taxes for wages in Willmar — a place many have never visited or even have heard of.
"Of course, someone has purchased that individual's identity and Social Security information,'' Kulset said.
While Gov. Tim Pawlenty and his foes wrestle over the politically potent issue of illegal immigration, officials on the front lines say the question of immigrant identification is real. Some immigrant workers — no one knows how many — have acquired false papers in hopes of opening doors to employment, often because they have entered the country illegally.
They do so not to steal from the "real" people but to work in their names.
"This is a means to exist — to carry on their everyday life,'' Flynn said. "This is different from the identity thief who is looking to take your or my ID and get as much out of it as they can.''
But the confusion is real. It is part of the illegal immigration fudge-factor, rising to the surface in traffic stops, transactions at local banks and hospital mix-ups. While politicians rant, corporations profit and the nation's southern border remains porous, local officials have to welcome, police and provide for a population that prefers to remain invisible.
In Worthington, where Mayor Alan Oberloh says fake IDs have a higher street value than methamphetamine, city officials have sought help from state and federal agencies. Their concerns have found their way into Pawlenty's proposals for cracking down on illegal immigration.
Austin Mayor Bonnie Rietz, a longtime supporter of the aspirations of immigrant workers in her community, believes Pawlenty's focus should be on the immigration system — not the workers caught up in it.
"I would much rather have him put his interest into helping illegal immigrants become legal,'' she said.
While the debate rages, local officials worry that immigrants using false IDs won't report crimes and can be exploited by unscrupulous employers. The false name implies illegal entry into the U.S., and its owner is unlikely to speak up.
Until he has to.
There was the man who came to claim his impounded car from the Austin Police Department, only to be arrested for a felony warrant from California. When he was told he would be extradited, he said the name on his Minnesota driver's license was an identity he purchased.
"He did this so he could get work in the United States because he is in fact an illegal alien,'' stated the criminal complaint charging him with giving police a false name.
More common was the case of "Romeo Gonzalez,'' a person living in Irving, Texas, who called local police when the IRS told him he had not reported earnings from Austin, Minn. — 912 miles to the north. Police in Austin arrested a local man, who said his real name was Jose Silva, and charged him with fraud and forgery.
During an after-midnight traffic stop in Austin, a police officer arrested a man on suspicion of drunken driving. Before he was even jailed, the man had given the officer four identities, the last of which showed that he had been referred to immigration officials for deportation as an illegal immigrant two years earlier.
Austin Police Capt. Curt Rude said statistics are hard to come by, but stories of strange identity transactions aren't.
"I confronted one gentleman — I said the reason you're being held is you have a stolen ID,'' Rude said. "He said, 'I paid $100 for this — it's not stolen.' "
State and local officials do not know how big a problem fake identification is, but they see it as a natural outcome of the presence of illegal immigrants who come here to work. Generally, police say, workers need a Social Security number to find work, and they find it somewhere along the way from Central America or Mexico to Minnesota.
Flynn said an investigation turned up IDs that once belonged to people in food lines or blood-donation sites in other states. The papers had been bought and re-sold to immigrant workers in his community.
Liliana Silvestry, executive director of the Welcome Center, which serves Austin's immigrant population, has heard stories of immigrants working under identities they bought or "borrowed'' from the named person.
"Are those fake papers?'' Silvestry said. "No — they belong to someone. Are they being stolen? No — it was an agreement between one person and another.''
Willing workers from Mexico and other impoverished countries work in the pork plant in Austin for a $9.75 hourly starting wage, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents them. Flanagan says he believes meat processors — in Austin, that would be Hormel Foods and Quality Pork Processors — could do more to guard against hiring the wrong people.
Referring to companies' hiring practices, he said: "There is a big reason illegal immigration exists this far from the border. It's because you give them jobs.''
He added, "It seems like … they are more interested in cheap labor than they are in the betterment of the community.''
A spokeswoman for Hormel said in a statement that the company requires proper documentation under federal immigration rules. If a fake ID is suspected, the company investigates.
"If the investigation shows that the employee is illegal, their employment is terminated,'' she said.
The federal government needs to do its part, too, said Worthington Police Chief Mike Cumiskey.
"They give the people a wink and a nod, and it's allowed to happen,'' he said.
Minnesota House Speaker Steve Sviggum wrote recently that "calling illegal immigrants 'undocumented' is like calling a burglar an uninvited houseguest." But what if the burglar only wants to clean your house?
Some in Austin and Worthington believe it's time to acknowledge the "ghost'' population and its role in America's economy, either through a guest-worker system or a provisional identification card. Others fear a backlash against all Hispanic Minnesotans, regardless of their status. Some worry that the government's inability to control immigrants' access to IDs suggests that the homeland is not so secure after all.
Earlier this week, a line of young, mostly Hispanic men and women made their way through a turnstile at shift-change in Austin for another day of work in America's food industry. It's a line that stretches, in a sense, from the meatpacking centers of Minnesota all the way into Mexico and Central America.
Juan Guerrero, owner of a store and restaurant in Austin called "Mi Tierra'' — My Land — said the parade of workers is not likely to stop.
"People, they need to live, you know?" he said. "People got to find a way. … They don't have no choice. Mexico is too poor.''
I'm all for going to dyeing fingers in our polling places.
Let the ACLU argue that is discriminatory.
Don't forget this one:
| We are now one of the largest Spanish-speaking nations in the world. We're a major source of Latin music, journalism and culture. Just go to Miami, or San Antonio, Los Angeles, Chicago or West New York, New Jersey ... and close your eyes and listen. You could just as easily be in Santo Domingo or Santiago, or San Miguel de Allende. For years our nation has debated this change -- some have praised it and others have resented it. By nominating me, my party has made a choice to welcome the new America. George Bush from a campaign speech in Miami, August 2000. |
No, what if he wanted to clean your house (for a fee of course) and THEN have you pay for his and his families medical expenses, his children's educations, insists you get him a translater and on and on. Sheesh.
susie
""We are starting to detect a number of people who are using Social Security numbers of persons who are deceased, or whose identity has been stolen.""
Yet Freepers think none of these people could be terrorists and the President is doing a great job!
ping
Here's a simple idea that might be very effective.
Any illegal found with a false ID gets deported, NO exceptions.
No ticket to appear for a hearing and release, just immediately placed in custody and deported.
They do NOT get to go home or to a bank to collect the spoils of their theft.
They leave with no more than what they are wearing!
Any funds in their wallet or purse should be subject to "asset forfeiture" as criminal proceeds.
call the ghostbusters.
wait a minute. If we are truly Multicultural, why are the signs not in more languages than English/Spanish??????
I was in both Target, North Irvine and the adjacent Lowe's, same North Irvine, CA location, the other day (Orange County, CA), after not shopping there for over a year, no longer in the Orange County area but visiting again recently.
Anyway, last time I was there was about a year ago and I'd made frequent shopping trips to both places over the years prior to that.
This latest visit (to both stores, same location, both in the same "wing" of the same large shopping congregation of retailers, North Irvine, CA adjacent to Tustin, CA)...Lowe's had an in-store speaker blaring in Spanish. It was interrupted by some English language music but then a broadcaster would engage in hyper Spanish on the in-store speakers and that continued throughout my hour+ in the store. I also noticed that at the entrance to the store, Lowe's, that there is now a welcome sign over the entrance in Spanish, and one in English.
At the Target right around the corner, I passed a woman trying to get some information from a Target employee about a lid for a plastic bin she was considering purchasing. The Target employee said, "non, we dun hab dah leebs, we no leebs, no leebs."
And then I went through the check out and had the meanest, shrillest, nastiest hispanic cashier imaginable...when I tried to close my OWN shopping bag after she loaded my purchase in it at my request (I don't care for the plastic bags and try to use my own cloth shopping bags as much as possible), she yelled at me, "DON'T HELP, DON'T TOUCH THE BAGS" and proceeded to struggle with zipping them up...
She then said, "Are you WALKING?!" in some sort of accusatory statement, as to why I'd not want the plastic bags, and I was taken aback...I mean, what a thing to "demand" I share with her as a part of the checkout process. "No, I just don't care for all the plastic shopping bags, have to recycle, they don't carry easily, my own shopping bags are just easier to load and carry..." I said, and paid the two hundred dollar+ bill and left the store.
The general atmosphere is now more or less like Mexico, where people treat others with a general disrespect and social denigration.
Irvine, CA USED to be a nice, conservative place and not too long ago. I can tell you right here and now, that's the last time I'll ever go shopping in Target and Lowe's in North Irvine, CA.
Otherwise, the place was populated by what appears to be most of Mexico.
Build the wall and enforce existing law, and they won't come.
And, another thing: I was sitting in front of Lowe's waiting for the friends I'd gone along with for shopping (our prearranged place to meet when shopping was over).
I sat there waiting for my friends/relations and there was a Mexican guy double parked in an idling truck right in front of me, talking to a Lowe's employee (female, wearing a Lowe's red apron) who was standing in the street talking into the truck, another Mexican/Hispanic person there talkign to him.
There I am, just sitting on a public bench in front of Lowe's, minding my own business. These two people kept glaring over at me as if I was threatening them somehow, was posing some sort of "official" problem to their existence double parked and idling and hanging out in front of Lowe's as they were...
The woman finally left the guy and glared at me when doing so, the guy finally drove off in his truck...
It was terribly territorial, as if there was some general problem with me even being in the entire shopping place, not being hispanic.
Just one year ago, the entire place was not like that. This year, it seems those two retailers have entire staffs hired out of Mexico and the employees are hostile to people not like themselves.
American retailers are making a huge mistake to assume that their "cheap labor" is aiding their enterprises because what it IS doing, instead, is driving away customers except other "cheap labor" who now populate those areas. And, in my experience, it won't be long before the area deteriorates due to others, like me, who no longer feel comfortable shopping in areas such as these.
So now the margin of urbanity has extended down from L.A. to the north, past Garden Grove and Santa Ana and is affecting Irvine, CA. Even saw graffitti in the area. Bad sign for what has been a conservative area for a very, very long time.
""This is a means to exist — to carry on their everyday life,'' Flynn said. "This is different from the identity thief who is looking to take your or my ID and get as much out of it as they can.''
No it isn't.
BTTT
I've seen work-appropriate names; and I've seen redundant names, but this is the first time I've seen both an appropriateness AND a rededuncy.
But what if the burglar only wants to clean your house?
He is STILL an uninvited trespasser, and I don't want him to clean me out.
Liliana Silvestry, executive director of the Welcome Center, which serves Austin's immigrant population, has heard stories of immigrants working under identities they bought or "borrowed'' from the named person.
At last, we see a BIG part of the problem...and I'll bet that she is PROUD of the 'work' she does 'filling a need'.
Yet this population, belligerently resistant to assimilation into mainstream American culture, never hesitates to accuse of of racism and non-inclusion...even while they're not really a "race" at all. Logic and reason don't have any connection to a coddled criminal population that has been allowed to fester and overwhelm us. You and your untanned neighbors are literally expected to give up and move away.
Thank your elected representatives and activist judiciary on the way out. Or you can dig in your heels and wait until you join the true ghosts of statistics.
Mexico is wherever Mexicans are.
Forget the American Dream. Welcome to the Mexican Nightmare.
They do so because they are selfish people who could not care less about the '"real" people' and all the troubles the stolen identity causes for the victim.
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Support our Minutemen Patriots!
Be Ever Vigilant ~ Bump!
Mexico is POOR because they have spent many hundreds of years producing children they could not support and educate. End of argument.
We are now the recipient of their spill over the top of the jar, with desparate persons not understanding they are the ones responsible for their own problems.
I had never heard it, but it doesn't surprise me one bit. And boy does it make my blood boil.
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