Posted on 02/18/2007 5:42:21 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman
Vermont needs to put out more of a welcome mat for Mexican workers employed at dairy farms around the state or those workers might start looking for jobs elsewhere, a Mexican consulate official in Boston says.
Rodrigo Marquez, deputy counsel for the Mexican consulate in Boston, said last month that Vermont has a reputation among Mexican workers in New England as a place where they have to live in isolation because of a constant fear of deportation.
Many of the estimated 2,000 Mexicans working on farms in Vermont are believed to have entered the country illegally. Nationally, there are more than 12 million illegal immigrants, half of them from Mexico.
“Vermont is the toughest state in New England to live in for the worker because of the real fear they will be detained and get deported,” Marquez said. “In Vermont, it’s almost automatic, and that’s not the case in other states.”
Marquez praised local advocate groups and the state Agriculture, Food & Markets Agency for their support of Mexican workers, but he is perplexed about the cool reception they’ve received from other state agencies, particularly the Vermont State Police.
Maine and Massachusetts are not as aggressive at identifying and detaining Mexican workers, Marquez said. For example, he said, Maine’s policy is that it won’t investigate a worker’s immigration status unless the person is a suspect in a criminal case.
“We’re not out looking for illegal immigrants,” said Craig Poulin, acting commissioner of the Maine State Police. “We’re not in a position to select a category of people to investigate based on what someone might think is a problem.”
In Vermont, Marquez claims law-abiding Mexican workers are occasionally taken into custody by police solely on the basis they appear to have entered the country illegally.
“Eventually the Mexican worker is going to come to Vermont less,” he predicted. “Everyone talks when they get back to Mexico. You have this problem you haven’t solved yet.”
Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Kerry Sleeper said Marquez’s complaint about the way police treat Mexican workers is unjustified.
“I think we at the Department of Public Safety and the state police take a very reasonable approach,” he said. “It’s a clear misconception that we go out seeking these individuals.”
Tim Buskey, administrator for the 4,000-member Vermont Farm Bureau, said his group shares Marquez’s concern about the predicament of Mexican farm workers in Vermont.
“From our contact with farmers, we understand the Mexican workers here are harassed in a way they aren’t in the rest of New England,” Buskey said. “There is truth to the idea that when the Mexicans are seen alongside the road, they are getting picked up.”
Buskey said such incidents have the potential to sabotage a dairy industry already struggling to remain viable. He said the Mexicans are good, reliable workers doing physically demanding jobs that Vermonters don’t find desirable.
“There’s no doubt that farms in all the counties that have Mexican workers could not exist without those workers,” he said. “We’ve tried and tried and tried to get Americans to do those jobs, without success.”
At the heart of the fear Mexican workers have about being in Vermont are questions about the validity of the Matricula card, a credit-card-size form of official identification the Mexican government urges its citizens in the United States to carry with them at all times.
To get a Matricula card, Marquez said a person must produce three forms of identity, including a birth certificate, a Mexican photo ID card and evidence of a legal address in Mexico. The card serves as both a means of identification in the United States and a guide for contacting family members in Mexico in case of an emergency.
Marquez said in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Mexican government added security features to the Matricula card to enhance its credibility. He said the card is not issued unless the identification information provided can be verified.
“Since 9-11, we have made it a really secure form of ID,” he said. “It’s almost impossible to forge.” The U.S. Treasury Department and most major U.S. banks honor the card, as do 10 states in instances where Mexicans are seeking to obtain driver’s licenses.
Sleeper, however, shares the view of various law enforcement entities — including the Federal Bureau of Investigation — who have doubts about the Matricula card’s authenticity.
“It’s about as effective a form of identification as a library card,” he said. “It’s not a form of identification that we accept.”
For Mexican workers who entered the country illegally, the consequences of their Matricula card’s not being accepted as a valid form of identification can be dire.
With no other way to verify the Mexican worker’s identity, police will seek help from federal Border Patrol or Customs agents in identifying the person. Those agents then have the opportunity to detain, and ultimately deport, the worker.
“It’s at the discretion of the officer or the trooper to contact Border Patrol to determine if who they have is who they say they are,” Sleeper said. “If it’s determined that someone entered the country illegally, then Customs or Border Patrol may say to the trooper to detain that person. If we’re required to do it, we do it.”
Addison County Sheriff James Coons said his department began taking a different approach last year after being persuaded by Mexican authorities that the Matricula card was a trustworthy document. The county is home to a large number of dairy farms.
“We accept it as a valid form of ID,” Coons said. As a result, his department no longer calls in federal agents when investigating an incident in which a Mexican worker is involved — unless the worker is suspected of violating a law.
Buskey said he had explored the idea of generating a Vermont identification card for the workers last year, but the plan was scuttled after federal Homeland Security officials objected to it.
The Vermont card would have included the name of the farmer who employs the worker, a feature that would have allowed police to verify both the person’s identity and work status.
“After Homeland Security stiffened up the rules, Kerry Sleeper said it wouldn’t be worth it to produce the card,” Buskey said. “He told us the state would not recognize it.”
Sleeper said he recognizes the importance of Mexican workers to Vermont’s dairy farms, but he is opposed to changing procedures that could be perceived as extending special treatment to a certain group of people.
“If you’re asking that we treat one group different from another group, our response is that we will treat everyone the same,” Sleeper said. “It’s been my recommendation to the governor that we maintain our current procedures and policies.”
Figures for how many Mexican workers have been detained or deported as the result of Vermont police interventions were unavailable.
A spokesman for the Border Patrol’s Swanton sector said it had detained 1,542 “removable aliens” in fiscal 2006, half of them people caught trying to enter the country from Canada. The sector covers an area from Ogdensburg, N.Y., to the New Hampshire-Maine border.
Sleeper said he had reviewed every case involving state police interventions with Mexican workers in the last two years — 10 cases or fewer — and had found nothing improper about the troopers’ conduct.
This is satire from The Onion, right?
Fear of the law is respect for the law.
Do nothing wrong, and there will be no need to worry.
Break the law. Face the consequences. Simple concept and easily translated for those who no comprende English.
“Eventually the Mexican worker is going to come to Vermont less,” he predicted. “Everyone talks when they get back to Mexico. You have this problem you haven’t solved yet.”
As my Grandmother used to say- this guy has the nerve of a brass monkey.
Buskey should have just quit speaking in code:
"Vermont needs economic slaves from Mexico so that dairy farm owners can
turn a profit without sweating much themselves!"
So? Sounds like a plan.
It sounds bad to say, but we really need to close down a whole bunch of these dairy farms because they are not efficient and they are a pork project benefitting a small number of people and political whores like Jim Jeffors, Pat Leahy, Russ Feingold, Herb Kohl and other blue staters (mostly). It took the 1994 Revolution to stop paying farmers to NOT plant crops and we have now turned back to doing that AND we are forcing consumers to overpay for milk so tiny farms in rich areas can keep feeling up their cows. (oh boy, that one is going to bring out the flames).
“Eventually the Mexican worker is going to come to Vermont less,” he predicted. “Everyone talks when they get back to Mexico. You have this problem you haven’t solved yet.”
Geez, there's a threat huh ???
There won't be any illegal aliens this time next year. Amnesty will pass the Dem Congress and be signed by Bush this year.
Am I the only one that sees the irony in this stupid statement?
“Eventually the Mexican worker is going to come to Vermont less,” he predicted. “Everyone talks when they get back to Mexico. You have this problem you haven’t solved yet.”
Or this one?
This is some kind of satire, isn't it?
Isn't it?
What the hell has happened to my country?
I am so disappointed in this damn administration, to allow this kind of invasion to the point that the damned officials of the invading country are criticizing us for doing what little bit we do to protect our sovereignty.
And certain idiot illegal-immigrant apologists on this forum actually call me a bigot for protesting this.
I give up.
I grew up in Vermont. I did not live on a farm. The rich kids did. I posted that one other time and was told I was wrong. Nope. The farmers in VT get lots of perks. Including slave labor apparently.
Aren't these the same whining dairy farmers that kept Jumpin' Jim Jeffords in office all those years so he could subsidize their milk prices?
L
That's how I read it too.
What part of illegal don't they understand ?
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