Posted on 05/18/2007 3:26:21 PM PDT by GFritsch
Thanks, but maybe no thanks.
That's the refrain among many undocumented immigrant farm workers interviewed in Homestead on Friday, a day after learning of a possible deal struck in Congress to repair the nation's broken immigration system.
Some said the thousands of dollars of fines and fees contemplated in the proposal would impose significant financial hurdles -- one said it would cost $10,000 to pay the legalization costs for her and her husband.
''I've started to save money, but I don't think I'll have enough once it becomes law,'' said Lucía de la Crúz, a Homestead farm worker from Guatemala.
The mood in Homestead, one of South Florida's biggest agricultural communities and home to tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant farm workers, raises doubts about whether the Senate compromise would, in fact, bring people out of the shadows of American society.
But, although several of the migrant farm workers in South Miami-Dade voiced doubts that they can afford the cost of becoming legal, the majority seemed hopeful that the deal announced in Washington eventually will give them status so they can apply for a green card, a driver's license, better jobs -- and stop living in fear of deportation.
Growers and others who employ migrant workers also expressed cautious optimism about the deal, but worried about whether it will become law.
''What we really want is for Congress to pass a bill that recognizes the fact there is virtually no reasonable legal means for foreigners to come to the United States to do the work most Americans are unwilling to do at any price,'' said Erik Tietig, president of the Miami-Dade chapter of the Florida Nursery Growers and Landscape Associations.
De la Crúz, the Guatemalan farm worker, said she arrived in the United States in 1993 and began picking tomatoes in Homestead and Florida City. Later she worked in tomato-packing plants in the area. She said she wants immigration papers to be able to travel and visit her mother in Guatemala.
''She's very sad because she hasn't seen me since I arrived here,'' De la Crúz said. ``If I go back, I might not be able to get back to Homestead to work.''
She's deeply interested in the Senate deal, but says the fines and fees involved are prohibitive.
''It's too much money,'' she said, adding that she would have to pay $10,000 to cover herself and her husband. Their four children were born here.
The cost for Marta Becerra, a Mexican migrant worker, would be at least $15,000 for herself, her husband and one of her three children.
''The price is very high,'' she said, adding that she also worried about the other possible requirement that the head of the family has to return to the country of origin before qualifying for residence.
''If he can't return, we would be left alone here, without protection,'' she said.
We can blow our own leaves.
Might have thought of that problem beforehand...
Really? Any price? So, if you offer $100/hour, no Americans are going to take it? Please.
And there are no legal foreign workers in the US? Please.
What we really need is for people like this idiot to stop breaking the law, importing paupers to work for a pittance.
Your ass belongs in a bus headed south of the border, and be glad you don't get jailed for a time before deportation.
I am SICK of these whining law-breakers sucking the life and dollars out of this country, and being handed benefits at the cost of the taxpayer.
If Germany had invaded the United States in 1942, would we have welcomed THEM?????
And how does this criminal know it will pass?
Because she knows 'they' have a friend in el presidente Bush!
They' rushing to line up right now get back to Mexico to get their new Z-Visa stamped.
Yeah right. The Mexican Invaders will do that right after I buy a house in Siberia. The Mexican Invaders are not interested in anything short of IMMEDIATE Amnesty.
Question:
What if the criminal aliens, crooks, terrorists and narco-gangsters don’t want amnesty? Why should they? Wouldn’t they have to pay taxes? How can you force criminals to become citizens? Why would you? If these people really wanted to be real citizens they wouldn’t use phony ID’s.
NO AMNESTY for Employers or Employees!
Let them come here to work when we need the work to be done, then go back home to their country. Let the Mexican government pay for their health care and education here.
If all the illegals here save up their money for the amnesty, I wonder what that’ll do to the repatriation of money back to Mexico? The Mexican economy is heavily dependent on the flow of those dollars.
Legal aliens will be able to ask for higher wages.
Illegals have moved to more lucrative jobs. Like steling 250,000+ construction jobs from Americans, many of whom are veterans. DEPORT them all!
So do the illegals get to vote on this as well? Or is this just the start of public opinion surveys on the subject?
Golly Gosh..
Must be a bother to rob a bank get lots of lovely dollars..then be told you have to go to prison..
How dare someone spoil your fun...
No.
Let them get out of Dodge and slink back across the border to the cesspool we know as Mexico.
They do the most important things here that life as we know it would cease if they would leave: blow leaves, pick tomatoes, wash cars, run rider-mowers, rob rape and murder Americans.
They don't belong here, they belong South of the border as they are the dregs of Mexican society. They're pleading leaches and disease carriers who carry lice and bedbugs to el Norte.
Our Elite Political Class is a bunch of faithless scum who need to be led out of their DC quarters back into whence they came.
Just look at them!
Just look at what we have allowed these leftist pansies to do to us and this nation. It is, indeed, scandalous.
Pick any one of the senators (with VERY few exceptions), take the sniveling KKK member Robert Byrd who mistakenly believes he's the intellectual of the senate. He just won't shut up.
Then we have another lifer, Teddy Kennedy who is owned by the communists.
“’I’ve started to save money, but I don’t think I’ll have enough once it becomes law,’ said Lucía de la Crúz, a Homestead farm worker from Guatemala.
Wow. Just wait until you’re a Citizen and you, too, can fork over any and all of your extra cash to the Government to pay for other illegals JUST LIKE YOU! You won’t have a spare DIME for saving then. Yeesh!!
I’m going to find some minor laws to break today...maybe spit on the sidewalk in public, or smoke a cigarette where I’m not supposed to. (I don’t even smoke.) Join a football pool. Tag a few buildings with spray paint, a little shoplifting, maybe buy an illegal handgun...and work my way up from there.
Why should I follow any laws? Tens of millions of immigrants aren’t expected to! Grrrrrr!
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