Posted on 07/18/2008 10:06:19 AM PDT by pabianice
Maria Dolores Tacuri talks with a reporter Wednesday in her temporary home in Brockton as her 5-year-old son, Jonathan, looks on. The Tacuri family is facing deportation to Ecuador and have lost their house and savings.
BROCKTON, MA — In December, immigration agents arrested Milford Ecuadorean roofer Daniel Tacuri on charges of hiring and harboring illegal immigrants.
From that time until his sentencing in federal court last Friday, the case has had a ripple effect in the Ecuadorean community, immigrant advocates say.
Nearly half of its members are gone. Many remain in fear of U.S. immigration authorities and are disheartened by what they perceive as hostility toward immigrants.
Meanwhile, at the Brockton apartment where she has lived since March with their son, Jonathan, 5, Tacuri's wife, Maria Dolores, 31, awaits word of her husband's deportation.
Tacuri pleaded guilty to 18 counts of hiring illegal immigrants and 20 counts of harboring illegal immigrants and faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Instead, a judge, who called him "the most sympathetic defendant" he had ever encountered, sentenced him to time served awaiting trial.
Tacuri, who came here illegally in 1998, will soon be deported.
Maria Tacuri she said she wakes up every day looking forward to hearing the news of her husband's deportation.
For the Tacuris, deportation will end a nightmare that began one December morning when immigration agents arrested Daniel and 20 other Ecuadorean men at the Tacuris' home on Jefferson Street in Milford. Local police, suspecting Tacuri was exploiting illegal immigrants who worked for his roofing company, tipped off Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Tacuri's wife hopes to join him on his trip back home. Maria, who came here illegally in 2000, is also facing deportation. She has a hearing scheduled for November 2009, but she doesn't plan to stay here that long.
"I'm ready to go, but I want us the three of us to go together," she said in Spanish, all her belongings in the room she rents for $200 on a gritty street in Brockton. "I want the three of us to arrive together in Ecuador. It's sad to leave this way, but at least, we'll be happy to be together with our family back home."
It could be a matter of weeks, said Boston ICE spokeswoman Paula Grenier. The agency, she said, doesn't disclose information on removal proceedings of individual cases for "safety and security reasons."
"All I can say is that he's in ICE custody, and the next step for him is removal from the United States," Grenier said.
Like many illegal immigrants, Daniel Tacuri feared that one day immigration agents would catch up with him, his wife said.
He knew he had broken the law in sneaking across the border, but he didn't know he was doing something illegal in hiring illegal immigrants, she said.
"He was helping them by giving them work," she said. "He never thought he was going to be treated as a criminal. He only wanted to work and provide for his family."
Still, deportation is what he deserved, she said, because in the law of men that is what awaits illegal immigrants, but she fears most the law of God.
She thinks what happened was a reprimand from God for having deprived their daughter, Veronica, of their parents. Tacuri left her when she was a year old and Maria hasn't seen her daughter in eight years. Veronica, who is 11, lives with Tacuri's family.
"It's a punishment for breaking the law and for having left our daughter behind," she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.
They did it, she said, because they wanted to escape destitution. Like many Milford Ecuadorans, Tacuri hails from the Andean province of Canar, where poverty is endemic and basics such as clean water, education and electricity are scarce.
Most of the people there are of indigenous descent and speak Quechua, a local dialect. Spanish is their second language.
Tacuri's mother, a single parent, had to beg on the streets to feed the family, said Maria, who has known Daniel since they were children. He had to work since he was 10 years old to help the family, she said. He had just one year of schooling.
Before coming here, the Tacuris, who married in 1996, survived by farming the land of others and splitting the produce with the owners. When a relative who lived in the United States told them of the job opportunities here, they took a chance. They went to Newark, N.J., and in 2001, they moved to Milford, where they had heard roofers could make more money. He was one of the first Ecuadoreans in town.
Through hard work, she said, her husband started a roofing company, bought a small fleet of vans and purchased a $475,000 house in 2006. But all they obtained will be lost. Authorities seized Tacuri's vans, truck and tools, and the house will be foreclosed upon.
To the authorities, Tacuri was helping people come here illegally and exploiting them in his roofing business.
"He was no fool," said Milford Police Chief Thomas O'Loughlin. "We heard from people he was taking advantage of them and making a lot of money on their backs. Some of them were very young and were doing manual labor, dangerous work."
Ecuadorean merchant Wilson Valdez begs to differ.
He owns a store, Unienvios, where his fellow countrymen and women can call home in phone booths, buy work gloves and volleyballs, and mail packages back home. He says he heard only good things about the roofer. "Tacuri was one of the pioneers of the Ecuadorean community in Milford," he said. "People saw him as someone who was helping them. He gave them work. He didn't exploit them."
Often American companies hired Tacuri as a sub-contractor, turning a blind eye to his undocumented workers to maximize their gains, said his lawyer, Raymond O'Hara.
"If the workers received $200 or $250 a day, American companies made four times that amount," he said. "But they provided them with T-shirts with their logos to make the owners or builders believe they were their employees."
Two American companies still refuse to pay Tacuri's family nearly $15,000 for work his workers had completed, said O'Hara.
Immigrant advocates said the Tacuri case has left Ecuadoreans distressed. They feel targeted by the police and the general public.
Frances Nolivos, a volunteer who is reaching out to Ecuadoreans, said many complain of the way they feel treated by Milford residents.
"They feel discriminated," she said. "They feel they're not accepted."
Some Ecuadoreans said people are right to criticize them when they drink in public or litter the parks, said Nolivos, but they cannot understand why people don't like to see them playing volleyball at the parks or strolling down the streets with their babies.
Ann Berard, an English as a second language coordinator at the Milford Town Library, worries the notoriety of the Tacuri case could prevent local Ecuadoreans from assimilating.
"The isolation is still very strong," she said. "They kept to themselves and are very much apart. I'm sympathetic to their challenges, which is not the case with many Milford residents."}Many have left. O'Loughlin, the police chief, said the number of Ecuadoreans has shrunk from an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 to 800 to 1,000. Though some said it is in the wake of the Tacuri case, others said it could be due a slowdown in construction jobs and the poor economy.
Back in Brockton, Maria is prepared to go back home with a heavy heart. She still is unhappy they have lost everything.
She said they couldn't save much because all they made went to pay the mortgage, the company's expenses and the bills. In her Andean village of 60 people, there are no jobs waiting.
"We were poor before we got here," she said, resigned to her fate. "We return home just as poor."
Liz Mineo can be reached at 508-626-3825 or lmineo@cnc.com.
ping
“He knew he had broken the law in sneaking across the border, but he didn’t know he was doing something illegal in hiring illegal immigrants, she said.”
Right.......
Wrong. There's no hostility toward immigrants. There is hostility toward ILLEGAL immigrants who break our laws, burden our systems, and commit additional crimes in our country. Go. Home.
America is so fond of poverty that we’ve made it our number one import!
“She said they couldn’t save much because all they made went to pay the mortgage, the company’s expenses and the bills. In her Andean village of 60 people, there are no jobs waiting.
“We were poor before we got here,” she said, resigned to her fate. “We return home just as poor.”
OMG...lady, if you had a brain instead of operating on greed , you would have saved some money instead of buying a $475,000 house while you left your own child in squalor in Ecuador.
Immigrants of all stripes will be accepted when they do four things: (1) Come legally; (2) Respect this country and its rule of law; (3) learn English; and (4) do all they can to be self-sufficient.
Just a minor correction to your statement:
Immigrants of all stripes will be are accepted when they do four things: (1) Come legally; (2) Respect this country and its rule of law; (3) learn English; and (4) do all they can to be self-sufficient.
No wonder Freddie and Sally Mac are sucking wind. How many mortgages went south when their borrowers did?
Good point. And the real problem with so many immigrants sneaking across the southern border is those immigrants very frequently do none of those things, let alone all four. And they demand we respect, accommodate, and pay for their choices!
wow. $475000 home. How many Americans can’t afford a $475000 home? How many Americans are taxed half to death to provide for illegal aliens (who own $475000 homes) medical benefits, educational benefits, food stamps.......
No kidding. I’m fresh out of sympathy.
Amen. A friend of mine ended up on disability. He couldn’t get housing, food stamps, nothing. The whole reception area was full of illegals. This is ridiculous! We can’t support our own people let alone another 40 million non tax paying poor.
We were poor before we got here/wonder where she obtained $5.000 to get smuggggled in.
Probably a helluva lot wiser, as well.
Leni
Only sad bit about this ‘story’ is they dont get a big boot in the butt on the way back to their country of origin.
That’s not an uncommon story. It’s been going on for years and years. My mom took an elderly neighbor to welfare admin for assistance with her groceries. She was told she didn’t qualify but if her name had been Gonzales she would get it. This while the bar maid with 3 illegitimate kids by Mexican fathers, living right next door, working, and still receiving welfare had steaks stacked up in her freezer.
That woman at the welfare office actually said Gonzales!
btw, I baby sat the woman’s kids over the summer so I know what was in her freezer. She had the nads to ask my mother to sign a statement regarding the money she paid to me to watch her kids, while she worked, so that welfare would reimburse her. My mom told her to go pound sand.
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