Posted on 01/28/2009 11:31:13 AM PST by Checkers
They are down and out in the United States and homesick for Guatemala. And El Salvador. And Honduras. And Mexico.
And they would go back without even an American penny in their pocket if only they had enough to get home.
They are the discouraged and disillusioned Central American and Mexican day laborers who, in a sign of how hard times are in this economy, find themselves so broke they can't send much, if any, money back to loved ones they haven't seen for years.
"We have lost our reason for being here," laments Jose Perez, 42, a Guatemalan living in the San Fernando Valley who vows he will be back home by next Christmas - and wishes he could leave sooner.
"I would leave today, with just the clothes on my back, if I had the money. It wasn't that long ago that I used to put money aside to send home. Now I'm saving it in hopes that I can go back home."
Perez, who hasn't seen his wife and family in five years, is among the hundreds of day laborers who gather each morning at the same corners in various parts of the Valley, hoping to find work cleaning yards, hauling furniture, painting houses or doing light construction.
But in an increasingly tight economy, homeowners are now handling many of the tasks they used to hire day laborers to perform.
"The dream I had when I left Guatemala to come to America is now gone," said Perez with a trace of bitterness.
He is not alone.
The economic recession and the crackdown on illegal immigration have forced growing numbers of Central American immigrants to consider giving up their dreams in the United States and returning to their homelands, according to an Inter-American Development Bank survey of 5,000
(Excerpt) Read more at dailynews.com ...
The Mexicans will shoot them at the border.
“Someone should set up a non-profit foundation and start collecting donations to buy one-way tickets for illegal immigrants.”
Good idea....repubs keep talking about ‘outreach’....
Can we give them free tatoo’s so we can identify them when they come back?
Most of them are illegals so I have no sympathy for them.
Voting for Obama?
McCain ping
OK ...
Add the trip home to the bailout package.
The alternative is voluntarily surrendering to ICE ... then they get a free ride home.
Great tagline
Buying plane tickets home for them is the kind of stimulus I could support.
Exactly, turn them selves in to ICE, nice free trip home...need to get Barbie Boxer and DiFi on the horn and advise them of this..
Sounds like a fantastic opportunity for a tele-thon!
Of course the left would be appalled at how much money could be raised for this particular cause - which might just be another point in favor of such an effort...
I’m sure Barack Obama will undoubtedly find a way to subsidize their continued parasitic existence even if it means bankrupting America.
Someone get out the violins.
It would be amusing if there was a conservative version of Michael Moore who’d do a documentary of a disillusioned illegal alien trying to get himself deported back to Mexico. Going to the INS and being ignored, then to the police, etc.
Husbands.... doing the work that illegals won't do cheaper!
Sounds like some interest group might be pushing for unemployment benefits for these folks...with competent and well-paid community organizers to assist in distribution of the benefits.
GO HOME
Send the Brazlians back too. I saw a documentary on TV (cancelling cable soon). It was about crime in Brazil. Unreal. A guy had a Porsche Turbo 911 about $130,000 car in the USA. It cost over $220,000 in Brazil then around $75,000 to make it bulletproof. You would think you would not want to advertise any wealth. ???
Everyone with money travels by helicopter to avoid being kidnapped. Political corruption is rampant, like the USA. Attorneys, cops, and judges try to fight but any more it is almost a lost cause.
We are losing our rule of law with open borders so we may be there soon.
If they turn themselves into ICE they will detain them, charge then for illegal entry and run fingerprints to check for criminal records before giving them a free ride home. So that should tell you something.
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