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Too broke to buy a ticket home, Valley's immigrant day laborers just hang on
dailynews ^ | 01/24/2009 10:04:40 PM PST | Tony Castro

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 ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Mexico; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alien; aliens; amnesty; border; daylaborers; illegal; immigrantlist
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1 posted on 01/28/2009 11:31:14 AM PST by Checkers
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To: Checkers

Call ICE, they have dozens of planes, free ride home.


2 posted on 01/28/2009 11:32:22 AM PST by junta (Not even respectable mainstream conservatives can save liberalism.)
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To: gubamyster

God’s Children Ping


3 posted on 01/28/2009 11:32:42 AM PST by Checkers (Memo To Satan From Mike Huckabee: "Mission Accomplished. Await Your Next Command.")
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To: Checkers

Didn’t the ICE have a program last year for free rides back to their home countries, and no one showed up to take them up on it? When they can look forward to BO making them all eligible for US taxpayer-financed welfare, why in the world should they not “hang on”?


4 posted on 01/28/2009 11:34:13 AM PST by kittymyrib
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To: rabscuttle385

God’s Children ping


5 posted on 01/28/2009 11:34:22 AM PST by Checkers (Memo To Satan From Mike Huckabee: "Mission Accomplished. Await Your Next Command.")
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To: Checkers

They should go home just like they arrived. Broke!


6 posted on 01/28/2009 11:34:31 AM PST by o_zarkman44 (Since when is paying more, but getting less, considered Patriotic?)
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To: Checkers
1-866-DHS-2-ICE. It's even toll free so you don't have to pay for the call.
7 posted on 01/28/2009 11:34:50 AM PST by KarlInOhio (On 9/11 Israel mourned with us while the Palestinians danced in the streets. Who should we support?)
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To: Checkers
FREE RIDES !!!!


8 posted on 01/28/2009 11:34:50 AM PST by stylin19a (I listen to the voices in my golf bag)
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To: junta

Attrition though enforcement works.


9 posted on 01/28/2009 11:35:49 AM PST by Checkers (Memo To Satan From Mike Huckabee: "Mission Accomplished. Await Your Next Command.")
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To: Checkers
Here's a compass:

Just keep walking south, until you get home ... or go swimming.

10 posted on 01/28/2009 11:36:11 AM PST by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: KarlInOhio

“1-866-DHS-2-ICE. It’s even toll free so you don’t have to pay for the call.”

So easy, even a caveman could do it.


11 posted on 01/28/2009 11:36:45 AM PST by Checkers (Memo To Satan From Mike Huckabee: "Mission Accomplished. Await Your Next Command.")
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To: Checkers

DHS will return them home free. I’m sure they know it. They don’t ‘know’ they’re not supposed to be here, but they know every legal angle around.


12 posted on 01/28/2009 11:37:15 AM PST by AuntB (The right to vote in America: Blacks 1870; Women 1920; Native Americans 1925; Foreigners 2008)
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To: Checkers

If I still had my old beater S15 they could have it and all they would need to do is pay for gas.


13 posted on 01/28/2009 11:37:17 AM PST by cripplecreek (The poor bastards have us surrounded.)
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To: KarlInOhio
And in the Spanish lingo, el numero es uno ocho seis seis tres cuatro siete dos cuatro dos tres.
14 posted on 01/28/2009 11:37:23 AM PST by KarlInOhio (On 9/11 Israel mourned with us while the Palestinians danced in the streets. Who should we support?)
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To: Checkers
The long journey through Mexico, especially with the ongoing violence of the drug wars in that country, is especially intimidating to Central Americans.

But not so intimidating that you could not travel through Mexico to illegally cross our southern border?

15 posted on 01/28/2009 11:37:23 AM PST by 17th Miss Regt
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To: Checkers
"We have lost our reason for being here"

Oh, thank God. There is a silver lining to this downturn! Can we cut the crap about how these people love America, only want to be Americans, etc.? They're here to milk the system for what they can and send it home. Good bye.

16 posted on 01/28/2009 11:37:55 AM PST by americanophile
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To: Checkers
Cry me a river. Why are they in this so called predicament? Because they broke the frickin' laws of this country by sneaking across the border, then later broke more laws by obtaining illegal ID and not paying taxes on their income and using up precious ER resources that should have gone to American citizens. They brought it on themselves.

They can always get a free ride back home by turning themselves into Immigration.

The truth is, they are not any worse off then they were before, this is just another sob story put out by the communist news media of America trying to get sympathy for Bozo's "stimulus" plan.

17 posted on 01/28/2009 11:39:15 AM PST by calex59
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To: KarlInOhio

English please


18 posted on 01/28/2009 11:39:15 AM PST by Checkers (Memo To Satan From Mike Huckabee: "Mission Accomplished. Await Your Next Command.")
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To: Checkers

Someone should set up a non-profit foundation and start collecting donations to buy one-way tickets for illegal immigrants.


19 posted on 01/28/2009 11:39:38 AM PST by mvpel (Michael Pelletier)
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To: Checkers

We otta round ‘em up and air drop ‘em just inside Mexico’s southern border.


20 posted on 01/28/2009 11:39:41 AM PST by Navy Patriot (John McCain, the Manchurian Candidate, makes a Marxist President.)
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