Griego: The naivete of Bush's immigration plan

Published December 1, 2005 at midnight

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I know a man, married, a father of two, who came to the United States illegally. He was an accountant in Mexico and later owned a small shoe business. He had a good life, he says, a big house, a new car, his sons in private school. But, his business ran aground after a customer reneged on a payment for a large order.

The man headed north.

He crossed the border in Juarez, paying $1,300 for a fake green card. Later that evening, he took a bus from downtown El Paso to Denver where a friend lived. After he arrived, he took a job at McDonald's and worked construction. For a brief time, he dug trenches for a cable company. He eventually took a job as a custodian.

In other times, he would have simply gone back home after he earned what he deemed sufficient. History tells us he would have traveled back and forth as family need demanded. But he came at a time when heightened border security combined with immigration policy changes not only made it more difficult to cross the border, but carried greater consequences if caught. And so, a year later, he paid a coyote to smuggle his family in.

This is one of the well-documented paradoxes of tighter border security combined with stiffer consequences and a scarcity of means to gain legal entry. It encouraged once-migratory people to stay here, to send for their families, to sink roots.

An already complicated problem became more so. Spanish-speaking enclaves and businesses multiplied. It has become impossible to talk about illegal immigration without bringing up assimilation.

The man and his family lived in a dark, one-bedroom apartment. They kept to themselves. They were devout Catholics and strict parents. She became involved in parent committees at their sons' schools. The boys became honor students. Both the man and his wife had faith in God's wisdom, though this did not keep them from believing that man's nature is basically selfish and base. Do you know, the man's wife told me one day, some of the neighborhood women said I should have a child here because the government pays for everything? She was disgusted with these neighbors.

When she left Mexico to join her husband, her siblings accused her of betraying the family. She knew the day she gathered up her sons and said goodbye that the price of coming here illegally was not the risk she might be caught and jailed, but that she might never see her parents again. We talked about that a lot, about what was worse, my situation with both parents dead, or hers, with both living but out of reach. We decided it was hers.

Four years passed. Her father fell ill. He was dying. She told her husband she would never forgive herself if she did not see her father before he died. She left in February 2004. Her father died shortly thereafter. She tried again to get a visa to enter the U.S. and again was denied. She headed for Juarez and hired a coyote. She tried twice to cross illegally. The second time, a Border Patrol agent identified her papers as fakes. She was detained and fingerprinted. She did not try again illegally.

Earlier this year, after she had built a small savings and acquired some property with her mother's help, she tried again to get a visa. Again, she was denied. The boys went to live with her. Her husband remains in Denver. He works steadily, pays taxes and rent, has never been arrested and is studying English. He's hoping this will count in his favor should an immigration law pass that would help him become a permanent legal resident.

This is the family I first thought of when President Bush decided to dust off his guest-worker proposal and juice it up with talk of tougher border security and deportation measures.

"The American people," the president said this week, "should not have to choose between being a welcoming society and a lawful society. We can have both at the same time."

I agree with this sentiment entirely. But, an honest conversation about illegal immigration must also address the fact that some of the 11 million estimated illegal immigrants have no plans to return. They say the same thing this man says, "My life is here now." The president is offering them no opportunity to earn legal residency - as some of the bipartisan congressional legislation would. Bush says only that he is opposed to "amnesty."

Well, so am I, but it is nave to believe that people like this man will rush to sign up for a temporary guest worker program that requires them to return to their home countries after three, or four or five years. And it is neither possible nor conscionable to round up and deport millions of people.

"It seems the president is telling me basically that this country would like to rent me and when it is done with my labor, it will get rid of me," the man tells me. He said he would have to think hard about whether he would sign up for such a program.

He misses his wife and sons. Sometimes, he says, he feels like he is suffocating. But, he has established himself here, he says, and his income supports his family and pays for his sons' education in Mexico.

It might be two or three years, he guesses, before any immigration plan that would help him passes. But, he'll wait, he says. He spent the first two months in this country sleeping on the floor of an unfurnished apartment. He is a patient man.

griegot@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2699

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