Illegal Immigrants ‘Self Deport’ As Woes Mount
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Mexican illegal immigrant Lindi sat down with her husband Marco Antonio in the weeks before Christmas to decide when to go back to Mexico.
She has spent three years working as a hairdresser in and around Phoenix, but now she figures it is time to go back to her hometown of Aguascalientes in central Mexico.
“The situation has got so tough that there don’t seem to be many options left for us,” Lindi, who asked for her last name not to be used, told Reuters.
The couple are among a growing number of illegal immigrants across the United States who are starting to pack their bags and move on as a crackdown on undocumented immigrants widens and the U.S. economy slows, turning a traditional Christmas trek home into a one-way trip.
In the past year, U.S. immigration police have stepped up workplace sweeps across the country and teamed up with a growing number of local forces to train officers to enforce immigration laws.
Meanwhile, a bill seeking to offer many of the 12 million illegal immigrants a path to legal status was tossed by the U.S. Congress, spurring many state and local authorities to pass their own measures targeting illegal immigrants.
The toughening environment has been coupled with a turndown in the U.S. economy, which has tipped the balance toward self deportation for many illegal immigrants left struggling to find work.
{snip}
There is no tally of the number of illegal immigrants who have already left the United States, many of whom simply head south over the border with their belongings packed into a car during the annual Christmas exodus, or board scheduled flights for other destinations.
Mexican consular sources in Phoenix say they are seeing a spike in the number of immigrants applying for Mexican citizenship for their U.S.-born children, which will allow them to enroll in schools in Mexico.
They are also seeing a rise in requests for papers enabling families to carry household belongings back to Mexico, free of import duties.
Members of the Brazilian community in the U.S. northeast, meanwhile, say they are starting to see an increase in the number of illegal immigrants heading back to their homes in Brazil in recent months.
“They are beginning to put in the balance the constant fear of being detained and deported, and many are deciding to leave,” said Fausto Mendes da Rocha, executive director of the Brazilian Immigrant Center in Boston.
{snip}
Moses Garcia, a U.S. citizen who came from Mexico 18 years ago and knew many of the families affected by the 2006 raid through his church and real estate work, said most of the workers have left to other states, not back to Mexico.
“They feel like they are not welcome here,” Garcia said. “They go to Minnesota, Atlanta, Nebraska, California.”
In Arizona, where some specially trained sheriff’s deputies already enforce immigration laws and a new state law sanctioning businesses hiring undocumented workers is due to come in to effect January 1, many illegal immigrants are eyeing a move to states they see as less hostile.
Among them is day laborer Fernando Gutierrez who trekked illegally into the desert state 18 months ago from Mexico, and is now thinking of joining a cousin working in Oregon in the Pacific northwest.
“Everyone lives in fear of the police stopping you for some minor infraction and then asking for your papers,” Gutierrez said as he touted for work in the chill morning air at a Phoenix day labor site.
“I want to get as far away from here as possible.”
(Posted on December 27, 2007)
Comments
Relax my friend, it is called satire.
10:58am
I understood perfectly your meaning, your satire, and your play on words. Why would you imagine otherwise? There is nothing to “relax” about and certainly nothing to explain. It is you who can relax; we are in the same corner. Do you take everything literally? ‘Tis the rueful elite who need to do some explaining.
Posted by Rueing the Elite at 1:04 AM on January 1
I was considering moving to Arizona for it’s climate, scenery etc., but I always reminded myself that it may be too dangerous to live there due the illegals. If it’s true that some are moving back home, then maybe I will be able to move there. What do you think?
Posted by at 10:10 PM on January 1
Time will show you how much you need the ilegal immigrants in so many different ways. Your government is hidding and not telling you why they can’t deport every single ilegal immigrant, and that’s because they know you need them.
If it wasn’t because of the contributions of ilegal immigrants into your social security, you wouldn’t have anything to retired, and your government know that.
But that would’t take to long to come up to the public….
Posted by at 12:00 PM on January 2
Lest any simple minded do-gooder shed unnecessary tears for the plight of “those poor, poor illegal immigrants,” let me spotlight a few pertinent realities:
Neither the United States nor its citizens, taxpayers and voters OWE any debt to Mexico or any other Latin American county. Said debt being that we have to allow the unchecked flow of illegal immigrants into our country.
It is the responsibility of their home countries to support their people, to work to ease the burdens of poverty and social problems driving people to America. It IS NOT AND NEVER SHOULD BE the responsibility of the United States. You church-going types, please take note! If your faith DEMANDS ministering to the poor, fine! Send the money your church collects to those third-world countries. BUT DO NOT BRING THOSE PEOPLE HERE! WE NEITHER NEED NOR WANT THEM!
Those incessant lies about “immigrants doing jobs Americans won’t take” are but a propaganda lie meant to hide the underlying truth: That greedy corporations and businesses simply want to maximize their profits by refusing to pay Americans a fair and reasonable wage! Cut off welfare payments to drones, force the businesses to pay a reasonable wage — and available job openings WILL be filled. If that creates a bit of a rise in cost of merchandise and services, call it a small price to pay for ridding our America of third-world trash.
Accepting immigrants in disproportionately high numbers (like some 30 MILLION MEXICANS OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS) simply will serve to beggar and ultimately destroy the host country and its culture in due time.
No matter what is said to the contrary, Mexican immigrants will always consider their loyalty to belong to Mexico, rather than to the United States. Which is amply proven by the stubborn refusal of so many Mexicans to learn OUR language, OUR social customs, and to assimilate into mainstream American culture. A trait that extends to their American-born children. Witness those marchers during those May, 2006 protests — waving those stupid-looking Mexican flags and banners, while chanting “Viva Mexico” or whatever nonsense they were mouthing.
Drive the illegals out of our country. Do it NOW! We have local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Let them work hand-in-hand with National Guard units of each state. Use the Regular Army, as needed. Forget the absurdity of letting the damned illegals claim undeserved Constitutional protection. THEY ARE INVADERS, THEY ARE CRIMINALS! The cost — in wasted tax dollars spent on them… in the endless amount and variety of crimes committed by illegals… the endless clamor for more and more government hand-outs and tax-payer funded freebies… the endless slums and other social problems brought by these free loading parasites… ALL POINT TO THE REALITY AMERICA WOULD BE A HUNDRED, A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER OFF WITH THEIR DEPORTATION!
Posted by Fed Up at 2:02 PM on January 2
[[[ Until Arizona’s laws become nationwide, getting illegals to self-deport will be like trying to squeeze air out of a balloon - illegals will go on relocating to states with more negligent law enforcement until no jobs can be found in any state.
When that finally happens, illegals will leave by the millions. ]]]
I will happen the day you go to the farms and pick up your own food, so you can start as soon as you wish.
Posted by at 3:17 PM on January 2
12:00 PM: Social Security is not going to be made solvent by the contributions of those illegals who happen to have jobs that are not cash-under-the-table.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 9:55 PM on January 2
One of the methods our enemies use to convince Americans that we need illegals is to always bring up farm labor, and challenge us to go out in the hot sun and pick our own strawberries. I believe that Senator McCain has tried this reasoning. Apparently, our enemies would have you believe that if you do not pick fruit for a living, you have no business objecting to foreign invasion. O.K., I will make a bargain with Senator McCain and his owners: I won’t complain about the fruit pickers, if you will immediately deport all the foreigners who work in construction, food service, cleaning, civil service, manufacturing, transportation, communications, auto theft, drug dealing… Is it a deal?
Posted by Schoolteacher at 12:55 AM on January 3
“One of the methods our enemies use to convince Americans that we need illegals is to always bring up farm labor, and challenge us to go out in the hot sun and pick our own strawberries.”
So true. They always ask who will pick our fruit, clean are houses, babysit, flip our burgers, mow our lawns etc.? Well, most all Americans except the rich do these things themselves. I mow my own lawn, clean my own house etc., just like everyone else I know. We’ve only had massive illegal immigration for the past 20 years and America did quite well doing all these things before they came.
Posted by KC at 5:29 AM on January 3
For decades the mainstream media used the analogy of “the pig in the python” to describe the demographic impact the boomers have upon American society. This current and unending unprecedented influx of legal and illegal foreigners begs the analogy of “the elephant in the python”, yet the mainstream media is mute. They are mute because they know that a python can’t possibly swallow an elephant any more than America can absorb these nation-killing culture-destroying alien interlopers and survive…
Posted by at 10:02 AM on January 3
I grew up in Arizona in the 60s. The drugs and crime were v. bad 35 years ago. I can not even comprehend what it must be like now.
There needs to be a one-way turnstile at the border with a sign reading: WELCOME BACK TO MEXICO!
Posted by cliff at 10:30 AM on January 3
I’d be glad if they all packed up and went home to Mexico,or wherever they came from.I seldom eat out anymore;I’m afraid of picking up a ‘germ’.I don’t lodge in motels anymore.I’ve resorted to cooking my own food, and dragging a travel trailer around when I know I’ll be gone for a while.Doesn’t feel ilke home anymore. Everywhere you go, it’s seeming more like a third world country.I’m a child of the 60’s,and life was better then. Seems like such a distant memory now.
Posted by susanne at 5:32 PM on January 5