No Work Means a One-Way Ticket Home
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Saundra Amrhein, St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, August 30, 2008
On a Wednesday afternoon, in the gravel lot of El Expreso bus depot, Benito Ramos waits with his life packed in several plastic tubs.
After eight years in the United States, he is going home to Hidalgo, Mexico, to his mother and a small concrete block house built with the money earned clearing tables in Tampa restaurants.
{snip}
When times were good, Ramos worked 16 hours a day at two restaurants, five days a week. His weekly check was $520. But for months, bosses have slashed his schedule. He was lucky to work six hours a day for two or three days, bringing in just $117 a week.
{snip}
A few weeks ago, Ramos bought a bus ticket and joined legions—perhaps thousands—of illegal immigrants going back home.
The reason, immigrants and experts say, is the slow economy—particularly the crash of the construction industry and the slowdown in the retail and low-wage service sectors.
No one is certain about the size of the exodus. One group says the undocumented population has dropped 11 percent in a year. Other experts dispute those findings and say the decline is much smaller.
One thing seems clear: Those leaving tend to be single or unattached men like Ramos. They now face stiff competition from legal and illegal immigrants who had climbed the economic ladder and put down roots during the construction boom. Now they’re all scrambling for jobs—even returning to the fields—and also face competition from out-of-work Americans.
{snip}
Van driver Antonio Trevino brings passengers from Sarasota, Tampa, Clearwater and Bradenton to the bus depot. Since January, most of his passengers have been single immigrant men headed home to stay.
{snip}
In July, the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies issued a report that said the illegal immigrant population had declined 11 percent, or 1.3-million people, between August 2007 and May. It credits enforcement by immigration officials.
But critics dispute the study’s findings, which are based on census data of Hispanics between the ages of 18 and 40 with a high school degree or less and unspecified immigration status.
Experts agree undocumented migration has slowed since 2007. But they attribute it to the economy, not enforcement.
{snip}
Single or unattached men make up a quarter of the estimated 12-million illegal immigrants, said Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based research organization.
Passel is preparing a report about the recent drop in undocumented migration, which had been growing by 500,000 people a year since 2000. Those days appear to be over.
Farmers are not worried.
As they prepare their fields for fall crops, their phones are ringing off the hook.
“Right now I have people contacting me asking me for work,” said Don Balaban of Balaban Farms in Thonotosassa, who turns them down. “They are unemployed from the building trade.”
Legal and illegal immigrants who had planted roots with good construction jobs are now competing for landscaping jobs and field work.
{snip}
With more competition from unemployed construction workers, single men in the fields feel the squeeze, said Dave Moore, executive director of the Beth-El Mission in Wimauma. Come fall, there won’t be enough farm jobs to go around, he said.
{snip}
(Posted on September 3, 2008)
Comments
Now, if we could only get the welfare cheat illegals to leave.
Posted by SG at 5:50 PM on September 3
One million down, nine million more to go.
Posted by Enough at 6:15 PM on September 3
I keep hearing over and over again that you can’t deport the millions of illegal aliens that are here. This proves that you don’t have to.
You couldn’t arrest everyone who cheat on income taxes if nobody was ever arrested to begin with. That’s the way any law works, enforce it on a few, shame them, give them the perp walk, and this forces everyone else (mostly) to behave. Mass psychology.
Posted by Question Diversity at 6:21 PM on September 3
It isn’t a sign of progress that illegal aliens are leaving, if indeed they are, due to a bad economy. That is no way to run immigration policy and will accomplish nothing substantial. Many with criminal tendencies will justify stealing and every other type of crime and fraud, because afterall, that is what they have been getting away with anyway, to a greater or lesser extent.
Posted by Bobby at 6:44 PM on September 3
You know what kills me about this story…..they are refered to as immigrants…like we don’t know they are in reality ILLEGALS…AND HOPEFULLY THIS STORY IS TRUE AND THAT THEY ARE GETTING THE HELL OUT…but sorry I don’t buy it!!
Posted by lydia at 7:54 PM on September 3
Thousands leave, millions enter.
Posted by Edward at 11:36 PM on September 3
For a while now, neither the Democratic nor the Republican campaign has breathed a word about immigration/illeal immigration of this country. Who knows what to expect with a new president or an ‘improved’ economy.
Posted by at 12:26 AM on September 4
I talked with a brazilian today, after losing 2 homes to foreclosure, he and his wife and 2 kids are headed back to Brazil.
Come here, break the economy, go home, who care.
Posted by wildbill at 12:55 AM on September 4
Let me guess poor mr Ramos and his comprades are returning to the paradise from whense they came, where they can expect to make a couple of pesos a day and live the good life, with no free health care. A truly great move on their part. “FOR US” If only this were true.
Posted by THEOLD SAGE at 1:17 AM on September 4
This is interesting since the data proves that the state of “the economy” has no deterence on immigration one way or the other.
In the early 90s immigration skyrocked yet ‘the economy’ was in recession. Billary with her ‘diversity lottery’ didn’t help.
Posted by stringtheoryrob at 2:02 AM on September 4
Maybe college kids and unskilled American citizens will be able to get entry-level jobs again.
I have 79 US and foreign patents awarded. I wish 10% of the H-1bs would self-deport as well. That way, I wouldn’t have to work as a welder.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 2:50 PM on September 4
Hmm. I find this hard to believe. They just keep coming in droves. I wish the presidential candidates would say something about illegal immigration. That would clench it for men.
Posted by Western1 at 4:12 PM on September 4
Gee that’s funny, I seem to see more and more every day. I would love to help them to get home though. Deportation buses running round the clock. Now that would be a good use of our tax dollars.
Posted by at 4:21 AM on September 5