Victim of Our Own Success

[Migrant Health Promotion]

MHP Immigration News Service

July 14, 2011

Immigration News Service is a project of Migrant Health Promotion. Its purpose is to educate members of the farmworker health community about trends in immigration policy and empower them to become involved in the immigration policy debate.  This bi-weekly news service features articles from mainstream, national, local, and alternative news sources and presents links and excerpts, without editorializing.

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Table of Contents

1. The Nation: The Other Face Of Illegal Immigration. Courtney E. Martin. NPR - Opinion. June 29, 2011.
2. U.S. and Mexico resume migrant repatriation flights. Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Greg McCune. Reuters. July 11, 2011.
3. U.S. agriculture needs immigration reform. Ruben Navarrette. San Antonio Express News: My San Antonio. July 13, 2011.
4. Tough Alabama immigration law convinces some to move. Monique Fields. Reuters. July 14, 2011.
5. Census: Share of children in US hits record low. Hope Yen. Associated Press. July 13, 2011.


1. The Nation: The Other Face Of Illegal Immigration. Courtney E. Martin. NPR - Opinion. June 29, 2011.

Excerpt: The contentious debate over immigration was given a human face last week when Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas outed himself as an undocumented immigrant in a New York Times Magazine article. In a very personal essay, Vargas detailed his journey from boyhood in the Philippines to a prestigious journalism career in the United States. Vargas admitted to breaking a number of laws to conceal his citizenship status over more than a decade of working illegally for a range of high-profile publications, including the Washington Post, the Huffington Post and The New Yorker. The essay quickly rose to the top of the "Most e-mailed"list at the Times and landed Vargas, and his compelling story, on a major media sites over the weekend.

Vargas's personal story is vital because it complicates the usual terms of the immigration debate: outsiders vs. insiders, deserving vs. undeserving, legal vs. illegal. After all, one can't help but see Vargas, though undocumented, as the consummate deserving insider — an American Dream hero incarnate, transcending race and class boundaries to make a real impact through his reporting. It's nearly impossible to see a picture of the goofy adolescent, who watched "Frasier"to better his English or hear the story of his choir teacher's admiration for him, and think "criminal."..

The threat of deportation for citizens like Vargas — young and with no criminal record — are, admittedly, slim. Spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Cori W. Bassett, told NPR in an emailed statement: "ICE takes enforcement action on a case-by-case basis — prioritizing those who present the most significant threats to public safety as determined by their criminal history and taking into consideration the specific facts of each case, including immigration history."

But this doesn't mean that the undocumented immigrants who tell their stories are not at risk. A couple of high profile cases have revealed how arbitrary the deportation process has become. Steve Li, then a 20-year-old City College student became a symbol of the kind of deserving immigrant youth who the DREAM Act would help as he awaited deportation in fall of 2010, inspiring a Facebook campaign. Li's plight inspired the attention of Senator Dianne Feinstein and other politicians and he was released from an immigration detention center in Arizona after two months. So far, he remains in the US, though he hasn't achieved any legal status..

There are 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country, and many of them are young, brave, and ready for a fight. Gaby Pacheco is one such fighter. An undocumented student involved in organizing for the DREAM Act, she recently published an op-ed on CNN.com in which she argued that President Barack Obama should use his executive power to stop deportations of youths eligible for the DREAM Act. She wrote that this act with precedent (President Bush used his discretionary powers to defer the deportation of undocumented immigrant spouses of military soldiers) would keep "families together until Congress is able to put its differences aside and acknowledge that we are part of the future of our great country."


2. U.S. and Mexico resume migrant repatriation flights. Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Greg McCune. Reuters. July 11, 2011.

Excerpt: (Reuters) - An annual program of voluntary repatriation flights to take Mexican illegal immigrants nabbed in the Arizona desert back to their homes in the Mexican interior resumed on Monday, authorities said.

The joint program coordinated by U.S. and Mexican authorities has operated each summer since 2004. It aims to save lives while disrupting Mexican human smuggling networks, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said in a news release.

Last year 249 people perished after crossing into Arizona, according to a tally kept by the Arizona Daily Star newspaper. The most common cause of death is heat exposure in the summer months, when desert temperatures frequently top 110 degrees Fahrenheit..

Since it began in 2004, more than 102,000 Mexicans have been returned under the program, which is operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in conjunction with Mexico's Interior and Foreign Ministries.

The first repatriation flight left Tucson on Monday. The flights are scheduled to continue through September 28.


3. U.S. agriculture needs immigration reform. Ruben Navarrette. San Antonio Express News: My San Antonio. July 13, 2011.

Excerpt: When I was in college, my roommate from New York City — aware that I had grown up in the farmlands of Central California — asked me a simple question: “What time of year do workers pick the raisins?”

After I stopped laughing, I had to explain to the city slicker that you don't actually pick raisins. You pick grapes, and then lay them out in the sun to make raisins.

The story reminds me just how far Americans have gotten away from the farm..

Eric Larson is executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. I asked him how most Americans became so disconnected from the realities of life on the farm.

“We're a victim of our own success,” Larson said. “We go to the store and there's always food there. So we take it for granted that someone grew it so we can buy it.”

Even in a nation that got its start as an agrarian society, and where agriculture generates more than $280 billion a year in economic activity, something happens when people move off the farm and into the city: We forget how tough farm work really is, and we begin to believe that anyone can do it..

“We're quite certain that more than 50 percent of our workers are using forged or illegally procured documents,” Larson said.

Larson is not shy about expressing support for comprehensive immigration reform, his frustration with Americans who think that farms could survive without illegal immigrants, or anger at politicians who squeeze farmers for campaign contributions then refuse to address their labor needs.

One of his pet peeves is when people who don't know the first thing about farming claim that Americans would gladly do the farm work now done by illegal immigrants.

“I don't care how high unemployment gets,” Larson said. “People do not show up at the farms. They just will not do it. ... We've got massive unemployment. We have a shortage of farm workers right now, and the gap is not being filled.”


4. Tough Alabama immigration law convinces some to move. Monique Fields. Reuters. July 14, 2011.

Excerpt: (Reuters) - Nicolas Hernandez said goodbye to his parents just days after Alabama lawmakers passed what is being described as the country's toughest crackdown on illegal immigration.

His mother and father, undocumented workers at a farm near Birmingham, decided not to chance getting ensnared by the new law and returned to their home country of Argentina.

Hernandez, 25, said his family arrived in the United States 14 years ago on a three-year medical visa because doctors in their country could not treat his epilepsy, and then stayed after the visa expired.

"It's terrible. I hate it. It's tough because me and my family were always close," said Hernandez, who is engaged to a U.S. citizen and plans to stay in America.

How many others have decided to leave Alabama for other states or to return to their home countries before the new law takes effect on September 1 is unclear..

State lawmakers said they drafted the legislation to protect American jobs.

"For illegal immigrants to now be leaving the state shows they know Alabama is serious about enforcing its laws," said Todd Stacy, a spokesman for Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard.

"Documented, legal residents of this country have no reason to leave on account of this law, and I've seen no evidence to suggest that's the case."..

But Jones said immigrants are performing tasks white and black workers abandoned long ago.

He said he hopes a lawsuit filed by civil rights groups last week will provide some relief. Federal judges have blocked key parts of immigration laws in Georgia, Arizona, Utah and Indiana from taking effect, and those opposing Alabama's law seek a similar ruling..

Come September, it will be a crime in Alabama to transport, harbor or rent property to illegal immigrants.

Such provisions interfere with God's work, said Alabama Baptist Convention President Mike Shaw. Church members and clergy often give undocumented residents a lift to Sunday school, Bible study and other faith-based programs.

Social worker and Spanish translator Jennifer Owen said her livelihood is in jeopardy, and she will be among those who leave the state if the law stands.

Owen said she otherwise would be risking her well-being as well as those who accept a ride in her car.

"This definitely puts a hitch in everything I do," she said.


5. Census: Share of children in US hits record low. Hope Yen. Associated Press. July 13, 2011.

Excerpt: WASHINGTON (AP) — Children now make up less of America's population than ever before, even with a boost from immigrant families.

And when this generation grows up, it will become a shrinking work force that will have to support the nation's expanding elderly population — even as the government strains to cut spending for health care, pensions and much else.

The latest 2010 census data show that children of immigrants make up one in four people under 18, and are now the fastest-growing segment of the nation's youth, an indication that both legal and illegal immigrants as well as minority births are lifting the nation's population.

Currently, the share of children in the U.S. is 24 percent, falling below the previous low of 26 percent of 1990. The share is projected to slip further, to 23 percent by 2050, even as the percentage of people 65 and older is expected to jump from 13 percent today to roughly 20 percent by 2050 due to the aging of baby boomers and beyond..

Pointing to signs that many children are already struggling, O'Hare added: "These raise urgent questions about whether today's children will have the resources they need to help care for America's growing elderly population."..

Nationwide, the number of children has grown by 1.9 million, or 2.6 percent, since 2000. That represents a drop-off from the previous decade, when even higher rates of immigration by Latinos — who are more likely than some other ethnic groups to have large families — helped increase the number of children by 8.7 million, or 13.7 percent.

Percentages aside, 23 states and the District of Columbia had declines in their numbers of children in the century's first decade, with Michigan, Rhode Island, Vermont and D.C. seeing some of the biggest drops.