Illegal immigrants refrain: 'Leaving America is not an option'

[leobold1]

Illegal immigrants refrain: 'Leaving America is not an option'

May 20 06:42 PM US/Eastern

Francisco Gimenez risked his life to get into United States. He is not planning to leave in a hurry.

Like many members of Los Angeles' immigrant community, the 27-year-old butcher is skeptical about proposed legislation intended to offer illegal workers a path to citizenship.

Under reforms announced last week, Gimenez would be required to return to Mexico at some point in order to secure the right to work legally in the United States, possibly paying up to 5,000 dollars in fines additionally.

Gimenez fears however that once he leaves America he won't be allowed back in. "I don't really understand that much about the bill, but I'd have to be crazy to go back to Mexico to apply for visa now that I am already in the US," he says. "They wouldn't give me a visa there."

Persuading workers like Gimenez that is in their interests to leave appears to be one of the biggest challenges facing US authorities, as they try to bring the country's 12-million strong illegal labor force out of the shadows.

In factories, markets, car-washes and laundromats, illegal workers in Los Angeles Hispanic community the same refrain: "Going home is not an option."

Gimenez is one of the thousands who put their lives in the hands of human-traffickers known as 'coyotes' to sneak across the United States' southern border with Mexico.

Often immigrants trying to cross the desert are robbed or murdered by bandits and rival gangs. But the rewards on offer for those willing to take the risk are immense.

Gimenez, who paid 3,000 dollars to a smuggling gang to help get him across the border in Arizona in 2003, sends back 400 dollars a month to his wife and two children in Mexico.

His salary of just over 1,400 dollars a month is roughly 10 times what he would earn for the same job in Mexico.

"I would love to go back and live in Mexico but I can only make money here," Gimenez said.

"For me the important thing about the legislation is if I can visit my country or bring my family here legally without the danger of them having to try and cross the border."

For other illegals, finding the money required to pay for legal status under the new reforms is problematical.

"If I could pay 5,000 dollars to get residency or a work permit without leaving the country I would pay that because it's roughly the same amount you have to pay to the 'coyotes'," said Sigfrido Villalta, a worker in a car wash.

"But when you only have 1,000 dollars a month it's hard. Obviously I want a residence visa. But I need the ability to pay for one, and there is also the possibility they could penalize the employer."

Gimenez' employer, Jose Luis Rojas, an illegal immigrant who acquired permanent residency and citizenship after Ronald Reagan's 1986 amnesty, is confident that a solution is only a matter of time.

"I came to America as an illegal worker and now I'm a citizen," Rojas said. "That's why I say to them just be patient."

Rojas said he is relaxed about the possibility of immigration authorities raiding his business.

"I'm not worried about immigration raids," the 46-year-old said. "If they're going to do that they are going to do it at the big textile factories, where they have 40 or 50 illegal workers at a time."

Villalta, meanwhile, is also wary of leaving his family in Los Angeles in order to apply for a foothold in the US system from El Salvador.

"The guest worker program does not help the families that are here," he said. "If I have to leave the country who will pay the bills here? How will my family exist?"

Gimenez echoed Villalta's concern -- and said he expected agricultural workers entering the country on seasonal visas would quite likely end up over-staying in any case.

"The work permit program is for people who want to come here for the first time -- it doesn't offer anything for people that are already here," he said. "And anyway, a Mexican farmer who comes here on a 10-month permit is going to stay here permanently anyway."