Posted on 01/20/2008 10:41:07 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
Business owners feel the pinch as families drop from community life
WAUKEGAN, ILL. — She is a homeowner, a taxpayer, a friendly neighbor and a U.S. citizen. Yet because she is married to an illegal immigrant, these days she feels like a fugitive.
Whenever her Mexican husband ventures out of the house, "it makes me sick to my stomach," said the woman, who insisted on being identified only by a first name and last initial, Miriam M.
"I'm like, 'Oh, my God, he took too long,' " she said. "I'll start calling. I go into panic."
Over the last year, thousands of illegal immigrants and their families who live here have retreated from community life in Waukegan, a microcosm of a growing underground of illegal immigrants across the country who are clinging to homes and jobs despite the pressure of tougher federal and local enforcement.
From Illinois to Georgia to Arizona, these families are hiding in plain sight, to avoid being detected by immigration agents and deported. They stay away from ethnic stores, forgo doctor's visits and meetings at their children's schools, and postpone girls' normally lavish 15th-birthday parties. They avoid the police, even hesitating to report crimes.
An uncertain workday
"When we leave in the morning we know we are going to work," said Elena G., a 47-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant and Waukegan resident of eight years who works in a factory near here. "But we don't know if we will be coming home."
Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested more than 35,000 illegal immigrants, including unauthorized workers and immigration fugitives, more than double the number in 2006. They sent 276,912 immigrants back to their home countries, a record number.
Since about three-quarters of an estimated 11.3 million illegal immigrants nationwide are from Latin America, and many have spouses, children or other relatives who are legal immigrants and citizens, the sense of alarm has spread broadly among Hispanics.
A survey by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, found in December that 53 percent of Hispanics in the United States worry that they or a loved one could be deported.
'It's my town'
Stores catering to Hispanic immigrants in places like Atlanta and Cincinnati have closed because of the drop in customers. Michael L. Barrera, president of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said anecdotal reports had indicated that small storefront businesses had been the hardest hit by a sharp decline in spending by immigrants.
"The raids have really spooked them in a big way," said Douglas S. Massey, a Princeton demographer who has studied Mexican immigrants for three decades.
Based on his own surveys and recent reports from other scholars doing field research in the Southwest and in North Carolina and other states, Massey said the "palpable sense of fear and of traumatization" in immigrant communities was more intense than at any other time since the mass deportations of Mexican farm workers in 1954.
"I know everything about Waukegan; it's my town," said one woman, who asked to remain anonymous because of her husband's status. "I should feel free to go in and out whenever I want to. But it's not the same freedom anymore."
Good. Now increase it.
Of course going back home could be an option in this case.
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
I’m confused. Since she is a citizen, isn’t her husband eligible for citizenship?
good
Only 53%? Then we are slacking.
these days she feels like a fugitive. Whenever her Mexican husband ventures out of the house, “it makes me sick to my stomach,”
Your choice to marry him, sweetie.
Toss me a hanky..
I wonder how many legal American citizens think much the same thing as they begin each new day,, praying that they or one or more of their family will not be killed by an illegal, either a drunken or stoned driver or gangbanger?
Life ain’t fair, no matter where you call home.
Boo. Hoo. I feel a “palpable sense of fear and of traumatization,” too, having my country, my state and my community overrun by illegal aliens with no respect for the rule of law. This is just more proof that we could take care of half or more of our illegal immigration problem by just enforcing the damn law and letting attrition take its course.
“Shop owners at a mall in Waukegan, Ill., say the crackdown on illegal immigration has driven their customers away. In places like Waukegan, a racially mixed middle-class suburb north of Chicago, most illegal immigrants have chosen to stay, held by families and jobs.”
LaMigra, LAMIGRA... Andele, ANDELE... VAMOOSE!!!
I used to eat at a place in Waukegan called Taco Loco. It was pretty good too.
Like this is a bad thing.
Let the woman pack her bags and move to Mexico. When an American marries over seas the wife packs her bag and moves to America. Lady you made your choice.
Amazingly, after spending months scapegoating Latino illegal immigrants, some GOP presidential hopefuls believe they still can appeal to legal immigrants in the Hispanic community because, as Huckabee put it in a recent debate, "I think there is a great misperception that Hispanic people in this country somehow are soft and weak on immigration; they are not. Those who have come here legally, who have stood in line, who have patiently waited to get in this country are some of the ones who insist that we enforce the law."
Nothing could be farther from the truth! ... [To] the overwhelming majority of Latinos, especially those who live in the major urban centers of this nation, illegal immigrants are not foreigners who represent some kind of threat; they are our friends and neighbors. Sometimes they are even our relatives. Those who don't think we will vote to help them are sadly mistaken.
http://www.reporternews.com:80/news/2008/jan/16/mccain-gives-latinos-leverage/?printer=1/
Now about those evil white "racist"
She should think about enjoying life in Mexico.
Cancun is nice they say.
The wives of career burglars and drug dealers probably feel the same way.
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