Hispanics feeling heat of enforcement
Hispanics feeling heat of enforcement
By Devona Walker
Comments 
153
Published: December 20, 2007
Regardless of citizenship status, Hispanics say they are being hurt by the ongoing immigration debate. In contrast, a recent study by the Congressional Budget Office reports that local and state governments are uniformly incurring costs due to the presence of undocumented immigrants.
More Info
By the Numbers
•300,000: Number deported in 2007
•
84 percent: Rise in deportations over 2002
•900 percent: Rise in workplace raids between 2002 and 2007.
•7 to 8 million: Estimated number of undocumented workers in the U.S.
•1,562: Number of immigration bills introduced around the country as of last month.
•244: Number of those bills that were enacted.
•$1.6 billion: Budget in 2002 for patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border.
•$9 billion: Estimated cost of building a fence along the southwest corridor of the U.S.
•$1,700: Cost per arrest along the border, as of 2002.
•480,000 to 660,000: Estimated number of illegal immigrants settling in the U.S. between 1990 and 2004.
Sources: Pew Hispanic Center, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Immigration Forum.
More changes in Oklahoma
While immigration continues to poll as a priority for many Oklahoma voters, the state's current immigration law, House Bill 1804, may change during the upcoming legislative season.
Sen. Harry Coates, R-Seminole, has vowed to introduce legislation to repeal portions of HB 1804. Rep. Shane Jett, R-Tecumseh, plans to introduce a companion bill for a program similar to a statewide temporary worker program, softening the blow of the enforcement-heavy HB 1804.
On the other side, Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, plans to introduce what he calls the "Son of HB 1804” to strengthen immigration enforcement.
Coates says HB 1804 hampers economic growth and is causing a mass exodus of legal workers.
"The Hispanic family unit is such that they are not going to turn away a family member. Rather than subject themselves to the problems this immigration legislation has caused, they are pulling up stakes,” Coates said. "We are seeing a mass exodus of not just illegal immigrants but those that are fully documented.”
Oklahoma is home to thousands of families where one or two members are documented while other members of that same family are not.
"Since we are at full employment in Oklahoma, even when you lose a small number of workers, those jobs can't be filled. So companies are scaling back,” Coates said. "Our gross products are going to be affected, just because we do not have an adequate labor force.”
This stress has already begun to percolate into the retail and service sectors, said Guillermo Rojas, a Tulsa restaurateur.
"They don't go to buy cars. They are returning the cars. It's hurting the dealership, the salesman, and the restaurants. They don't sell the car, and then they don't come to spend money at the restaurant,” Rojas said. "The reality is, this is not only affecting illegal residents.”
Advertisement
What's the fiscal burden?
The Congressional Budget Office recently studied the fiscal impact of unauthorized immigrants on state and local governments. It found tax revenues generated from unauthorized residents do not offset the cost of services. Nor does the federal government adequately reimburse local governments for those additional costs.
It also reports that constitutionally many states have difficulty avoiding those costs. In most states unauthorized immigrants cost states less than 5 percent of the cost to provide citizens those same services. In terms of fiscal deficits, the largest tax burden has been in education, health care and police and fire services.
"We, in the public debate, have ignored those costs for too long,” said Carol Swain, a Vanderbilt University Law professor and author. Swain said illegal immigrants strain low-income workers and criticized their advocates for demonizing dissent. Beyond the highly politicized debate, she says people are paying the price.
In 2004, the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-illegal immigration think tank, estimated that the net national impact of illegal immigration to be about $10 billion, roughly 0.09 percent of the annual budget at the time — a relatively low number.
What concerns Swain , as well as other critics of illegal immigration is that the benefits of illegal immigration are enjoyed by one group, primarily the businesses that employ them and consumers that use their services. However, the costs are endured by other groups — low-income workers who compete for those jobs and taxpayers.
"It's not costless to the nation. It's not simply a win-win, like immigration advocates would like to portray it,” Swain said.
The worst hit is native citizens, then law-abiding immigrants, she said.
"Those seeking to come to this country legally but cannot because all the attention is focused on one group,” Swain said. "What about the immigrants that are here legally and waiting for green cards and cannot (get them) because the system is clogged up with illegal immigration?”
Poverty does not justify the contradictions, she said.
How things changed here
More than 10 million undocumented immigrants have been added to our population since the 1990s.
That number includes a Tulsa landscaper who moved to the state five years ago for work. He came with a visa, but it expired. He chose not to return to Mexico.
In the last four months, he has watched relatives leave — including a brother who left for Texas and a cousin who moved to Kansas. He has stopped driving, fearing police will deport him during a traffic stop. Now, his life consists of only work. Even there, he says, he is afraid.
"I'm very scared of the law,” he said. "... I have no family here anymore; so many friends are leaving the state because they are afraid. I think they look for Hispanic people.”
"They look at our faces, and they try to see if we are Hispanic, and they are stopping us because of that,” he added.
Also in Tulsa is Antonio Perez, a well-established Hispanic businessman. He owns four grocery stores, and is seeing a significant downturn in business due to House Bill 1804. He says there has been a 30 percent decline in sales, and he is having difficulties keeping workers.
"I'm very worried about the economic impact of HB 1804,” he said. "It's only been a month, and it's already hurting us.”
Related Topics:
Public Finance, Domestic Policy, Social Policy, Federal Budget, Political Policy, Special Interest Groups, Politics, Social Issues, Immigration Policy, Hispanic and Latino Issues, Immigration
Prev
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
Thank you for joining our conversations on newsok. We encourage your discussions but ask that you stay within the bounds of our terms and conditions. Please help us by reporting comments that violate these guidelines. To review our rules of engagement, go to Commenting and posting policy.
Log in below or sign up (it's free).