IDAHO STATESMAN

May 12, 2006

Opportunities attract illegal immigrants who may lack connections to cross legally

In 1988, Vicente Terriquez was a 17-year-old farmworker in Jalisco, Mexico, who wanted opportunities for work and education he couldn't find at home.

He faced a future as a Jalisco farmworker earning less than $6 per day.

"You can get by," the Kuna resident said, "but it's not enough to send your kids to college or to give them a good living."
Generally, to come to the United States legally takes having a close family member here or an employer to sponsor the worker. Terriquez had no family sponsor and no connections or skills beyond the strength of his hands.

So he jumped the U.S./Mexico border into California, where he found work in the fields. In 1990, he applied for permanent residence under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Last year, he became a U.S. citizen.
Terriquez says he chose the only way an unskilled worker like him could get to America.

"If you want to cross the border legally, you have to have a profession and some money," he said. "People like me, when we have the chance, we do things legally."
Many immigrants took the same route to Idaho. Without a family or profession to provide a legal avenue into the U.S., they chose to enter illegally and then applied to become legal, immigration attorneys said. That avenue has become more difficult in recent years.

"A lot of people say, 'Why don't they just come in legally,' but it's not easy," said Kathy Railsback, a Boise immigration attorney. "You have to be a close family member or have an employer.
"The average family in Mexico is not going to know an employer. There really isn't a mechanism for those folks to come in."

Their other choice is to obey the law and stay in Mexico. But the lure of much higher wages — U.S. farmworkers make about the same for an hour's work that they would earn all day in Mexico — is strong.
Annual numerical caps on U.S. visas cause years of delays for millions of applicants who do want to immigrate legally, according to attorneys and government Web sites.

Mexicans who applied to join family in the United States seven to 15 years ago are just now being allowed to apply for a visa, according to the U.S. Department of State.

All countries have the same general cap on immigration to the U.S. — up to 25,620 per country, or 7 percent of the total 366,000 family or employment visas the United States can grant each year. But the demand from Mexico and a few other countries — notably India, China and the Philippines — is much higher than from Europe and other areas, making the process much more difficult, Boise immigration attorney Maria Andrade said.
"French requests for immigration are a fraction of Mexico's," Andrade said. "It's not the same line. There's a severely long wait, and families in Mexico already have been separated."

It took two years for Terriquez to become a permanent resident, and another 13 to become a citizen.
Terriquez, now 36, lives with his young family in Kuna. Becoming a citizen in 2005 took reams of paperwork, more than $1,000, numerous interviews, a medical exam, oral and written citizenship tests, and learning to read and write English — a language that fascinates him.

"It's a long time, but it's worth the waiting and the suffering," he said.

Most people who could have obtained residency through the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act are in the process or have completed it, according to immigration attorneys. People who may qualify but have not applied and are still here illegally would be subject to the current legislation in Congress, which would make it a felony to be in this country illegally, Andrade and other attorneys say.
HB 4437, passed by the U.S. House, also calls for nearly 700 miles of wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and would punish employers for hiring undocumented workers. A slightly different measure has been proposed in the U.S. Senate.

Terriquez said people like him who came here illegally, then became citizens through previous immigration reforms have become business owners and homeowners who contribute to society.
"We are helping the community," he said. "We come here to support the country and make it better. We hope that in the future, people can look at us in the way we are. We're not terrorists."