JOURNAL-GAZETTE & TIMES-COURIER (Charleston, Illinois) October 4, 2006 Speaker focuses on problems facing immigrants By KATE HENDERSON, Staff Writer CHARLESTON -- Jorge Chapa brought to light the problems facing immigrants coming to the Midwest -- and flaws in the system that allowed for the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today -- in a presentation at Eastern Illinois University Monday night.
Chapa is the director of the Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society for the University of Illinois.
“If an event occurs 12 million times, it is meaningless to call it an accident,” he said as he began his presentation. “It must be seen as part of a system. Undocumented immigration had provided U.S. employers with a de facto guest worker system.”
Chapa proceeded to talk about how this “guest worker” system came to be. He talked about how employers encourage and recruit immigrants because they will work for low-pay in sub-par conditions.
Chapa next covered a more recent look at current events and immigration. He talked about border enforcement in the past and now. He said past efforts to put up fencing increased mortality rates of those trying to cross the border by nearly 400 percent.
“This weekend, Congress passed a law building 700 miles of fence along a 2,000-mile border,” Chapa said. “It didn’t work then (years ago); how will it work now?”
Chapa, author of “Apple Pie Enchiladas,” said 200,000 businesses employ undocumented immigrants across the U.S. And why do they do this?
Chapa said it’s a combination of several factors.
“They see the workers as reliable, flexible, punctual and willing to work overtime,” he said. “They also provide labor recruitment networks that are powerful for delivering recruits.”
Chapa said many employers use undocumented immigrants as a type of ordering system to get more workers for lower costs. Chapa said one solution includes enforcing employer sanctions.
“Employer sanctions are a joke,” he said. “400,000 workers use social security number 000-00-0000.”
Chapa said the employers still pay workers, knowing their ID numbers aren’t legal. He said the wage impact on other worker in the U.S. is minimal, however. He said the most affected group of U.S. born workers are those with lower education. He gave several reasons for the low impact, but one main reason.
“They’re consumers as well,” Chapa said.
Chapa also brought up the question, what to do with 12 million undocumented immigrants? He answered it by comparing a guest worker versus residency and citizenship program. He said guest workers become permanent and when employers call for them, they have to “buy” the whole package including family and culture.
“To me, if 80 million immigrants came here with green cards, why can’t Mexicans have the same rights?” he said.
Chapa cited enforcement of all workplace laws and I-9 reform, along with secure documents, as ways to aid what some see as immigration problems.
Next it was the audience’s turn to ask questions. One community member brought up the hundreds of people who wait to get legal visas in their countries and questioned how their status is hurt by illegal immigrants.
Chapa said the solution to that problem is for employers to tell Congress to issue 10 million more green cards, rather than helping employers break the law by not enforcing workplace laws.
One woman, who stated she was an immigrant to the U.S., said there are diversity visas based on what is needed in the American labor force and millions of people come in to the nation on them every year.
“Many people don’t see that,” she said. “I think we need to be more educated.”
Another audience member asked how citizens can help bring immigration issues to a community forum. Chapa said the first step is to recognize what’s going on.
“We have to stop lying to ourselves,” he said. “They’re all here because we’re part of a system, but we have to remember that they’re people too and we should treat these people as people.” Chapa gave away five of his books to those who asked the best questions in the crowd of over 50 people. He left the audience with a question to end the night.
“Is this all part of another cycle or is the system breaking apart?” he asked. “Stay tuned.” |