Immigration in the Ozarks

The area’s Hispanic population is ballooning – up about 160 percent since 1990, according to U.S. Census 2000 data – driven by a growing economy that continues to require the fuel of manual labor.

For 18 years, Yolanda Lorge, president of Grupo LatinoAmericano and a Mexico City native, has been the first person many immigrants call when they get to Springfield.

Her nonprofit agency, with an office at 318 Park Central East, helps new Hispanic residents find work, learn English and enroll their children in school.

Lorge said a surprising 40 percent of the Springfield area’s 10,000-person Hispanic population is here illegally. She estimates that there are at least 6,000 Hispanics in Springfield – 71 percent more than the 3,500 Hispanic residents the Census reported in 2000. And another 4,000 live in Springfield’s bedroom communities, Lorge said.

Help wanted

Illegal immigration is certainly a hot-button topic, characterized by stacks of legislation, activist groups and widespread rallies. Employment is at the heart of the matter.

President Bush told a national TV audience May 15 that he wants to deploy as many as 6,000 national guard troops to the Mexican border and implement a temporary worker program to match willing foreign workers with willing American employers.

“Illegal immigrants live in the shadows of our society,” Bush told the nation. “Many use forged documents to get jobs, and that makes it difficult for employers to verify that the workers they hire are legal.”

There are an estimated 12 million illegal Mexican immigrants living in the United States, though the government doesn’t have an accurate number for obvious reasons. Every year, hundreds of thousands, maybe more than a million, risk death during weeklong treks across the desert in an attempt to make a new life in the United States, a place they see as the land of milk and honey.

“It’s like going to space,” Lorge said, describing the typical journey to America. “I would want that person to work for me. Just think of the work ethic that they have.”

It seems many have no problem finding work, mostly in construction, services, agriculture and food-processing industries.

Adolfo Castillo, president of Joplin-based Tri-State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said Hispanics filled 42.7 percent of the nation’s new jobs from April 2005 to April 2006, despite being only 13.6 percent of the U.S. work force.

Understanding the desperation

Mexico native Dr. J. Humberto Hernandez, a Cassville family practitioner who legally immigrated to the United States in 1979, said it’s very difficult to make ends meet in Mexico, a country he believes is shackled with a corrupt government and a failing economy.

“There are a lot of desperate people in Mexico – people who are starving, people who can not find a reasonable living even if they go to professional schools,” Hernandez said. “You can build all the fences that you want, but they’re going to keep digging, and they’re going to keep crossing. Why? Because there is a hope for a better life.”

U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said the Mexican economy is improving, but it still doesn’t present the opportunities that the American economy does.

“Mexico happens to be the neighbor to what is currently the strongest sustained economy in the world,” Blunt said.

Lorge said two other factors contribute to growth among Hispanic populations. First, most immigrants are young and starting families. Second, relatives and friends often follow from Mexico.

Love is then, in a sense, killing small towns across Mexico. As Mexicans join their loved ones in the United States, they leave their hometowns withering behind in economic depression with only the elderly remaining.

For example, Lorge said, 18 years ago there were three families in Springfield that came from El Patol, Mexico, a village in the central state of San Luis Potosi. Now, she said, 75 percent of that village’s population lives in Springfield.

She said about 75 percent of the Hispanic population in Carthage came from Guatemala, a country bordering Mexico to the south.

“This is not an individualistic culture,” she said. “Everywhere you go you want to have your family with you.”

Green tackle

Green cards, and green dollars, are the goal of every immigrant. The dollars are easy to get for immigrant workers – U.S. companies face big employee shortages and Lorge said Mexicans are flexible, adaptive and usually able to find jobs within a couple of days.

Green cards, however, are not easy to get.

Tim Counts, Immigration & Customs Enforcement spokesman, said immigrants should ideally visit the United States with a visa, if required, and petition Citizenship & Immigration Services for resident status before entering.

Even that process is complicated and time consuming, he said.

It’s also not a viable option for most Mexicans. To immigrate legally, Counts said, a person must either prove that an immediate relative is already living here legally, or an employer must prove that it needs the immigrant worker to fill a job opening that no U.S. citizen is able or willing to fill. Those jobs are usually very technical.

About 80 percent of legal immigrants come to the United States via a relative, 15 percent come via a job opening and the other 5 percent come as refugees or to escape persecution.

Illegal immigrants already in the country don’t have many options available for naturalization, either. It’s possible to gain legal status, but applicants often can’t overcome a criminal past, Counts added.

While simply immigrating illegally is a civil matter, it can be prosecuted criminally. Also, Counts said, about half of the 167,000 illegal immigrants who his agency deported last fiscal year had other criminal infractions to their detriment.

Being married to a U.S. citizen or parenting U.S.-born children is often the basis for gaining legal status, but it’s not failsafe.

Every illegal immigrant must receive approval from a federal immigration judge to stay, regardless of their stature in society.

“There is no automatic legal force field that suddenly pops up around a person if they’re married to a U.S. citizen,” Counts said.

Blue Collars & White Coats: Immigrants earn a living in the Ozarks