Losing Control of the Borders

By Maureen Dowd

Congress considers a bill to limit illegal immigration

Ernest Gustafson, the director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Phoenix district, knew things were bad. The number of illegal aliens caught in Arizona had climbed sharply, breaking records nearly every month and hitting an alltime high of 11,200 in April. Then Gustafson took a night helicopter tour of the notorious 66-mile border stretch from the Pacific inland past Chula Vista, Calif., where the Border Patrol picked up 49,511 interlopers in April, up 46% over the same period last year. When the pilot turned on the chopper's spot lights, hundreds of Mexicans could be seen striding across the desolate, scrub-covered fields deeper into the U.S. But it was not until three weeks ago, when a man came to wash his office windows, that Gustafson appreciated the full extent of the problem. "He asked me in Spanish if he could come in," Gustafson recalls. "It was apparent the guy didn't belong here." The INS official promptly began deportation proceedings against the undocumented window washer.

With the Mexican economy in a crunch, and with other countries in Central and South America racked by political instability, the steady stream of illegal immigrants is turning into a flood. "Simply put," Attorney General William French Smith told a congressional subcommittee, "we've lost control of our borders." Along the 2,000-mile southern frontier, seizures are 30% to 50% higher than last spring. The northern border is emerging as a convenient back door for refugees from the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East, most of whom can enter Canada without a visa; the flow there is up by 30% to 40%. INS Border Patrols are swamped. Says veteran Texas Officer Jack Richardson: "It's like sword fighting with Zorro with a short knife."

The Border Patrol reckons that if the wave continues, an unprecedented 2 million immigrants, double the average annual influx, may sneak into the country before 1983 is over. More than half a million will become permanent residents, joining the shadow population of 3.5 million to 6 million illegal immigrants already here. They come for jobs, scrambling through fences, hopping freight trains, wading the Rio Grande, or riding in trucks with smugglers, who charge as much as $2,000 a head. Said a Mexican baker in Phoenix who smuggled his wife and ten children across the border: "It was too hard to make a living in Mexico with so many kids. What you might earn in a week there, you can make in a day here."

There is a new desperation among the fleeing Mexicans. An economic austerity program imposed last year sent the value of the peso plummeting further, making the 36% unemployment rate (including the underemployed) seem all the more severe. Some of the once docile immigrants are carrying weapons and leading patrolmen on high-speed chases. "Mexicans are upset because they don't feel they can sustain themselves in their own country," says Mike Sheehy of the Nogales, Ariz., Border Patrol.

The new surge of immigrants comes at a time when U.S. unemployment is the highest it has been in four decades, and when federal, state and local governments are hard-pressed to meet the needs of bona fide citizens. "We have seen a change from public apathy toward concern," Gustafson says. "We are getting more calls from people who want to report illegals holding jobs."

The feeling that something has to be done--and fast--is also growing in Washington. Three weeks ago, the Senate, for the second year in a row, passed a bill introduced by Republican Senator Alan Simpson that would make the most comprehensive changes in immigration policy since 1952. A similar mea sure, introduced by Democratic Representative Romano Mazzoli, died in the House last year, but now has a fair chance for passage.

The Simpson-Mazzoli bill would I give amnesty to most illegal aliens* who entered the country before 1980, permitting them to apply for resident status. (The rest would remain in legal limbo, subject to deportation.) The Government estimates that about 2.3 million people would be eligible; the cost of social services for these newly legal residents could run into the billions. More important, the bill would punish employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants, imposing fines of up to $2,000 for each worker. Employers of four or more people would have to certify that they examined their employees' identification papers. The measure would give the President three years to develop a fraud-resistant certification system, such as a tamper-proof Social Security card, but rules out a national identification card.

Since work is what draws immigrants to the U.S., the crackdown on employers goes to the heart of the problem. Moreover, it would clear up a troubling contradiction in the present law: that it is not illegal to hire foreigners who are in the country illegally. INS Chief Alan Nelson says the initial cost of enforcing sanctions could be $40 million to $50 million but contends this amount is small compared with the financial drain caused by illegal aliens. He says the INS would spot-check employers who hired illegal aliens in the past and industries that attract them. The INS and the Labor Department would also audit a representative sample of all businesses. Nelson says more Border Patrol officers would be hired and equipped with sophisticated new infrared scopes and magnetic sensors.

The Chamber of Commerce and Hispanic groups have allied to fight the employer sanctions. Business frets that employers will be turned into paper-pushing private immigration officials; Hispanics worry about discriminatory side effects. Says Tony Bonilla, president of the League of United Latin-American Citizens: "Immigration officers won't be looking for Turks or Russians. They'll be looking for brown faces."

The bill is chafing the sometimes difficult relationship between the neighboring countries. Historically, the lax border enforcement has worked to the advantage of both. The U.S. has used Mexico as a backup labor source, and Mexico has counted on the annual flow of its natives as a "safety valve" for relieving the pressure of its high unemployment. Although the Mexican government of Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado has avoided taking a public position, Mexican leaders complain bitterly in private that the U.S. is making a unilateral decision about a problem the countries share and is "criminalizing" the immigrants.

While Mexico accounts for an estimated 92% of the illegal immigrants coming into the U.S., the number from other countries is also on the rise. In one Texas Border Patrol sector, arrested Salvadorans have doubled over the past year, from 266 to 542. One of them, Jose, 25, is trying to raise his $3,500 bond. "I can't go back to El Salvador," he says. "I'd be shot." Like Afghan and Haitian refugees, Salvadorans present thorny problems for the INS because they come requesting asylum. To get it, they must show that they have been or are likely to be persecuted for political, religious or racial reasons.

As the illegal alien population swells, a controversy roils over the effects of this "invisible" underclass on society. INS officials estimate that illegal immigrants cost the U.S. $4 billion annually in benefits, lost income taxes and wages that would otherwise go to Americans. Another study by the Environmental Fund, a Washington research group, puts the cost at $ 14 billion. It is also estimated that Mexicans ship $3 billion a year to their families back home. With easily forged documents, some illegals get all the perks of citizenship, including welfare, unemployment benefits, food stamps and Medicaid. Many illegals are paid in cash by their employers. Others, however, pay payroll and Social Security taxes but do not risk trying to collect any services in return. "That's part of the deal," says Brandeis University American Studies Professor Lawrence Fuchs. "The illegal immigrants don't have any dissatisfaction with it. It's a benign Catch-22."

A Supreme Court ruling last year guaranteed children of illegal immigrants a free public education. In Los Angeles County, officials say the annual cost of educating these children runs as high as $415 million. Texas spends about $50 million. In Brownsville, on the Texas border, School Superintendent Raul Besteiro estimates that there are some 2,000 illegal alien children among the 30,000 children in his school district. The city has 350 portable classrooms to handle the overflow. Asks a frustrated Besteiro: "Why should Brownsville taxpayers have to pay for construction for people who illegally cross our border?"

Some communities report burgeoning crime by illegal aliens. In Dallas, an outcry erupted last January when a Mexican who had been deported five times was charged with killing a policeman. "I've had 5,712 people in jail since the first of the year," says Sheriff Marshall Rousseau of Cameron County on the Texas border, "and 39% have been illegal aliens."

But the most hotly debated issue is jobs. The Department of Labor has estimated that one illegal immigrant in five is performing a job that would be done by an American worker. Most economists, however, call this estimate inflated, arguing that the degree of displacement is small. By and large, undocumented immigrants have menial, low-paying jobs in restaurants, hotels or factories, or work in the fields. "They take lousy jobs that American workers do not want," says M.I.T. Economics Professor Michael Piore. Hector, an undocumented worker in Phoenix, has achieved a comfortable middle-class life for his family--three color television sets, two freezers and two cars--by putting in long days as a $4.75-an-hour dishwasher. "Anybody can do my job," he says. "But the difference is this: I come to work every day. Americans who take the job often fail to show up for work because they don't really want the job." For marginal businesses, economists say, cheap immigrant help can make the difference between surviving or failing.

Illegal immigrants are beginning to move up the ladder to service and industry jobs. Donald Huddle, a member of the Texas Governor's Task Force on Immigration, created a stir last year when he estimated that a third of the commercial construction jobs in Houston were held by illegal aliens, who made an average wage of $4.64 an hour, 40% above the federal minimum wage of $3.35. In eastern Massachusetts in April, 26% of the 144 employed aliens picked up by the INS were earning more than $5.25 an hour, and 69% were being paid between minimum wage and $5.24 an hour.

Ironically, some immigrants try to pull the ladder up after them. Colorado Governor Richard Lamm points out that the great majority of tips to Denver immigration agents come from fellow Hispanics. "The average Hispanic understands," Lamm says, "that there are only so many jobs." In a recent poll of 457 registered Hispanic voters in southern Texas, 54% said they favored stricter enforcement of the immigration laws. "They're destroying this country," complains Juan Ramirez, laid-off master electrician from the Brownsville area. "Are you going to hire me when you can get someone else for $3.50 an hour?"

The Simpson-Mazzoli bill would take some of the burden off the Border Patrol and shift it to employers who have been turning a blind eye to their undocumented workers. But the bill is no panacea. The trek of immigrants will continue as long as some countries are rich and stable, and others are poor and torn by political dissension. Given the parlous state of so many other economies, the U.S. stands to be the land of opportunity for some time to come.

--By Maureen Dowd. Reported by Sam Allis/Houston and Bonnie Bartak/ Phoenix

*Among those ineligible for legalization would be convicted felons, Nazis, drug offenders and those who advocate the overthrow of the Government.

With reporting by Sam Allis, Bonnie Bartak This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.