US debates deportation of skilled illegal workers

By Jason Szep and Luis Andres Henao

BOSTON (Reuters) – After Mario Rodas graduated from high
school in Massachusetts with honors, the Guatemalan teen did
what many ambitious students do: he set his sights on Harvard
University.

He studied accounting at Harvard’s extension school one
night a week, while holding down an office job to save up for a
degree program and support his 5-year-old brother, Kevin. He
felt good about his prospects.

Now the 19-year-old faces deportation after his arrest by
federal and local agents on March 6 as part of a series of
raids on illegal immigrants across Massachusetts.

His case highlights a paradox in America’s quest for
tighter borders: Rodas, who entered the United States illegally
six years ago, is picking up skills that are valuable in
today’s job market, especially in Massachusetts, the only U.S.
state to see its population decline for two straight years.

It also illustrates how deeply absorbed undocumented
immigrants such as Rodas, who overstayed a tourist visa, have
become in the U.S. economy. It coincides with a contentious
debate in Congress over reforms, like creating a temporary
worker program, that could determine their fate.

In Massachusetts, high housing costs and disappearing jobs
at manufacturers and banks have driven skilled workers away to
other states for two decades. Immigrants, legal and illegal,
are filling the void. Most are from Central and South America.

“Massachusetts has been dependent on immigration for all of
its employment growth since the late 1980s,” said Andrew Sum,
director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern
University in Boston. “In the absence of new immigrants, the
labor force could have actually declined considerably.”

Most of the undocumented workers fill construction,
landscaping and other unskilled jobs. A Boston Globe analysis
published on Sunday of nine recent public works projects showed
that a third of 242 workers on weekly payroll lists lacked
legitimate Social Security numbers.

Nationally, Sum reckons 56 percent of the rise in U.S.
employment from 2000 to 2005 can be attributed to undocumented
immigrants. In the same period, jobs disappeared for U.S.-born
adults aged 16 to 24 and African-Americans without college
degrees, he said.

“The greater the influx of illegal immigrants into any
state, the greater the employment loss among people under the
age of 35, particularly men without college degrees,” he said.

GETTING CAUGHT

Under pressure to shave costs, many companies find it
easier to hire immigrants illegally than legally. Quotas on
visas, paperwork and fees are a big deterrent, as is the cost
of health insurance, benefits and payroll taxes.

Also, the chance of getting caught is slim.

Arrests announced last week by U.S. Customs of about 2,000
illegal immigrants in a nationwide sweep are a tiny fragment of
about 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States,
according to one estimate by Jeffrey Passel, a senior Pew
Hispanic Center researcher.

About 7.2 million of those immigrants without legal
documents held jobs as of March last year, he estimates.

Immigrant advocacy groups say they fear criminals get
pooled together with promising workers like Rodas, a
soft-spoken teenager who speaks fluent English and was at the
top of his class at Chelsea High School in Massachusetts, where
he was elected National Honor Society secretary.

He faces an immigration judge on June 27 but has some
influential supporters.

Democratic Sen. John Kerry and six other Massachusetts
Congressmen have signed a letter to U.S. homeland security
chief Michael Chertoff urging him to stop the deportation. If
this is denied, Rodas has 120 days to leave the country.

“This has become my home,” he said before recounting his
arrest. “They gave me a bottle of milk and a sandwich but there
was something in my throat that wouldn’t let me swallow,” he
said. “I was depressed and concerned about my future.”

Many illegal immigrants say Rodas’ case underscores their
own worst fears: even if they work hard, avoid crime and blend
in, they can never escape the constant threat of deportation.

“We watch news of arrests in New York, Connecticut, Boston,
and we know that we could be next,” said Eurico Ferreira J.R, a
47-year-old Brazilian journalist who works as a book-seller.

Sum said the case highlights the overwhelming need for
reform. “We’re increasing the pool of unskilled labor and
decreasing the pool of skilled labor,” he said.