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US debates deportation of skilled illegal workers

Posted on: Friday, 23 June 2006, 07:37 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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