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The Waiting Game
Mexican Immigrants Face Tough Choices Amid Recession, Terror Fallout: Stay Jobless or Go Home

By Jason Felch and Todd Dayton

photo by Jason Felch Work is scarce for Mexican day laborers on Cesar Chavez Street.

SAN FRANCISCO — Eutimio, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who slipped into California across the southern border two years ago, has been doing more waiting than working since September 11th.

A few months ago, Eutimio, who preferred not to give his last name, found work five or six days a week, usually earning $10 an hour. Lately, he isn't making enough to pay rent for the three-bedroom apartment he shares with eight others, much less send money home to his wife and four-year-old daughter in Puebla, Mexico.

Like hundreds of undocumented Mexicans, Eutimio spends his days loitering along San Francisco's Cesar Chavez Street, the city's largest informal day labor pick-up strip. With no work to be done, he passes time telling jokes, learning English by listening to talk radio, and hoping for a landscaping truck or moving van to stop on his corner.

If work doesn't pick up, he says, he'll return to Mexico.

More information: Sending Money Home Rising Worker Remittances Highlight "Overlapping Societies," Help Fuel Mexican Economy By Jason Felch SAN FRANCISCO — Remittances – money sent home from Mexican workers in the US – play an vital role in the Mexican economy. Immigration by the Numbers Vital statistics about trends in immigration Related links: California Policy Research Center Mexican National Council on Population Center for Immigration Studies National Immigration Forum Immigration and Naturalization Services

In California, where the terrorist attacks and anthrax scares can seem as distant as Kabul, it is Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal, who have seen their world immensely changed. As recently as three months ago, California's vibrant economy offered jobs and security to millions of Mexican immigrants. But with the economy in recession and immigration policy in flux, the United States is fading as a beacon of opportunity.

Working poor hard hit by faltering economy
Just a few months ago, the biggest concern for many Mexican immigrants in the Bay Area was the threat being pushed out by high rent and gentrification that came with the booming internet economy.

If the economy's recent downturn eased some of that rental crunch, it has been far from a relief for the Mexican immigrant community. Cancelled conventions, empty restaurants, and vacant hotels that followed the terrorist attacks have yielded huge jobs cuts in the most frequent employment sectors for immigrants, says Andres Jimenez, the director of the California Policy Research Center.

Agriculture, another large employer of Mexicans, has been largely unaffected, meaning lost jobs are focused mostly in cities.

These lost jobs are particularly devastating to Mexicans living in the US, one quarter of whom are poor, according to Mexico's National Council of Population.

photo by Jason Felch Local 2 workers wait for holiday food relief.

According to the California Employment Development Department, unemployment leapt to 4.5 percent in October, up from 2.1 percent just a year ago in San Francisco, Marin, and San Mateo counties. Of the thousands of jobs lost in September and October, over half were in hospitality, service, and construction. Those numbers are expected to jump again when the November figures are released.

Manuel Castro, a union representative for San Francisco's Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union, Local 2, says that almost 3,000 workers, more than a third of the membership, have lost their jobs in the past two months. Latinos working as housekeepers, dishwashers, and porters have been hit especially hard.

"They're looking for part-time work all over the city," says Castro.

Lidia Caseros, a Local 2 member and mother of three young children, waited in a long line one recent afternoon for the emergency food relief that the union is distributing to its workers. The Park 55 Hotel, where Caseros has worked for eight years as a maid, put her on call six weeks ago. Though still officially employed, she hasn't worked in over a week, and only occasionally before that. But because she hasn't been laid off, Caseros cannot collect unemployment.

photo by Jason Felch Lidia Caseros may not have enough for Christmas gifts for her children this year.

Now Caseros and her husband, who earns $380 per week as a parking attendant, are weighing options they would have never considered a few months ago. Her husband talks of moving back to El Salvador, where he has family, if things don't get better soon.

"This city is too small for all the people who want work," says Luis, a 47-year-old undocumented day laborer who, like Eutimio, waits for work along Cesar Chavez Street.

For the first time, he has begun to see documented workers along with the undocumented. Those who have been laid off are coming here to supplement their unemployment money, Luis says.

Ever since he was a teenager, Luis has migrated between Guanajuato, Mexico and work in cities like Atlanta, Green Bay, and San Francisco. He's seen more of this country than many Americans. His eyes look accustomed to squinting, and his hair has gone gray. He can't remember exactly how many times he has crossed the border, but guesses more than 20.

Today's labor market is the worst he's seen in years. With every new face that appears on Cesar Chavez each morning, there are fewer jobs for the taking. Shoving matches erupt when cars slow to pick up a worker or two from the crowd.

A year ago, a skilled construction worker like Luis could find work six or seven days a week, earning about $140 each day. Now Luis is lucky to work three days a week. For unskilled workers, one or two is the best many can do.

The San Francisco Day Labor Program, a city-funded organization that matches day laborers with jobs, found work for 120 laborers last October. This year, fewer jobs meant only 70 people were hired.

Tonia Macneil, a 55-year-old Potrero Hill resident who has used the Day Labor Program for the past five years, says these days she is more worried about consolidating her debts than fixing up her house.

"[Using the program] is more of luxury for me now. I've got plenty of work around the house that needs to be done, but I think, can it go for another year?"

For Luis, who now earns just enough to pay rent and eat, less work means less money to wire home. Money to send home – remittances to Mexico – is what brings Luis, and more than a million like him, to California every year, despite the dangers. When it goes, so will Luis.

Immigration changes breed hope in Washington, fear in communities
A flurry of changes in immigration policy is also having an impact on how Mexican immigrants view life in America. While some policy experts in Washington say that the September 11 attacks may ultimately benefit Mexican immigrants, in local communities an entirely different message is being heard.

Days before the terrorist assault on New York and Washington, Mexican President Vicente Fox met with President Bush in Washington to discuss immigration reforms that would allow many of the 3.5 million undocumented Mexicans in the US to "regularize" their status. These reforms, which Bush supported three months ago, are now less certain.

Noting that all 19 hijackers were immigrants, conservative groups in Washington, like the Center for Immigration Studies, claim immigration reforms are now "dead on arrival." Other beltway immigration experts see September 11 as only a temporary delay, and possibly even a catalyst for reforms.

"People in Washington realize that having so many [undocumented immigrants] living in the shadows gives ample space for terrorists to hide," says Douglas Rivlin, spokesperson for the pro-regularization National Immigration Forum. By bringing undocumented people into the system, Rivlin argues, the country could significantly improve its law enforcement capabilities. "These ideas are gaining traction in Washington."

In an effort to keep immigration reform on the table, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt recently visited Mexico.

But for Mexicans in the Bay Area, that hopeful message is being drowned out by a more menacing one coming from the Bush administration.

Attorney General John Ashcroft last month sent out a firm warning to the country's immigrants: "If you overstay your visa – even by one day – we will arrest you. If you violate a local law, you will be put in jail and kept in custody as long as possible."

Those threats have been followed by waves of new legislation that link counter-terrorism with tighter control of immigrants, including a biometric entry/exit tracking system for everyone entering the country, significant increases to the Border Patrol, strict new visa standards, lower legal thresholds for surveillance and detention, and most recently, military tribunals with secret proceedings and no opportunity for appeal.

These changes, while directed specifically at immigrants suspected of being involved in terrorism, have sent shockwaves throughout the broader immigrant community, raising fears of a return to the anti-immigrant policies. For Mexican immigrants, of whom between 800,000 and one million make round-trip journeys between Mexico and the US each year according to the Migration Policy Institute, fear and confusion abound.

"There is disquiet in the Latino community about immigration protections," says Melba Maldonado, executive director of La Raza Information Center in San Francisco "When you have that type of information coming out, people start getting anxious."

Among legal immigrants, this fear has led many to consider citizenship.

photo by Jason Felch Hilda Pérez, a hotel maid, is only working one or two days a week.

"We've seen a boom in calls from people wanting to resolve their immigration status," says Anamaria Loya, director of Centro Legal, a San Francisco non-profit that provides legal services to immigrants. "We used to get ten calls per month. In October we stopped counting at 150."

Loya says the last time there was such a rush was after the passage of California's Proposition 187, which limited immigrants' access to public benefits, and was seen as part of a larger anti-immigrant movement by many.

Loya doesn't think her clients' fears are unfounded. "There is some reason to be afraid. ‘Reasonable suspicion' of terrorist involvement" – the new standard by which the government is able to detain immigrants – "is a very low legal standard."

Mexican immigrants without documentation face tough decisions about what to do.

"We've heard people say they want to go back to their country," Maldonado said.

A turning point for Mexico and the US
In the Mission District, it is a time of goodbyes, some of them for good. During the winter holiday season, many Mexicans visit family and friends south of the border. This year, some won't be coming back.

photo by Jason Felch Some undocumented Mexican immigrants are thinking of returning home.

"I've never sold so many one-way tickets," says Nohemi Tamariz, an agent at Globetrotter Travel on Mission Street, which specialized in tickets to Mexico and Latin America. "I ask them how come [they're leaving] and they say ‘I don't want to be here.'"

Jesus Colmenares, a salesman at Mission City Trading, says that while business is otherwise slow, his sales in luggage and San Francisco memorabilia are booming.

Though legal immigrants struggle with layoffs, most have an established social network here in the US that will help get them through tough times. On the other hand, many illegal immigrants with fewer ties, like Eutimio, are heading back to Mexico.

More than 350,000 immigrants have returned to Mexico since September 11th, according to the National Immigration Institute of Mexico. Yesterday's heroic breadwinners are returning home with empty pockets and bad news.

That bad news has spread quickly through the communities that have long sent their young men to work in the US, resulting in a huge drop in immigration from Mexico since September 11, according to recent figures from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

In October, apprehensions of illegal immigrants in California's two Border Patrol districts dropped an average of 57 percent compared to October of last year. While apprehensions measure only a fraction of those who try to enter the country illegally, Border Patrol officials say they are an accurate gauge of illegal immigration trends.

Legal immigration has also fallen. During October, the INS reported a 29 percent decline in crossings at the three busiest ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border – two of them in California – compared to October of 2000.

While the impact of decreasing migration on California's economy may be small, the Mexican economy could suffer in the months and years to come. Fewer immigrants coming to the US, and less work for those who choose to stay, means less money sent home. These remittances are the third largest source of income for Mexico, after petroleum and tourism, amounting to between $6 and $8 billion per year.

"There is a danger of strangling our border," says Adolfo Aguilar, National Security Advisor to President Fox, reflecting the concern many Mexican officials feel about a change in border policy.

Mexico and the US are at an important turning point in their relationship. The century-old exchange between what Aguilar calls our "overlapping societies" – cheap labor for the US, jobs for Mexico – could be put in jeopardy by stricter immigration policy.

Or, as Aguilar and many in Washington hope, the attacks could be a catalyst for increased recognition of the two countries' interdependence. There is talk of creating a North American security perimeter that would eventually allow people to flow through the Mexican border as they now cross the Canadian.

Likewise, the "regularization" of undocumented Mexicans in the US may bolster homeland security.

"The agenda of immigration is the agenda of security," Aguilar says. "This is the opportunity we have today."

Which direction the US takes will be determined over the next few months as Congress and the Bush administration revisit the pre-war agenda. Until then, California's Mexican community continues to wait.