We’ll get into more detail next week over the landmark compromise over immigration between Congressional Democrats and President George W. Bush. However, one detail that has caught my eye concerns the reporting by different news sources on immigrant reactions to the deal. From an Associated Press’ article entitled “Illegal Immigrants Speak Out Against Plan”:
“(Illegal immigrant Daniel Carrillo) said the proposed $5,000 fine was too much to ask illegal immigrants to pay upfront. ‘Where would I find $5,000? In two years, I don't get $5,000.’
`Too many people would not go because of the fear that they would not be approved once they get there,'' (immigrant Marco Antonio) Rodriguez said. ‘Myself, I might risk it, because I am here alone. But people with families are not going to leave their children behind and wait eight years.’”
From a Reuters article entitled “Workers caught daydreaming on immigration deal”:
“‘The first thing I want to do is to go home and hug my wife and children,’ said Hermilo Sanchez, 44, a Mexican who left his wife and nine children in the dirt poor state of Chiapas two years ago to find a job in the United States.
‘The youngest, a little girl, was born after I left and I have never held her,’ he said, chatting in Spanish as he waited in a sun-baked parking lot for contractors to roll up, looking for muscle for landscaping and other low skill tasks.
For Rogelio Cruz, a devout church goer and father of four from Michoacan, Mexico, it raises the hope of escaping a world of irregular work paid at $7 to $8 dollars an hour while in constant fear of deportation.
‘I want to work an eight-hour day, as God sees fit, without problems with either the immigration authorities or the police or anybody," he said. "Everyone should have the right to that in this life.’”
While both articles differ in their slant over immigrants’ reactions to the compromise, note that only immigrants from Mexico were interviewed in both pieces.
Sources- BBC News, Guardian UK, Reuters
Image- MSNBC (Mexicans waiting for visas outside the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico)
In the caricature, the well-endowed Obama asks people to “look at the ‘pendulum’ and repeat after me: all is well. All is very well.”
