Land of Opportunityby Anita Cirulis
In recent years, an influx of illegal immigrants, along with changes in immigration laws and policies, has created a national quagmire. As the debate about solutions becomes increasingly politicized, employers, communities—and families—are finding themselves caught in the middle.
Dawn is just a hint on the horizon when Darin Dykstra backs his Chevrolet Silverado out of the garage of his rural home in Plymouth County, Iowa. He drives across the road to the bunkers providing feed for the 3,000 Holsteins his dairy operation milks three times a day.
A quick glance inside each bunker tells him how much feed is left over. Inspection done, he heads to his office, where a computerized system allows him to make adjustments to the amount delivered to each bin.
As he works, Aaron Garrido, the head of Dykstra’s maintenance crew, enters the room to discuss the day’s assignments. Garrido has been employed by the dairy since its start in 2003 and is one of 28 Hispanics working for Dykstra. He is also part of a new wave of immigrants to northwest Iowa that’s indicative of a nationwide trend: In 1980, approximately 6 percent of the U.S. population was Hispanic; in 2006, that figure had grown to almost 15 percent.
The great majority of immigrants to the United States are “authorized migrants.” In 2004, the Migration Policy Institute estimated 71 percent of the nation’s 35.7 million foreign-born population were naturalized citizens, legal permanent residents, or temporary legal residents.
While no one knows for certain how many undocumented immigrants are in the U.S., most experts agree the number is close to 12 million. Contrary to the stereotype, not all of them arrived by slipping across the border. Two out of five entered with permission but failed to leave when their visas expired.
A Matter of Survival
People on both sides of the immigration debate agree immigrants come to the United States for jobs.
“For too long, Washington has ignored border control and enforcing Americans laws,” says U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa. “This has created job magnets that have drawn millions of illegal immigrants to America.”
Rick Clark, who teaches Spanish at Northwestern, remembers meeting an indigenous man during a church mission trip to Chiapas, Mexico, in 2004. Striking up a conversation, Clark asked what the man did and discovered he used to raise corn but hadn’t for the past two years—since trucks loaded with corn started arriving from Iowa.
“Now when I take my corn to the place that makes tortillas,” the man said, “they pay me less than what it cost to raise it, so I’ve lost all my income.”
Clark says the man’s predicament was a direct result of the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA went into effect in 1994 and is also responsible for causing Americans to lose jobs that are shipped south of the border where labor is cheaper.
“I never felt like my farmer friends here in Iowa were doing anything wrong,” Clark says. “You just feel badly for those who are negatively impacted by a global economy. This man’s story put a face on the issue and increased my understanding of why they are so desperate to come to the United States.”
Before going to Chiapas, Clark was told he wouldn’t meet any male between the ages of 15 and 50 who didn’t want to leave. In Chiapas, they could make just $1 a day; at the border, $10 a day; and in the U.S., $10 an hour.
Diane Vander Broek ’73 is employed by Community Health Partners in Orange City. A former missionary to Honduras, she speaks Spanish and works with Latino mothers and children.
“Nobody is crazy about leaving their own country and dropping into a land where they don’t speak the language or know the culture,” she says. “I know from experience it’s lonely and agonizing and scary. People come because they’re looking for a way to survive and feed their families.”
Filling Jobs
Just as immigrants need jobs, so America has needed and used immigrant labor. Early immigrants worked in coal mines, constructed railroads and operated factories. Today in northwest Iowa, they find employment at dairies and meat processing plants.
When Dykstra first advertised he was hiring, 200 people applied for seven positions. The jobs were unskilled labor; the pay started at $10 an hour; all but six of the applicants were Hispanic. The dairyman struggles to understand why.
“I don’t know if the pay’s not good enough for this kind of work, or if it’s too hard or too smelly or too dirty,” he says. In fact, Dykstra leads dairy farmers in northwest Iowa by providing his employees with health insurance, paid vacation and overtime pay for working on holidays—but the job still involves working with 1,500-pound animals and manure.
Piet Koene, who teaches Spanish at Northwestern, believes wages are the answer. “Very few people are interested, long term, in earning $10 an hour,” he says. “You can’t raise a family on that.”
According to the Pew Research Center, 7 million undocumented immigrants are working in the U.S., while the U.S. Department of Labor reports more than 68 million citizens weren’t in the labor force in 2006. “There are more than enough Americans to replace the labor currently done by illegal aliens,” King maintains.
There may be, but at what price? Like King, Mick Snieder ’06, an Orange City councilman, believes if jobs weren’t filled by people who are here illegally, they could be filled by citizens looking for work. “If an employer can’t get enough applicants,” he says, “that tells me they’re probably not paying enough or providing the right benefits or there’s something unattractive about that job.”
Dykstra points out, however, that the rollercoaster nature of agriculture makes raising wages a risk. Paying his employees an extra $5 an hour could mean an additional $250,000 per year for labor. “That could be your profit or loss in a year.”
Any such increases would ultimately be passed on to consumer. “There’s the whole spiraling economic effect,” Koene says. “Milk and eggs are relatively cheap because of low income levels on farms. Unless people really want to pay more for basic items, wages have to stay low. And the only people interested in filling those jobs are the recently arrived immigrants.”
Déjà Vu
This is not the first time waves of immigrants have stepped foot on America’s shores. The United States is a nation of immigrants.
“The overwhelming reason most immigrants come is for better economic opportunities,” says Dr. Mike Yoder, professor of sociology at Northwestern. “Most of our European ancestors were peasants. Owning land was a dream they knew they could never achieve in Europe.”
Until approximately 1880, the first wave of immigrants came from Northern and Western Europe at a time when America had an open immigration policy. Passports weren’t required until 1918, so the term “illegal immigrant” had no meaning.
From 1880 to World War II, a second wave of immigrants arrived from Southern and Eastern Europe—Italians, Poles and Russians. They were accused, Yoder says, “of taking jobs away from good, hard-working Americans and undermining the foundations of American society.”
Despite that, of the 16 million immigrants who passed through Ellis Island from 1882 to 1922, 98 percent were admitted to the United States—most within eight hours.
Yoder attributes the hostility shown toward new immigrants to something sociologists call ethnocentrism. “I view it as part of our sinful human condition,” he says. “Simply put, we find it easiest to like people like ourselves.”
The experience has been no different for those in this latest wave of immigrants dating back to the 1980s and consisting primarily of Hispanics and Asians. As Washington Post journalist Michael Powell wrote: Each generation of immigrants tends to look down on those who follow.
Changing Climate
Immigration laws are designed to keep people out, and perhaps for good reason. “America has always been seen as a land of opportunity, and that’s why there are far more immigrants who want to come here than many people say we can afford to let in,” says Yoder.
But often those laws are influenced by prejudice. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1875 limited Chinese immigrants, allowing them in only as temporary, seasonal laborers. From 1925 to 1965 there were quotas giving preference to people from Northern and Western Europe.
Economic and political factors also come into play. Waves of immigration slow to a trickle during times of depression or war. As unemployment rises, immigration restrictions tighten.
Such is the case during the current recession. “Part of our economic recovery,” King says, “needs to be putting Americans back to work rather than complacently watching them be supplanted by illegal aliens.” Dwayne Alons ’68, a Hull farmer who serves in the Iowa legislature, agrees with King and is particularly concerned about the use of taxpayer dollars.
“I think we have to guard against just blindly handing out benefits to illegals,” he says. “It encourages them to come into the state and will never end the problem.”
Koene disagrees, arguing the perception undocumented immigrants don’t pay taxes is unfounded.
“You can’t live and work in the U.S. without contributing to the system,” he says. A portion of what people pay for rent goes toward property taxes, and everyone pays sales taxes for their purchases. While there are parts of the country where wages are paid in cash under the table, Koene says that’s not the case in Sioux County: Employment is documented with regular paychecks out of which taxes for Social Security and Medicare are taken.
“Part of the Social Security surplus that currently exists is traceable to the contributions of undocumented workers who have no hope of drawing Social Security in the future,” Koene says.
Just as the economy has changed the climate for undocumented workers, so too has 9/11 and the war on terror. What used to be the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Services) is now ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and part of the Department of Homeland Security. That change, Koene says, links immigration and terrorism in the minds of many people, even though there’s no record of any terrorist having crossed the border illegally from Mexico as an undocumented worker.
“A country does need to protect its borders,” Koene acknowledges. “But protecting against incoming terrorists is different than protecting against undocumented workers.”
Divided Families
Opponents of illegal immigration decry the disregard for the law shown by those who enter the United States without permission. “The most basic reason I think it’s a problem is because it’s breaking the law,” Snieder says. “Regardless of whether it’s a law we support, it’s important to have respect for the rule of the law.”
Entering the United States without permission from the federal government is a misdemeanor for the first offense, punishable by six months in jail. But whether due to economics or national security, other immigration laws and their enforcement have changed—and those changes are having a huge impact on families.
As late as April 2001, undocumented immigrants could pay a $1,000 fine and proceed with completing their residency application without leaving the U.S. Now they must leave and apply for a visa from outside the United States, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 bars anyone who has been unlawfully present in the U.S. for more than 180 days from returning for three years. If they’ve been in the U.S. for more than a year, they are barred for 10 years.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, in March 2005 an estimated 60 percent of illegal immigrants had been here more than five years, and 34 percent, more than 10 years. Many have children who have no memory of any home other than the United States—or who were born in America and are U.S. citizens. An Urban Institute Report estimates nearly one in 10 U.S. households have at least one non-citizen parent and at least one child who is a citizen.
Those are the people most affected when the federal government, in 2007, began to focus on detaining and removing undocumented immigrants incarcerated in local jails. In one year, the percentage of Hispanics in the Sioux County jail detained by immigration authorities jumped from 8 to 36 percent, and in 2008 it reached 61 percent.
“I remember almost to the day when law enforcement decided to apply their right not to just fine people without driver’s licenses, but to jail them,” Vander Broek says, “because once those same people started going to jail, they were asked, ‘Where are you from?’ That pulled in Immigration, and then the deportations started.”
Vander Broek recalls making a home visit when authorities came and arrested both parents as undocumented immigrants. “The policemen were kind, but then they were gone—leaving a 1-year-old and a 9-year-old behind.”
Who’s Who?
Another law that has changed in the past 10 years deals with identity theft. Formerly a misdemeanor, the crime is now a felony in Iowa.
Sioux County Attorney Coleman McAllister prosecutes cases of identity theft and has seen them more than quadruple in five years. “The people I meet who are common victims of identity theft are usually poor Hispanic-Americans whose identities have been stolen,” he says. “They’re targeted because they have a Hispanic surname.”
The thefts often come to light when the victim’s credit is ruined or the government— because someone using the stolen Social Security number is impersonating the victim and drawing wages—cuts off a disability check or withholds a tax refund.
“It harms people’s credit and their ability to live,” McAllister says. “It’s a mess.”
Dykstra is expected to hire only people with the legal right to work in the U.S., but the ready availability of fake IDs makes that difficult.
“I’ve looked at my Social Security card and my kids’ Social Security cards that were issued 30 years later, and they look totally different,” he says. “How is anyone supposed to know what a valid Social Security card looks like?”
According to Koene, less than $100 will purchase a real-looking Social Security card and some type of state ID. “The technology has outpaced our ability to train employers to monitor it,” McAllister admits.
Occasionally Dykstra will get a letter from the Social Security Administration telling him an employee’s name and Social Security number don’t match. Wanting to avoid hiring an undocumented worker in the first place, Dykstra found himself in a catch-22 when he tried to go directly to the Social Security Administration to check the status of an applicant’s number. Unless that person worked for him, he was told, they couldn’t release that information.
“There’s got to be a common-sense approach for us as employers to find out if people are legal before we hire them,” Dykstra says with frustration.
E-Verify is a voluntary government program intended to confirm if an employee is legally authorized to work in the U.S. But it isn’t foolproof. Dykstra knows employers who have used E-Verify and still end up with illegal employees. That’s because, McAllister says, E-Verify only indicates if the name and Social Security number match and if that person is authorized to work. It can’t tell whether the person who presents the Social Security card is who he or she claims to be.
Ironically, E-Verify is probably increasing the demand for false documents based on a real person. Two decades ago, Clark says, there was less concern about proper paperwork—even among authorities. He knows of undocumented workers who, when filling out an application, were told to “just write something down” for their Social Security number.
In 1996, however, Iowa made it a felony to possess a forged document if it’s used to obtain employment or to show an authorized stay in the United States.
Searching for Answers
Vander Broek sees these changes in policies, laws and enforcement as part of a pattern. “Going back 100 years, it’s astounding, the repetitive cycle of how we treat immigrants,” she says. “When we need the manpower, we allow them to come in, but when we decide they’re using too much of our resources, then we ship ’em out.”
Clark agrees our society is culpable. “There have been times in which we’ve definitely said as a government, ‘Officially, you may not come into our country, but because we need workers right now, we’ll leave the backdoor open.’ That’s not the case in recent times, but those are the people who are here now and who are suddenly getting sent back.”
Regardless of who is to blame, America’s immigration crisis needs to be resolved on a national level.
King is a strong proponent of building a fence between the U.S. and Mexico border. “Like a trauma patient in the ER, we first have to stop the bleeding at the border,” he says. “We need to complete the construction of the fences that are ordered by Congress in the Secure Fence Act and build the surveillance technology that will help our Border Patrol agents become 95 percent effective.”
Snieder is also in favor of a fence, saying it’s the “simplest way” to curb illegal immigration and that its expense will be offset by savings from what illegal immigrants cost the country.
Koene believes immigration reform needs to start with the 12 million out-of-status immigrants already in the U.S.—but so far, that’s been impossible. “If anybody now offers a solution for some method of legalizing the situation for the undocumented people who are here,” he says, “their political opponents wreak havoc with their popularity.”
For Dykstra, however, some form of amnesty only makes sense.
“You can’t ship 12 million people out of the country without having a devastating effect on our economy—especially agriculture,” he says. “I also think it’s inhumane. Why not give these hard-working people who have been here a chance—the opportunity to stay, become legal over time, get driver’s licenses, and let the government know they’re here?”
King believes if the United States enforces immigration laws currently on the books and cracks down on employers hiring illegal aliens, “the aliens will voluntarily return home through attrition because they will no longer be able to find jobs.”
Koene disagrees. “They’ve put down roots,” he says. As for rounding up and deporting 12 million people, he maintains such a solution is both cost-prohibitive and logistically impossible.
“How do you determine who is legal and who is illegal?” he asks. “Who do you ask for their paperwork? There would be huge issues of discrimination.”
Julie Mitchell ’05 works for the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles. Her experience helping immigrants navigate the immigration system has shown her how difficult such an approach could be. “It’s a very confusing set of laws,” she says. “Sometimes it takes me months of work to figure out someone’s immigration status.”
Mitchell has also seen racial profiling in action. After visiting Iowa last fall, she was returning to California by Greyhound bus when immigration authorities showed up at a station as people were getting their bags. About 70 percent of the 50 passengers were Latino. “I noticed they were asking to see IDs, but they didn’t ask me for mine. I probably wasn’t checked because I’m white.”
A second aspect of immigration reform must address America’s need for workers. Under current law, a total of just 5,000 unskilled laborers—combined from all countries—are granted visas to the United States each year. Yet one dairy in Sioux County alone needs 30 such employees.
If our economy needs these workers, Koene says, we need to create a legal way of supplying them.
On this point, Snieder agrees with Koene. “I would be open to saying, ‘Let’s issue more visas,’” he says. “Let’s allow more people to become citizens, increase the quotas, whatever might be healthy for our economy. But it has to be done legally.”
Ultimately, however, there needs to be an international—not just a national—solution. Former President Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants in 1986, and now, two decades later, America finds itself in an uncannily similar situation.
Long-term immigration reform, Koene says, must focus on strengthening the economies of Mexico and Central America. “Until the economic situations in those countries improve, there’s going to be continued immigration pressures on the U.S., no matter what else the U.S. does.” 
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