Jan. 23, 2009
By MALCOLM GARCIA
Guillermo Alvidrez stood inside the Westside CAN Center, clutching his cold hands beneath his chin to warm them.
He had been outside hoping for someone to drive up and offer him some work, but, as in previous days, no one had. Around him, other day laborers huddled in groups talking, bored and bumming cigarettes. Alvidrez engaged in small talk with little interest.
“My cousin went back to Mexico in January,” said Alvidrez, 44. “Not me. There’s no work there either.”
More and more, day laborers in the metro area are finding it hard if not impossible to find steady work, a stark turnaround from recent years, when the housing boom and a bustling economy provided regular jobs.
Now, with the competition for jobs increased by workers laid off from full-time jobs, they face the hard choice of returning to their native countries or toughing it out here.
“We saw the economy slow before everyone else,” said Lynda Callon, executive director of the Westside Community Action Network Center Inc., better known as the CAN center. “Part of it is the winter doldrums, but there weren’t as many jobs even last year. Since before Thanksgiving, they started getting less than six to eight hours of work a day.”
But whether this means more Hispanics are returning to their native countries is hard to determine. If indeed they are, the country’s economic ills may take the heat off one of its most controversial issues: what to do about illegal immigration.
According to a December 2008 Pew Hispanic Center analysis of Census Bureau data, a small but significant decline has occurred during the current recession in the number of Hispanic immigrants active in the U.S. labor force. In a year when jobs have become scarce, the proportion of working-age Latino immigrants participating in the labor force has fallen, at least through the third quarter of 2008.
The report concluded that it was not possible to determine whether some of the foreign-born Hispanics who left the labor force returned to their countries of origin, although the growth in the immigrant Hispanic population has leveled off in recent years.
Still, said Jacob Prado, Mexican consul in Kansas City, it is too soon to say what this leveling off means.
“We do not have evidence of huge returns of Mexican immigrants,” Prado said. “They are going to different places in the United States, following economic opportunities in places where they are welcome.”
A mixed collection of documented and undocumented workers make up Hispanic day laborers. Many, especially farm laborers, have been documented for years and have chosen the work they do.
But often the assumption is the workers are illegal, and in the past several years the U.S. has witnessed an illegal-immigrant backlash that reflects a broader anxiety over terrorism, the health of the economy and the impact of globalization. Despite the apparent decline in the numbers of Hispanic immigrants, those concerns remain.
“Unless you live on the border, the perception is you don’t really see that much difference in numbers,” said Suzanne Gladney, managing attorney of Legal Aid of Western Missouri. “They’re still here where they are seen, and some people are not happy about it.”
Don Kerwin, vice president for programs at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., noted that the amount of money Hispanic immigrants send to their families fell 10 percent in 2008.
“The economy has slowed, and there are fewer jobs in industries served by immigrant laborers,” he said. “The result has been a slowing of people coming here and some level of departures.”
Still, “there does not seem to be a mass exodus,” he said.
Callon, at the CAN Center, said she has noticed that the natural ebb and flow of day laborers entering and leaving the U.S. as they follow seasonal employment has slowed considerably since the Border Patrol cracked down on illegal border crossings.
Those who would have left Kansas City remain here because of the difficulties involved in returning to their native countries. As a consequence, more day laborers are looking for work now than otherwise might be.
“We tell them the economy is going to be bad for a while,” Callon said, “and they have to figure out how to sustain themselves.”
In the Farm Belt, the immigrant laborers most affected are those not connected with a “crew leader,” a farm labor contractor who works with large orchard owners. Many farm laborers have been with the same crew leader for generations and work the same orchards year after year.
“If they’re not in the system, they have to ask themselves, ‘Where can I wander around and find work?’ ” Gladney said. “If they don’t have somewhere to go, they don’t have money. They go back to Mexico. They can’t live on nothing.”
In Kansas City, Kan., pastor Fernando Aguilar of La Fe en Jesucristo Church knows several Hispanic immigrant families who tired of living on nothing and returned to Mexico. A father with his wife and three children called him from a bus station and said that without a job he had no choice but to leave.
“He was very sad and embarrassed,” recalled Aguilar. “These people are good workers. Most of the time they work for less than minimum wage. I want to help them, but I have limits. In this case, there was nothing I could do.”
Without work, Alvidrez said he was not sure what he would do or where he would go. He was having trouble feeding himself, he said, let alone paying rent, not at all like it was when he moved to Kansas City in 2007 for work and to escape the violence of the drug cartels in his native Juarez, Mexico.
Back then he found dozens of construction jobs. Not now.
“It’s very slow,” Alvidrez said. “It’s always slow when it’s cold, but the economy has made it real slow. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Source: Kansas City Star
By MALCOLM GARCIA
Guillermo Alvidrez stood inside the Westside CAN Center, clutching his cold hands beneath his chin to warm them.
He had been outside hoping for someone to drive up and offer him some work, but, as in previous days, no one had. Around him, other day laborers huddled in groups talking, bored and bumming cigarettes. Alvidrez engaged in small talk with little interest.
“My cousin went back to Mexico in January,” said Alvidrez, 44. “Not me. There’s no work there either.”
More and more, day laborers in the metro area are finding it hard if not impossible to find steady work, a stark turnaround from recent years, when the housing boom and a bustling economy provided regular jobs.
Now, with the competition for jobs increased by workers laid off from full-time jobs, they face the hard choice of returning to their native countries or toughing it out here.
“We saw the economy slow before everyone else,” said Lynda Callon, executive director of the Westside Community Action Network Center Inc., better known as the CAN center. “Part of it is the winter doldrums, but there weren’t as many jobs even last year. Since before Thanksgiving, they started getting less than six to eight hours of work a day.”
But whether this means more Hispanics are returning to their native countries is hard to determine. If indeed they are, the country’s economic ills may take the heat off one of its most controversial issues: what to do about illegal immigration.
According to a December 2008 Pew Hispanic Center analysis of Census Bureau data, a small but significant decline has occurred during the current recession in the number of Hispanic immigrants active in the U.S. labor force. In a year when jobs have become scarce, the proportion of working-age Latino immigrants participating in the labor force has fallen, at least through the third quarter of 2008.
The report concluded that it was not possible to determine whether some of the foreign-born Hispanics who left the labor force returned to their countries of origin, although the growth in the immigrant Hispanic population has leveled off in recent years.
Still, said Jacob Prado, Mexican consul in Kansas City, it is too soon to say what this leveling off means.
“We do not have evidence of huge returns of Mexican immigrants,” Prado said. “They are going to different places in the United States, following economic opportunities in places where they are welcome.”
A mixed collection of documented and undocumented workers make up Hispanic day laborers. Many, especially farm laborers, have been documented for years and have chosen the work they do.
But often the assumption is the workers are illegal, and in the past several years the U.S. has witnessed an illegal-immigrant backlash that reflects a broader anxiety over terrorism, the health of the economy and the impact of globalization. Despite the apparent decline in the numbers of Hispanic immigrants, those concerns remain.
“Unless you live on the border, the perception is you don’t really see that much difference in numbers,” said Suzanne Gladney, managing attorney of Legal Aid of Western Missouri. “They’re still here where they are seen, and some people are not happy about it.”
Don Kerwin, vice president for programs at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., noted that the amount of money Hispanic immigrants send to their families fell 10 percent in 2008.
“The economy has slowed, and there are fewer jobs in industries served by immigrant laborers,” he said. “The result has been a slowing of people coming here and some level of departures.”
Still, “there does not seem to be a mass exodus,” he said.
Callon, at the CAN Center, said she has noticed that the natural ebb and flow of day laborers entering and leaving the U.S. as they follow seasonal employment has slowed considerably since the Border Patrol cracked down on illegal border crossings.
Those who would have left Kansas City remain here because of the difficulties involved in returning to their native countries. As a consequence, more day laborers are looking for work now than otherwise might be.
“We tell them the economy is going to be bad for a while,” Callon said, “and they have to figure out how to sustain themselves.”
In the Farm Belt, the immigrant laborers most affected are those not connected with a “crew leader,” a farm labor contractor who works with large orchard owners. Many farm laborers have been with the same crew leader for generations and work the same orchards year after year.
“If they’re not in the system, they have to ask themselves, ‘Where can I wander around and find work?’ ” Gladney said. “If they don’t have somewhere to go, they don’t have money. They go back to Mexico. They can’t live on nothing.”
In Kansas City, Kan., pastor Fernando Aguilar of La Fe en Jesucristo Church knows several Hispanic immigrant families who tired of living on nothing and returned to Mexico. A father with his wife and three children called him from a bus station and said that without a job he had no choice but to leave.
“He was very sad and embarrassed,” recalled Aguilar. “These people are good workers. Most of the time they work for less than minimum wage. I want to help them, but I have limits. In this case, there was nothing I could do.”
Without work, Alvidrez said he was not sure what he would do or where he would go. He was having trouble feeding himself, he said, let alone paying rent, not at all like it was when he moved to Kansas City in 2007 for work and to escape the violence of the drug cartels in his native Juarez, Mexico.
Back then he found dozens of construction jobs. Not now.
“It’s very slow,” Alvidrez said. “It’s always slow when it’s cold, but the economy has made it real slow. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Source: Kansas City Star
