Immigration meeting draws crowd looking for changes : News-Record.com : Greensboro & the Triad's most trusted source for local news and analysis

GREENSBORO — Sandra Hernandez is a naturalized citizen from El Salvador who lives in Alamance County with her children, Fernando and Leticia. But her husband, Francisco Javier Calderón, is thousands of miles away, she says, because of an inefficient immigration system.

Hernandez pleaded to Sen. Kay Hagan’s staff for better immigration policies along with dozens of reform advocates at the Congregational United Church of Christ on Thursday.

“Is it incompetence or ill will that is keeping him from us?” 12-year-old Fernando asked, as he translated for his mother, who spoke little English. “How can it take six months to review a marriage license?”

Hagan, D-N.C., did not attend the packed town hall meeting. Her deputy state director, Tony Caravano, went in her stead.

“The main reason that Sen. Hagan has asked me to be here today was to listen,” he said.

An immigrant student, civic leaders and business people testified about the way the immigration system devastates families.

Hernandez, who owns a cleaning service, was naturalized in 1996. She said she has fought futilely for her husband’s citizenship ever since.

“Every time we get our hopes up, something goes wrong,” Fernando Hernandez said, from a statement offered by his mother.

“The consulate misplaces our papers, they need to interview him one more time, somebody who has to decide something is on vacation.”

In the current system, speakers said people invited to work from other countries aren’t provided visas, children of immigrants aren’t provided an affordable college education, and immigrant workers labor in terrible conditions.

Caravano read a statement from Hagan, saying that she would consider the speakers’ accounts in a comprehensive immigration reform package to be written as early as this month.

“The reform should cut back on waste, duplication and needless delays by reducing backlogs and streamlining the application process,” Caravano said.

“We could provide incentives for individuals and companies to follow rules by restoring common sense in the current system.”

Hagan opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants. She said in a statement this week that reform should focus on strengthening borders, strengthening guest worker programs and punishing businesses that knowingly hire illegal workers to cut off the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that North Carolina had about 350,000 illegal residents in 2008.

The Rev. Julie Peeples said after the gathering that she was pleased with the turnout.

“There was a great spirit in the crowd,” she said. “There is obviously a huge desire to see immigration reform.”

The Rev. Maria Palmer, director of multicultural student affairs at N.C. A&T, encouraged the audience to call and write their congressmen repeatedly.

“Please don’t let this be a one-night sacrifice to be heard,” she said. “The families cannot forget this for one night, one dinner.

“Please keep this in your hearts and act on it.”

Contact Dioni L. Wise at dioni.wise at 373-7090 or dioni.wise@news-record.com

Doug Johnson

September 4, 2009 - 5:51 am EDT

Yes we should follow the law, round up illegals and send them home.
Kay Hagan is for securing the boarders? BS.
When she was a member of the Raleigh Mafia she did nothing to stop illegals from getting driving permits are driving without car insurance.
Its my job to give illegals, health care and a free college education?
She send a person to help illegals and she would not send anyone to meet with the tea party folks (Americans).
God you have to love her!
All Richard Burr did was take his on money out a AMT, and the liberal press, ripped him to pieces!
God you have to love the liberal press!

Panacea

September 4, 2009 - 8:27 am EDT

Oh, give it a rest. You repeat the same blather with each and every post. Don't you have anything new?

I oppose amnesty as well, but the current system is broken. A naturalized citizen should have an easier time getting permission to bring her husband over. SHE followed the rules and gets a slap in the face for it. That's not right.

They'd stop the flow of illegals if the government cracked down on violations of workplace safety, use of illegal labor, and made them pay withholding taxes (a lot of them don't). Make these companies pay a fair wage for the work. Americans will work these jobs if they are fairly paid, but they are not.

Andrew Brod

September 4, 2009 - 10:42 am EDT

You go, Panacea. Here's an interesting fact. In 1999 the government fined 417 businesses for hiring illegal immigrants. In 2004 it fined only 3. (I'd be interested to find more current data.) Instead of pursuing the highly technologized solution of border fences, we could address this via the low-tech approach of inspecting worksites. For some reason, the relatively small cost of hiring more worksite inspectors is an unacceptable intrusion into the economy, but the large expense of building walls and doing surveillance is necessary. This reflects the disfavor into which inspection and regulation have fallen for the last couple of decades. We've even effectively "outsourced" much of our food inspections to China. But the logic of incentives is obvious: if employers were to face a real risk of prosecution and steep fines for hiring undocumented workers, they'd do less of it.

Oh, one more thing: many employers do withhold FICA, but the withholding accrues to the account of whoever is the real owner of that SSN. This is why undocumented workers pay billions and billions of dollars more into Social Security and Medicare than they'll ever received in benefits.

oh good grief

September 4, 2009 - 11:04 am EDT

". . .many employers do withhold FICA, but the withholding accrues to the account of whoever is the real owner of that SSN."

And whose fault is that? A stolen identity is . . . a stolen identity.

September 4, 2009 - 8:54 pm EDT

The problem with commenters like "oh good grief" is that he/she can't read a simple statement without assuming some agenda behind it. I don't believe I said that it's anyone's fault that employers collect withholding taxes from people using fake SSNs. I was just trying to correct what I saw as a factual error. But that was too much for "oh good grief". Someone must be blamed. To quote Panacea, give it a rest.

gsostudent

September 4, 2009 - 9:35 am EDT

This was an excellent event with around 300 people (yes, I was actually there). Our current immigration laws deny the humanity of immigrants, and while some of you lunatic commenters that I know are going to comment on this article think that's okay, your anger is entirely misplaced. If you don't want people coming to the United States illegally, you need to understand why they are coming. US foreign policy has and continues to destroy so much of Latin America that it's not in the least bit surprising that people are forced to leave their homes. The first thing that needs to be changed is US foreign policy, namely the US should not be sending troops to Colombia and stop passing free trade agreements. Stop supporting corrupt governments and start acting democratically.

Not to mention the flow of immigrants has decreased recently and many are voluntarily returning home due to a lack of jobs here. People need to stop creating an imaginary boogey man threat out of this.

uncwgm

September 4, 2009 - 10:36 am EDT

US policy is to blame for South America's problems and it's forcing illegals to come here? What a joke.

I'm amazed that a college student can be so uneducated, Keep drinking the Kool-Aid young fella..sip away.

September 4, 2009 - 10:43 am EDT

I agree that changing our foreign policy is NOT the "first thing" we need to do, and maybe not the second or third. It's pretty tangential to this issue. Yes, yes, of course there are linkages, but the focus should be on our domestic policy.

September 4, 2009 - 10:55 am EDT

"Hernandez, who owns a cleaning service, was naturalized in 1996. She said she has fought futilely for her husband’s citizenship ever since."

“'. . . 12-year-old Fernando asked, as he translated for his mother, who spoke little English.'"

Too many missing pieces to the Sandra Hernandez portion of the above story to determine why her husband, Francisco Javier Calderón, is thousands of miles away. Was he ever in the USA? Did he leave voluntarily (to visit relatives, perhaps)? Was he removed from the USA involuntarily?

But two "facts" we can glean about her portion of the story.

She has been a United States citizen for 13 years (give or take a few months) and she can't speak English sufficiently (at least in her mind) to share her thoughts in spoken English.

She relies on her 12-year-old son to convey her thoughts in English.

As to other speakers saying, ". . . children of immigrants aren’t provided an affordable college education . . . ." -- obviously even if "we" (supposedly) don't provide the children of immigrants with "an affordable college education," the public schools have done what appears to be an excellent job with 12-year-old Fernando to enable him to speak in English for his mother who has been a United States citizen for 13 years.

jrburcham

September 4, 2009 - 11:30 am EDT

You bring up and excellent point. This person has been a naturalized citizen for 13 years and CAN NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. I think that says a lot. There is much more to this story, as with most immagration stories, than we know.

September 4, 2009 - 1:44 pm EDT

I realize the reporter claims that Ms. Hernandez speaks little English, but I don't know that it's actually true. I was at the event, and the organizers made a point of interpreting all comments, i.e. making sure they were spoken in both English and Spanish. A few speakers translated their own remarks; most didn't. So yes, Ms. Hernandez had her son read her remarks in English, but all that really means is that his English is better than hers. Or maybe she just wanted to involve her son in the event. So I wouldn't make too much of this one aspect of the event.

Loyaltee

September 4, 2009 - 12:21 pm EDT

Well said to both of you (gsostudent & Panacea).

NCInstructor

September 4, 2009 - 1:47 pm EDT

We here in NC have felt the bad effects of NAFTA, the closing of textile and furniture plants and the loss of jobs, especially right now with the economy being so hard. What a lot of us don't know is that more than 8 million people in Mexico have fallen out of the middle class since NAFTA was passed. Its hurt people in Mexico at least as badly if not worse than it has people living here. So then what happens when 8 million people who used to be middle class in Mexico are suddenly poor? Of course, like any of us, they want to go where they can find a job so they can feed their children. If Canada was a much wealthier country than the US and had tons more jobs, and you were having trouble feeding your children, do you think you might consider crossing the border to provide for your family? I think if most of us are honest, we would might well do whatever we had to take care of our loved ones.

There's a really good movie called "Morristown" about how people in a small town in Tennessee were effected by trade policies like NAFTA, and how working people dealt with job loss and began figuring out what the connections are between jobs here, trade policies, working people in Mexico, and immigration. I highly recommend it.

thestatelottery

September 4, 2009 - 2:50 pm EDT

People love to forget that they are here because of their families immigrating here. It was probably only legal when they did it because they were "white." Claiming people are illegal by just being people that happened to be born somewhere else is totally ludicrous.

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