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Dear Editor:

I am an attorney practicing immigration law here in Blount County. I am writing in response to the “Our Voice” editorial on undocumented immigrants that appeared in Monday’s newspaper.

The topic of immigration in this country has unfortunately become a most painful and divisive one. Having practiced immigration law in this area for some years now, I can say definitively that I have never once encountered any undocumented immigrant who doesn’t want to be legal. They all wish to be able to adjust their status and be here legally. Unfortunately, for all of the cries that I hear demanding that these people adjust their status and become legal, our current laws simply don’t allow that to happen, Undocumented immigrants have no avenues by which to attain legal status. It can’t be done. The tablet held by the Statue of Liberty (“Bring me your tired, your poor”) no longer applies, based upon our current immigration laws.

I can also tell you that these persons would much prefer to be back home in their own countries, with their families. However, as I see it, the ultimate problems lie in:

1. The geographical logistics whereby third-world countries border or are quite close to one of the wealthiest countries in the world and

2. The needs of American employers.

Over the years I have spoken with many U.S. employers who tell me that they rely upon and respect the Hispanic work force to do work that they cannot get “locals’ to do; drudge work like tending fields, growing mushrooms, processing chicken, etc.

And I know of many injustices that have occurred when undocumented immigrants are not timely paid or are “shortchanged” because U.S. employers hang their undocumented status over their heads and/or threaten to report them.

What brings undocumented immigrants into the U.S.? One word: “desperation.”

Desperation drives people to do things that they otherwise would not do. I can’t count on the fingers of my hands, how many times Hispanic men have told me that they are here because they can make in one day, at minimum wage, what they make in one long work-week back home. They simply cannot make enough money to feed, clothe and house their families, back home. That’s the bottom line.

The economic conditions are bad enough that these men literally risk their lives in order to get here and send money back to their wives and parents and children whom they miss terribly. A lot of human pain occurs in their family separations--sometimes for periods of years.

I can tell you that if these persons could enter this country legally and safely instead of having to cross deserts or hire “coyotes,” they would. I can tell you that in our country there are many, many unidentified bodies of Hispanic persons who have sacrificed the most that they could sacrifice, in attempting to provide for the basic needs of their families. And we as American citizens should stop for a moment and thank God for the unspeakable blessing that we ourselves are not in positions where we must face and make those types of decisions.

I am a second-generation Mexican immigrant. In 1913, with yet another civil war raging in Mexico, my grandfather and grandmother were preparing to protect their small ranch in northern Mexico. Pancho Villa was approaching their village from one direction; government forces were approaching from another. Right at that time, a man murdered my grandfather, leaving my grandmother suddenly widowed, with nine children and a desperate situation. She fled north to be with relatives, crossing the Rio Grande River with all her children, on two rafts. One of those children was my father, age three at that time. One of the rafts sank, dumping children into the river. The legend is that she saved all of those kids, and the family ended up, literally “wetbacks,” on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. They became sharecroppers and picked cotton.

At age 18, my father stumbled upon a tiny Methodist Church. Attracted by the hymn-singing he heard in Spanish, he eventually joined. At that time, the Methodist Church was very big on education. It took my father under its wing, educated him (he started first grade at age 18), and in the end, he had a Master’s from Southern Methodist University and an honorary doctorate from Southwestern University.
For 50 plus years he served with distinction as a minister and as a district superintendent in the Methodist Church; he served on the board of directors of SMU. He helped to establish the Rio Grande Conference of the Methodist Church, that conference serving Hispanics in Texas to the present day. He touched thousands of lives in wonderful ways. He died after suffering a heart attack during delivery of a sermon--doing what he loved best. He told me many times when I was a child, how very much he loved this country, because here, he said, you can be whatever you want to be, limited only by the span of your dreams.

You may tell me, he was only an exception. I would respectfully disagree and would suggest that there are many more like him, who have the potential to make good and positive contributions to our country. The immigration laws, as they currently stand, don’t let them.

My father came here undocumented. He often told me stories about how his family lived in fear, how law enforcement personnel would suddenly appear at his school in the 1920’s, demanding to see people’s “papers,” subjecting them to deportation. He also told me how he would walk to the country school and from time to time, see Hispanics hanging from trees, where they had been the unfortunate victims of prejudice and hatred. How far have we come since then? Or have we?

My father became a naturalized U.S. citizen in the 1940’s. Under the current immigration laws he would have had no recourse nor ability to become legal. He would have been deported if discovered, because currently the laws look only at the moment in time, when an immigrant first steps upon U.S. soil. If that person is undocumented at that moment, he/she has committed a deportable offense, and that label (“undocumented, deportable”) sticks with the person forever.

I do not believe in a complete open door policy, because I fear that Latin American countries would empty and we would be inundated by immigrants from other countries of the world as well. At the same time, I believe that there should be some mechanism by which those undocumented immigrants who wish to become legal, could. There simply is nothing we can do as things stand. My fellow citizens: food for thought.

Irma Gonzalez Freestate
P.O. Box 168
Alcoa, TN, 37701