By Suzanne Sprague, KERA 90.1 Reporter
Dallas, TX – Suzanne Sprague, KERA 90.1 Reporter: Nearly one million people come to the United States to live each year. The majority of those immigrants are Latino, like Cuca Gonzalez and her family, who live on Fort Worth's north side.
[A woman pours a glass a juice and asks, in Spanish, "Do you want some?"]
Sprague: Gonzalez paid a smuggler $2,400 to bring her and her three young children across the Rio Grande to meet up with their father. Raymundo Gonzalez is now a U.S. citizen, and Cuca just got her work permit, but life has been a daily struggle.
Cuca Gonzalez, Immigrant (translated from Spanish): It's been difficult because we don't have stability. No work. And relying on only one income is hard. It's very hard with two or three children because it's more expensive. You have to buy clothes and school supplies, even though school here is free.
Sprague: Nearly seven in ten people surveyed by the Public Broadcasting Latino Poll were born outside the United States, like Cuca Gonzalez. Their lives are often filled with anxiety over issues of basic survival. And so it's perhaps no surprise that they often answered questions differently than American-born Latinos. For example, immigrants were more likely to say racism was the top issue facing Latinos. They feel prejudice in their daily lives as they apply for jobs, speak Spanish, or even go shopping. But sometimes, they feel the most discrimination from other Latinos. Consuelo Pacheco moved here from Mexico 14 years ago.
Consuelo Pacheco, Immigrant (translated from Spanish): The first time I came here, I went to a fast food restaurant, and you would think Latinos would speak to you in Spanish, but instead they said, "I no speak Spanish." In fact, I could see that they could speak Spanish, but they didn't want to talk to us. So it's hard when you're ordering food and your own people put up a barrier you in front of you instead of helping out.
Sprague: In the Public Broadcasting Latino Poll, more than half of those who had experienced racial tension in their communities said immigration made it worse. Consuelo Pacheco agrees. But she still believes immigration levels should increase. 40% of Latinos surveyed by the Public Broadcasting Poll agreed with this. But nearly half said they wanted immigration levels to decrease or remain the same.
Vanna Slaughter, Director of Immigration Counseling for Catholic Charities: I think immigration causes ambivalence among all groups in the United States.
Sprague: Vanna Slaughter is the director of immigration counseling for Catholic Charities in Dallas.
Slaughter: There is oftentimes a tendency to pull the ladder up behind us, and that's kind of human nature. I think some of the more recent immigrants perhaps think also about their struggles and what all they did to get here and feel like sometimes the immigration laws are too soft on newly arrived immigrants.
Sprague: Still, both American and foreign-born Latinos believe immigration is good for the U.S. economy. And they want new immigration laws, ones they say are fairer. The most sweeping immigration law in recent history was the 1996 Illegal Immigration and Responsibility Act, spearheaded by Republican Congressman Lama Smith of San Antonio. Vanna Slaughter says the measure turned the immigration clock back about 75 years.
Slaughter: The legislation made it much more difficult for immigrants to immigrate to the United States, for families to reunite. It had measures in it that are retroactive in their application, so if a person has a criminal transgression in their past and they've already paid their debt to society, those incidents can come back to haunt a person and render them deportable in the United States now.
Sprague: The law also required families to earn 25% more money to stay in the United States. President Clinton signed the bill, to the disappointment of many immigration advocates. But he and other Democrats did get certain provisions taken out of the legislation, such as a measure that would have denied undocumented children access to public education.
Slaughter: So I guess between the two parties, the friendlier of the two has definitely been the Democrats. The Democrats have been much more amenable to looking at creative solutions, and dealing with the reality of the undocumented population that we have in the United States, and to be wanting to do something about it.
Sprague: Latino groups are now pushing for changes in the laws, including giving amnesty to anyone who has been living in the United States since 1986. And in fact, two Democrats, Martin Frost of Texas and Barney Frank of Massachusetts, have proposed legislation that would soften some of the provisions in the 1996 immigration law. The Public Broadcasting Poll reveals Latinos, both immigrants and American-born, are more than twice as likely to trust Democrats over Republicans to handle their issues in Congress. But nearly a quarter of all Latinos don't know which party to rely on. Felix Madrigal of Hutchins doesn't trust any of the presidential candidates to come up with an immigration policy he agrees with.
Felix Madrigal: I think the politicians will reinvent themselves if necessary every day to make themselves look good to the majority of the people who will vote and who control the elections. So, I don't see a solution coming from them.
Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush: The INS needs reform, and that's exactly what I'm going to do should I become the President.
Sprague: When George W. Bush spoke at a convention for the League of United Latin American Citizens, he talked a lot about improving economic conditions in Mexico so that Latin Americans wouldn't feel like they had to come to the United States to make a living.
Bush: But so long as people are coming to feed their families, our country must be mindful that they're human beings as well, and I must say that the INS sends a different message at times. It's too bureaucratic. It's too paperwork-oriented. It is an agency that sends mixed signals to people we're trying to help. I intend to reform the INS [clapping].
Sprague: Bush called for splitting the Immigration and Naturalization Service into two agencies, one for border enforcement and one for customer service. His rival, Al Gore, also addressed the LULAC convention. Gore wasn't very specific about what he wanted to do with immigration. But he did speak to the crowd's concerns about racism and immigration.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore: I also don't fully understand why some have been so vitriolic in their discrimination against immigrants, because I believe in an America where we recognize our heritage. Somos una nacion de immigrates y con orgullo [clapping].
Sprague: "We are proud to be a nation of immigrants" has become one of Al Gore's campaign refrains. And it may be working. According to the Public Broadcasting Poll, if the election were held today, Al Gore would receive 54 % of the registered Latino vote, while George W. Bush would receive 33 %. For KERA 90.1, I'm Suzanne Sprague.