Sunday, August 8, 2010

ONE ARIZONA TOWN'S TAKE ON IMMIGRATION DEBATE

Cherryholmes and others argue that illegal
immigration is lowering wages for American workers
and changing the face of their communities. He says
nearby Mesa used to be a model city studied by city
planners around the country.

"Now, it's little Mexico," he says dismissively.

"We got people down here waving the Mexican flag
in America?" he says. "They should all be thrown in
jail."


One Arizona town's
take on immigration
debate

Posted 16m ago

By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY

APACHE JUNCTION, Ariz. — Far from the heated
protest marches in downtown Phoenix, either
denouncing Arizona's immigration law or embracing
it, the arguments over the law aren't so simple.

Vince Cherryholmes, 51, a video store owner, says
he was angered when U.S. District Judge Susan
Bolton last month temporarily blocked the core of
the law, known as S.B. 1070, which would have
required police officers to determine the
immigration status of suspects stopped for another
offense if there was a "reasonable suspicion" they
were in the country illegally. Republican Arizona
Gov. Jan Brewer has appealed the ruling.

Cherryholmes, a 35-year-resident of Apache
Junction, says he was further angered when he saw
protest marches that called for repeal of the law.

"We got people down here waving the Mexican flag
in America?" he says. "They should all be thrown in
jail."

Rich Favia supports the law, too, because he sees it
as a mechanism to identify and deport members of
dangerous drug gangs — but he doesn't want to see
illegal immigrants who are working hard and
staying out of trouble removed from the country.

"They're just trying to make a living for their family
like we are," says Favia, 64, who has been disabled
since a hand grenade injured his spine during the
Vietnam War. "I back them 100%. I know a lot of
them."

Support for the law is widespread in Apache
Junction, a working-class city of 32,000 east of
Phoenix in the shadows of the Superstition
Mountains. About 8% of the population is Hispanic,
compared with 42% in Phoenix, according to the U.
S. Census.


Even here, though, people disagree over the impact
of illegal immigration on their state, who should be
sent home and why the immigration measure ever
became law.

Cherryholmes and others argue that illegal
immigration is lowering wages for American workers
and changing the face of their communities. He says
nearby Mesa used to be a model city studied by city
planners around the country.

"Now, it's little Mexico," he says dismissively.

Despite the increased number of Hispanics in the
area, Art Bernal doesn't think illegal immigrants are
stealing jobs from his neighbors. The retired
Motorola engineer says he used to pick cantaloupes
as a teen, work that immigrants do now.

"You think my kids will go pick cantaloupes?" he
asks. "Please."

Maggie Eastling disagrees. She says she knows
unemployed people in Apache Junction who would
jump at the chance for any job.

"I can name a dozen right now that would pick
whatever for a paycheck," says Eastling, 46, who
owns a store with her husband.

Still, Eastling worries that illegal immigrants will be
harassed by overzealous anti-immigrant groups
unhappy with Bolton's decision.


"I'm really worried that people are going down to the
border to take care of things themselves," she says.

At the Plaza Barbershop on the outskirts of the city,
barber Russell McClurg says legislators were right
to pass the law. He says supporters of the law are
being falsely labeled as racists when they're really
concerned only with keeping terrorists out of their
state.

"They make it seem like we're just picking on the
poor Mexicans, who just want to work in the lettuce
fields," says McClurg, 70. "We're not down on
Mexicans. We're down on an open border and
someone bombing a city or bringing in germ
warfare."

Two chairs over, barber Jim Metcalf disagrees,
arguing that criminal activity and the economy in
Arizona hadn't changed much in recent years.

"I think it's a political thing. They're all grabbing for
votes," says Metcalf, 60.

Bernal, who says he's a 10th-generation Arizonan,
says a shift in the state's makeup led to the law.

Arizona natives have always gotten along with
Mexican immigrants, appreciated their culture and
worked with them, Bernal says, but waves of people
moving in from northern states in recent decades
were unfamiliar with Hispanics and pushed for the
law and similar anti-immigration measures.

"They don't understand the dynamics involved
because they're from somewhere else," says Bernal,
62. "This isn't back home."

The debate is difficult for Eastling.

She says she understands the hopes and dreams of
immigrants; her four grandparents came from
Ireland, Scotland, Italy and Germany and all went
through immigration processing at Ellis Island. She
resents the fact that so many now are able to get
around the immigration system.

Her grandparents, "didn't have it easy. They had to
work their (butts) off," she says. "But they didn't
sneak in the back door."

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