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Migrants, now an election issue in U.S.

— Photo: AP

Facing flak: Republican presidential hopeful John McCain is facing criticism for backing bipartisan reform that would have offered immigrants a route to legality.

Ignacio, a Mexican teenager standing outside a rundown trailer home not far from the South Carolina state capital of Columbia, is lonely and a little scared. He misses his family in Jalisco, and twice in recent months people have come through his trailer park waving guns and shooting.

The 19-year-old, who preferred not to provide his surname, walked over the border in 2005 in search of a livelihood. He was caught and deported but a day later he tried again and was successful.

He now works in the construction industry, earning $400 for a six-day week, and shares the small trailer with four other single Mexicans — one of hundreds of such homes lining the bleak Old Peculiar Road, about 15 miles from Columbia.

“It is sad because we have no family. We work from 7 a.m. until the sun goes down. We only see each other when we are getting ready for bed,” he said.

Ignacio and his fellow illegal immigrants, numbering between 12 and 20 million, have become the hot issue of the 2008 presidential campaign. The influx of the Latino population into the U.S. in the past decade, the biggest wave of immigration since the 19th century, has aroused emotions that range from outright racism to the righteous anger of liberal activists who see in their plight a cause similar to the 1960s civil rights movement.

The controversy could determine the outcome of the Republican primary in South Carolina on Saturday. It will also have an impact on the contests that follow and eventually in November’s presidential election.

Ignacio is aware of the calls by Republican candidates that illegal immigrants should be arrested and sent home, but sees a contradiction in U.S. attitudes. “Yes, I am here illegally,” he said. “But we work the hardest. We are doing the jobs Americans will not do. We are building their homes, washing their dishes. We do all their work and they do not like us.”

While much of the resentment comes from a white community in a state with a reputation for racism, it comes too from the black community, amid accusations that the Latino workers are taking their jobs. Ignacio said the trailer park has twice been shot up in recent months by African-Americans.

While states near the Mexican border have long been accustomed to “illegals” — or undocumented workers, as sympathisers prefer to call them — what is new is their arrival in large numbers in states that had previously seen little immigration. South Carolina has one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the country. The number of illegal immigrants is estimated at between 1,50,000 and 4,00,000 in a state with a population of 4.3 million.

The impact is felt strongest in small rural communities whose families have often lived in the same place since the 18th century. They now suddenly find shops and restaurants with names such as Guadalajara and where the staff speak only Spanish, and see large numbers of illegal immigrants in local schools or queues for the clinic.

The state legislature has about 40 bills pending proposing punitive actions to force such immigrants to move to another state or out of the U.S. A committee this week discussed a bill that would make it a criminal act to help illegal immigrants, with a penalty of five or more years in jail. Among those speaking in favour was Roan Garcia-Quintana, a U.S. citizen originally from Cuba who is director of the Americans Have Had Enough Coalition. “We are being overrun,” he said. “You see them everywhere.”

He criticised the Republican candidate John McCain for backing bipartisan reform that would have offered immigrants such as Ignacio a route to legality.

Mr. McCain is the most liberal of the Republicans on immigration — and that will cost him votes. Other candidates have adopted increasingly anti-illegal immigrant rhetoric, particularly Mike Huckabee, in spite of being relatively benign on the issue while governor of Arkansas.

The issue is also important in Nevada, which holds its caucuses on Saturday, but for a different reason.

Unlike the migrant Latino populations in the east and middle of the country who have no votes, Latinos in the western states are more established, with citizenship and votes.The Democratic candidates, unlike the Republicans, oppose deporting illegal immigrants.

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