Despite Backlash, Illegal Immigrants Stay Put

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Travis pointed past the empty cul-de-sac toward a huge, silent box of a building. "That's where I worked," he said, "the plant with no smoke coming out of it." Even without a college degree, he had been making $24 an hour there, at the Boise Cascade paper mill, which was the town's largest employer. And then he was fired, along with most of the other employees, in January. Kristy had been running a home day-care center, but that income vanished when laid-off millworkers started taking care of their kids themselves. Douglas had her own sorry landmark, the ranch house across the street that her family abandoned because they couldn't afford the payments. The three friends couldn't say illegal immigration had visited all this hardship on them, but they felt it was just another threat to their town. That's why they were protesting the march and why they were supporting Mayo. "[Mayo] has been slandered," said Travis. "I'll take the heat from now on if that helps. Let them come to me."

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The Outmigration Myth
Those who battle illegal immigration make an attractively simple argument: Pressuring illegal immigrants will make them go away, thereby saving jobs for Americans. The enthusiasm for the prospect of a great outmigration is such that pundits and politicians began lining up early to take credit for it. Last summer the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors tougher enforcement of immigration laws, released a report with the somewhat triumphal title "Homeward Bound." Its authors argued that census data showed that approximately 1.3 million illegal immigrants had left the U.S. from August 2007 to May 2008. At that rate, their number would be halved in five years. Because the drop-off predated the worst of the recession, the report argued, the decline showed that the get-tough policies passed at the end of the Bush Administration were working. Members of Congress like Republican Representative Tom Feeney of Florida were on hand for a press conference with the report's authors. He celebrated the end of "perverse incentives" that had kept illegal immigrants in the U.S. "Obviously," Feeney said, "illegals are getting the message." (Watch TIME's video "Blocking the Border Fence.")

The celebration was premature. It remains almost impossible to accurately track the population of illegals using data from the census, which doesn't ask people their legal status. Harder still is to tell whether people are leaving the U.S. or simply deciding not to enter in the first place. (Many researchers believe it's the latter.) There's anecdotal evidence that more young workers are staying home in the south than before. Border-patrol arrests are down 24% this year on the U.S.-Mexico border. But for those who are in the U.S., the twin pressures — increased enforcement and a worsening economy — have actually made it harder for them to return home.

Salvador, 27, emigrated from El Salvador eight months ago and is resolved to stay. He knows that he arrived at perhaps the worst time in the past 20 years, confronting a cauldron of economic and legal risk, but he says those pressures can't compare with what he faces back home: a young wife who hasn't been able to work since experiencing complications during childbirth four years ago and a rural hometown where the global downturn hit with brutal effect almost two years ago.

One unintended consequence of increased enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border is that smugglers are charging far more than they used to. Fewer people may be crossing, but those who are already in the U.S. feel more compelled to stay just to pay off their debts. Coyotes charged Salvador $8,500 for his journey; he is paying it off in $150 installments every two weeks (the same amount he sends his family). At that rate, it will take him two more years just to break even on the debt. He doesn't fear detention; he fears failure. "I'm afraid of not making it work here," he says. "It needs to work."

Communities like St. Helens often have more invested in the newcomers' success than they might imagine. A Pew Hispanic Center survey in November found that the median income for noncitizen Hispanics fell at a rate almost six times as high as that of other workers in 2008. In January 2009, a new report said more than half that group reported being worried that their home will end up in foreclosure. Many illegal immigrants are homeowners, and driving them from their houses would be a Pyrrhic victory for any community fighting blight. Salvador's father-in-law Alejandro, an undocumented immigrant who owns a home in St. Helens, says the Anglos who target him hurt themselves. "I own this house and am making my mortgage payments on time," he says. "But what happens if I lose my job? Then the bank takes my house, and this place becomes the city's problem."

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