Immigrants to US come with hope

Their reasons for immigrating - a needed job skill, joining family or having refugee status - doesn't really matter. What matters most is that they have permission to be here.

Mateo Fasanella arrived in the United States from Italy eight years ago on an immigrant visa. His green card granted him permanent residency and authorization to work in America. Fasanella began as an employee in his brother-in-law's pizza shop in the Raleigh Springs Mall. Today he owns a pizza shop in Cordova.

But for the 11.1 million immigrants who have entered the country illegally, the road to a new life is much more difficult.

"Coming to the United States without any status is a hindrance to receiving any future benefits," said Chris Bentley, with the United States Citizen and Immigration Services, referring to an immigrant's possible future legal status.

Currently there isn't a law that allows an illegal immigrant to stay in America and apply for legal status. The illegal immigrant would have to return to his or her home country and then apply for legal status. But the fact that the person was an illegal immigrant could bar him or her from legal status for five to 10 years, Bentley said.

The Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group, estimates that of the 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants, 78 percent originate from Mexico, Central America and Latin America, with 100,000 to 150,000 living in Tennessee.

Between 2000 and 2005, Shelby County saw a 31 percent increase in the Latino population.

"The number has just exploded," said Jodi Elliot, bilingual service coordinator with Tennessee's Early Intervention System.

TEIS is a program funded by a federal grant for children between birth and age 3 who are developmentally delayed. TEIS works with the parents to coordinate treatment with health care professionals. However, if a child does not have a social security number, TEIS cannot help them.

"The city is going to be in a health crisis," Elliot predicts. "The city's infrastructure isn't prepared to deal with the number of immigrants we have."

There are few interpretative services in area hospitals, pregnant Latino immigrant women aren't receiving prenatal care and children with special needs go untreated or mistreated, she said.

Salysanh Rasasack entered the United States from Laos in 1979 as a refugee. Today he is the manager of immigration services for Catholic Charities in Memphis.

"You feel compassion and understanding," Rasasack said. "Their country is poor."

Authorities believe the Latinos are drawn to Memphis because of job opportunities. People aren't hiring illegal immigrants in the north, said Memphis police Detective Milton Gonzalez.

"They know they can get picked up on Jackson and make $18, $19, $20 per hour to lay brick," Gonzalez said.

Zulema Biasi, an immigrant from Argentina who came to the United States in the 1960s, works at Latino Memphis, an organization that helps Latino immigrants adjust to their new lives.

"Many people come here without knowing anything about the style of life, and here they get lost," Biasi said.

They come from places that don't have hospitals or schools, she said. "Desperation brings them here," she said.

Biasi said one of the biggest obstacles is the inability to communicate.

Another major obstacle is the lack of documentation. This affects not only the type of work immigrants are qualified for but the type of employer who hires them. Biasi said Latinos have come to Latino Memphis for help when employers have refused to pay them.

The employers tell the immigrants to go to the police, knowing they won't because they don't have documentation. Latinos think the police are tied to immigration, according to Biasi.

What illegal immigrants usually don't know is that the police are not concerned with immigration status.

"MPD can't enforce immigration laws, but ICE can," Gonzalez said.

ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security.

"ICE has jurisdiction for anything coming in or going out of the United States," said Gary Slaybaugh, resident agent in charge for enforcement in East Tennessee. This includes terrorists, drugs, child pornography and illegal immigrants.

Slaybaugh said their first priority is terrorists and secondly violent criminals, which usually involve drugs.

"We can't take everybody. We pretty well are limited to the violent criminal," he said.

Slaybaugh said until the borders are secured, interior enforcement will be difficult. However, Slaybaugh said, ICE is beginning to look at employers.

"If they knew they couldn't find a job, they wouldn't come," Slaybaugh said.

Gonzalez said the wariness the Latino community feels towards the police may also be tied to corrupt law enforcement in their own countries.

Gonzalez said Latinos are also wary of the banking system because banks in Latin America aren't insured. Latinos are known to carry their cash, making them easy robbery targets. Gonzalez said one robber said Hispanics "are like a walking ATM."

Despite the many obstacles immigrants face, some challenges are being met.

Under the guidelines of the U.S. government, banks are allowed to offer services to anyone with an individual tax identification number (ITIN), according to Harold Byrd, president of the Bank of Bartlett. An ITIN is issued by the Internal Revenue Service to individuals who are not eligible for a social security number but are required to pay income tax.

"They're automatically apprehensive," said Byrd.

To help facilitate these services, many banks have bilingual employees to help build trust within the Hispanic community.

The Memphis City School system already had a program in place to teach English as a second language. The program began in the late 1970s when the city experienced an influx of Laotian, Vietnamese and Cambodian immigrants, according to Pat Bogan, a retired ESL instructor.

MCS currently has 100 ESL instructors, 38 bilingual cultural mentors and four bilingual counselors, according to Andrew Duck, supervisor of the ESL program. MCS offers night and weekend classes for parents who want to learn the English language.

"The parents don't need to speak English for the children to learn another language," Bogan said.

Parents can participate in the child's education by getting them to bed on time, feeding them breakfast and telling stories and the history of their family in Spanish, she said.

The most promising news for the Latino community is the improvement in Latino employment statistics. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, the Latino unemployment rate of 5.2 percent is at its lowest, and there has been an increase in Latino wages.

"The growth in employment has been in construction," said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research at the center.

The overall improvement was based on a convergence of elements: construction offers better pay than other sectors, more blue collar jobs that pay better and an overall economic recovery, Kochhar said.

Kochhar said the slow down in residential home construction will probably not affect the gains in Latino employment because non-residential construction remains strong.

Kochhar predicts that within a generation, most of the challenges immigrants face today will be gone. The second generation will be English dominant and will catch up to the native born, he said.

"Their outcomes will be improved," Kochhar said. "They will do better than their ancestors."

Although the second generation may fare better, Elliot of Tennessee's Early Intervention System, said she believes as long as illegal immigrants are allowed to come, the same obstacles will remain.

"It doesn't go away," she said. "Your society has to be prepared."