N.C. jobs a prime attraction for illegal immigrants from Mexico
Tuesday, February 28th, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Efrin Guzman worked 55 hours a week for $1 an hour at a textile plant in Mexico. At that pay, Guzman says he could never buy a home and move his family of four out of their rented room.
So, along with two of his co-workers, he decided to illegally immigrate to the United States
"We have to cross. You cannot make … money here," said Guzman, 23, in Altar, Mexico. "Even if they deport us one, two or three times, we’ll keep crossing."
Guzman is among the thousands of Hispanic migrants with their sights set on North and South Carolina, where they hope to find ample jobs, better pay, and lack of scrutiny from employers and the government, according to a series appearing this week in The Charlotte Observer.
But the influx of an estimated 390,000 of the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants into North Carolina has created tension, the paper reports. The number of Hispanic gangs is increasing, and public schools and health departments are struggling to accommodate the immigrants.
The newspaper sent two reporters and a photographer to Altar, a town about 60 miles from the Arizona border that thousands of migrants use as a staging area before attempting an illegal crossing. They also observed the U.S. Border Patrol intercept migrants and return them to Mexico, where more than 70 percent of the Hispanic population in North Carolina and South Carolina originates. (more…)
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