The Enterprising Border Jumpers

The 35,000 Vietnamese breadwinners who are legally entering the U.S. will scarcely make a dent in the job market. But the nation's unemployment problem is being aggravated by a far greater number of people who have slipped into the U.S. illegally, either by stealing across the borders or by overstaying their visas. Despite its economic and social difficulties, the U.S. remains the promised land--but only 400,000 people were able to immigrate legally last year. Many more successfully evaded the law, and they make up a monumental migraine for the understaffed and overburdened Immigration and Naturalization Service. In fiscal 1974, the INS caught nearly 800,000 so-called illegal aliens. It estimates that four times that many entered during the year, and that 6 million to 8 million illegals are living in every cranny of the land. It is a difficult number of people to keep track of --much less track down. INS Commissioner Leonard F. Chapman Jr. claims that 1 million of them hold jobs that might be filled by unemployed citizens.

The illegals pour in from practically everywhere. Mexicans, many of them migratory farm workers, are the most prominent group. Other large contingents include Canadians, West Indians, Latin Americans, Greeks and overseas Chinese. Most gravitate to the large cities, where jobs are more plentiful and they can easily escape detection by fading into the crowd. The INS believes that there are 1.5 million unlawful aliens in and around New York City and half a million each in the Chicago and San Antonio areas. Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Manuel Aragon says that one person out of eight in his city--about 350,000 in all --is in the U.S. unlawfully.*

The illegals come to the U.S. with hopes of economic betterment, but once they arrive many discover that they can expect to have a hard time. Unable to complain to authorities, aliens working as domestics, farm hands, restaurant employees or garmentmakers often must tolerate meager wages in return for the tasks they perform and sweatshop conditions on the job. Says a young Greek who jumped ship seven years ago: "We don't take jobs away from the Americans. Greeks wash dishes in restaurants for $100 a week. Americans won't do that." Yet in March, when the INS rounded up 50 aliens employed by a Chicago janitorial firm, 150 people instantly applied for the vacated jobs. Many illegals have taken positions that would eagerly be filled by the least employable Americans: ghetto youth and unskilled workers.

Statue Painters. An increasing number of illegals have landed desirable jobs. According to Chapman, more than a third now employed are working in industry. Some Mexicans who have entered Texas illegally earn close to $5 an hour in small factories; one was even found managing a Laredo plastics plant at $20,000 a year. The INS'S files include reports of a Greek plumber earning $12 an hour, a Jamaican carpenter earning $7 an hour and a West Indian electronics engineer taking in $17,000 a year. An immigration raid on a Miami restaurant turned up 14 illegally entered employees, including a Swiss assistant manager getting $11,000 a year. One enterprising Venezuelan was clearing $750 a week from a construction job on the Alaska pipeline. Immigration authorities in New York discovered two illegals who were making $400 a week --painting the Statue of Liberty. Two illegals, working for a firm under contract to the General Services Administration, were found not long ago working as janitors at the INS headquarters in Washington.

A great many illegals do not file income tax returns and also manage to have only a minuscule portion of their paychecks withheld by claiming more dependents than they actually have. At the same time, they benefit as much as many of their neighbors do from tax-supported social services, including schools and hospitals.

Outright Fraud. Getting into the U.S.--and staying there--is relatively easy. Only 1,700 border agents police the nation's lengthy northern and southern perimeters, and the INS has a mere 900 investigators working in the nation's cities. Concedes Chapman: "Some 80% to 90% of the illegal aliens in this country are virtually beyond our reach." At least 300,000 persons arriving last year in the U.S. as tourists or students simply failed to leave. Tens of thousands more are spirited in by professional smugglers, who command as much as $1,500 for their services. Others make their way by outright fraud. One Miami woman had hustled 14 aliens into the country at last count. She married six, her two daughters each married three, and her common-law husband took two more as wives.

The INS plans to hire 213 more border patrolmen next year, hardly enough to make an appreciable difference. Says Chapman: "There is only one practical way to stop, or even slow, the vast numbers who seek to come to this country by any means available--that is to eliminate the attraction that brings them here. That attraction is jobs." In 1972 New Jersey Congressman Peter Rodino introduced a bill that would make it a crime for employers to knowingly hire illegal aliens. Under the bill an employer, beginning with his third offense, could spend a year in jail for each illegal alien that he took on.

The bill passed the House in the past two Congresses but was stymied in the Senate by Judiciary Chairman James Eastland of Mississippi. He insisted on dropping any criminal penalties and on allowing alien farm workers to be admitted if domestic labor is in short supply. The INS, organized labor and the Justice Department have come out in support of the Rodino bill, and even Eastland says that "the prospects are good this year" for its passage.

* There are, in addition, more than 4 million aliens legally residing permanently in the U.S. and fully entitled to hold jobs. Most came in under immigration quotas or are close relatives of U.S. citizens.

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