About This Series
Barack Obama's first term as president begins five Tuesdays from today. On every Tuesday between now and his inauguration, this series will look at a particular issue and expectations for Obama's first term.
Dec. 23: Tax cuts and the federal budget
MONROE - Immigration was one of the issues to fall by wayside in a presidential campaign overtaken by concerns about the housing market and the economy.
As late as July 9, at the 2008 LULAC National Convention, El Paso, Tex., President-elect Barack Obama told the League of United Latin American Citizens that immigration reform would be "a top priority in my first year as president."
"When Hispanics lose their jobs faster than almost anybody else, or work jobs that pay less, and come with fewer benefits than almost anybody else... When 12 million people live in hiding in this country and hundreds of thousands of people cross our borders illegally each year; when companies hire undocumented workers instead of legal citizens to avoid paying overtime or to avoid a union; and a nursing mother is torn away from her baby by an immigration raid, that is a problem that all of us - black, white, and brown - must solve as one nation," Obama said.
Major points in Obama's plans for immigration reform include tighter border control, a crackdown on employers hiring illegal immigrants and increased ways to "bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows," by requiring them "to pay a fine, pay taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens."
Some of those ideas are aspects found in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, which Obama voted for and which passed in the Senate in 2006, but died for failure to pass the conference committee.
What effect Obama's similar measures will have on immigrants and their employers in Green County remains to be seen.
"They could have an impact," Mark Mayer, University of Wisconsin agriculture agent, said. "It'll mostly affect larger dairies, those with over 500 cows. We have only 10 in the county."
Most of Green County's farms, even large operations, are family run, and use little immigration labor.
Immigration reform would affect the dairy industry in the whole state, which has 370 dairy farms, but more likely in the Appleton and Fox River Valley areas, and in other large industries, Mayer said.
Immigration reforms also would affect states which have large truck farms that use seasonal laborers.
Immigrants are most often the lowest on the economic ladder and the most vulnerable during a recession, creating pressure on charity and religious organizations.
With the U.S. increasing unemployment, "more are leaving and fewer are coming in," Mayer said.
"Hispanics are good laborers," he said. "Farmers are asking how to make their people legal."
Immigrants that are working on dairy farms are not necessarily men.
"Women make good cow milkers," Mayer said.
Neighborhoods are seeing rising tensions as citizens are pit against new immigrants, Obama said.
The number of undocumented immigrants in the country has increased more than 40 percent since 2000. Every year, more than a half-million people come illegally or illegally overstay their visas.
Green County has seen its Latino/Hispanic population double since 1990 and rise from 327 in 2000 to about 500 in 2006, or about 1.4 percent of the total county population.
But the numbers do not mean all immigrants are illegal; those statistics are hard to estimate.
Alice Franks-Gray, executive director of Green Haven Family Advocates, Inc., Monroe, believes the county will see an increase in human trafficking, which brings an increase in violence and child abuse because of its manipulation capacity.
"They meet someone, for example, online, start a relationship that brings them into the county, and then come to believe they can remain in the county only because of the relationship," she said.
"They are told, "I can beat you or do whatever I want; if you don't do what I say, I'll call INS,'" she said.
A fear of the police and the judiciary system, and of being sent back out of the country, keeps the victim from reporting the abuse, she said.
"They are inherently frightened of (the legal system)," she said.
So far this year, Green Haven has helped 16 Spanish-speaking adults, who came with about 20 children. That is more than double last year's six or seven people.
"We saw 6 or 7 already in April of this year," Franks-Gray said.
Most of the women who sought help from Green Haven are 20 to 30 years old, an indication that their children were quite young. Two women were in their 40s and 50s. One patron was male.
Only three of the adults and 10 of the children were U.S. citizens. Thirteen adults and six children were not U.S. citizens, although they may have legal work status to stay in the county.
Most want to stay in the U.S., Franks-Gray said.
"The only reasons for wanting to return are family-based issues, if they have children in another county," she said.
Traditionally, Hispanics will take any job.
"They want to work. They don't care what they do. There's no shame in any job," Franks-Gray said.
Hispanics are found mostly in farming and manufacturing jobs, and Hispanic women will seek a wide variety of jobs, she said.
As late as July 9, at the 2008 LULAC National Convention, El Paso, Tex., President-elect Barack Obama told the League of United Latin American Citizens that immigration reform would be "a top priority in my first year as president."
"When Hispanics lose their jobs faster than almost anybody else, or work jobs that pay less, and come with fewer benefits than almost anybody else... When 12 million people live in hiding in this country and hundreds of thousands of people cross our borders illegally each year; when companies hire undocumented workers instead of legal citizens to avoid paying overtime or to avoid a union; and a nursing mother is torn away from her baby by an immigration raid, that is a problem that all of us - black, white, and brown - must solve as one nation," Obama said.
Major points in Obama's plans for immigration reform include tighter border control, a crackdown on employers hiring illegal immigrants and increased ways to "bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows," by requiring them "to pay a fine, pay taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens."
Some of those ideas are aspects found in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, which Obama voted for and which passed in the Senate in 2006, but died for failure to pass the conference committee.
What effect Obama's similar measures will have on immigrants and their employers in Green County remains to be seen.
"They could have an impact," Mark Mayer, University of Wisconsin agriculture agent, said. "It'll mostly affect larger dairies, those with over 500 cows. We have only 10 in the county."
Most of Green County's farms, even large operations, are family run, and use little immigration labor.
Immigration reform would affect the dairy industry in the whole state, which has 370 dairy farms, but more likely in the Appleton and Fox River Valley areas, and in other large industries, Mayer said.
Immigration reforms also would affect states which have large truck farms that use seasonal laborers.
Immigrants are most often the lowest on the economic ladder and the most vulnerable during a recession, creating pressure on charity and religious organizations.
With the U.S. increasing unemployment, "more are leaving and fewer are coming in," Mayer said.
"Hispanics are good laborers," he said. "Farmers are asking how to make their people legal."
Immigrants that are working on dairy farms are not necessarily men.
"Women make good cow milkers," Mayer said.
Neighborhoods are seeing rising tensions as citizens are pit against new immigrants, Obama said.
The number of undocumented immigrants in the country has increased more than 40 percent since 2000. Every year, more than a half-million people come illegally or illegally overstay their visas.
Green County has seen its Latino/Hispanic population double since 1990 and rise from 327 in 2000 to about 500 in 2006, or about 1.4 percent of the total county population.
But the numbers do not mean all immigrants are illegal; those statistics are hard to estimate.
Alice Franks-Gray, executive director of Green Haven Family Advocates, Inc., Monroe, believes the county will see an increase in human trafficking, which brings an increase in violence and child abuse because of its manipulation capacity.
"They meet someone, for example, online, start a relationship that brings them into the county, and then come to believe they can remain in the county only because of the relationship," she said.
"They are told, "I can beat you or do whatever I want; if you don't do what I say, I'll call INS,'" she said.
A fear of the police and the judiciary system, and of being sent back out of the country, keeps the victim from reporting the abuse, she said.
"They are inherently frightened of (the legal system)," she said.
So far this year, Green Haven has helped 16 Spanish-speaking adults, who came with about 20 children. That is more than double last year's six or seven people.
"We saw 6 or 7 already in April of this year," Franks-Gray said.
Most of the women who sought help from Green Haven are 20 to 30 years old, an indication that their children were quite young. Two women were in their 40s and 50s. One patron was male.
Only three of the adults and 10 of the children were U.S. citizens. Thirteen adults and six children were not U.S. citizens, although they may have legal work status to stay in the county.
Most want to stay in the U.S., Franks-Gray said.
"The only reasons for wanting to return are family-based issues, if they have children in another county," she said.
Traditionally, Hispanics will take any job.
"They want to work. They don't care what they do. There's no shame in any job," Franks-Gray said.
Hispanics are found mostly in farming and manufacturing jobs, and Hispanic women will seek a wide variety of jobs, she said.