Bill's Failure Has Immigrants Down, Not Leaving
Many Say They Will Remain -- and Keep Working -- in the United States Illegally

By Pamela Constable and N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 30, 2007

Although angered and alarmed by the Senate rejection of immigration reform, illegal immigrants in the Washington area said yesterday that they would risk staying here rather than return to impoverished countries with harsh conditions or low wages.

"This is a very big blow to all of us," said Roberto Villaroel, 47, a day laborer from Bolivia and a leader of illegal immigrants in Northern Virginia. "The bill would have brought stability to our community and stopped the persecution of workers. It would have transformed the world of immigrants. Instead, we are left in a very bad and fearful place, and all because of politics."

The Senate measure failed under an onslaught of pressure from people who were incensed by provisions that would offer the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants the chance to live and work in the United States legally and eventually to become permanent U.S. residents. Opponents branded the bill as a form of amnesty for law-breaking foreigners and lauded its defeat Thursday.

"The Senate surrendered to the will of the vast majority of the American people, who wanted our laws enforced and our borders secured," said D. A. King, an activist in Georgia who organized several rallies in Washington against the legislation. "The first sentence of the bill clearly made illegal aliens legal, and it would have forgiven the crimes of both the aliens and their employers. That's what made people so upset."

But many illegal immigrants in the region said yesterday that they had viewed legalization as a fair reward for years of hard work at wages they said few Americans would accept.

Alex, a 26-year-old haircutter who sneaked into the United States from El Salvador five years ago, said he was at work in a District salon Thursday morning when news of the bill's defeat was announced on the Spanish language TV news channel.

"I just closed my eyes, and said, 'My God. What are we going to do now?' " recalled Alex, who spoke on condition that his last name not be used for fear of losing his job. "I felt such a sense of disillusionment and impotence and also frustration with this country that seems to want to keep us Latinos in a modern form of slavery."

At a strip mall in Fairfax County, where day laborers gather each morning in hopes of finding work painting apartments or cutting grass, illegal immigrants from across Latin America huddled worriedly yesterday, grumbling about the bill's defeat while keeping one eye out for contractors' pickups.

Many said it had become much more difficult to find work in recent months because of a wide crackdown on job sites by federal immigration agents. They said they feared that legal pressure and public hostility against them would increase -- but not enough to force them to leave the United States.

"We all want to be legal. None of us would be here on the corner if we had papers. We would have decent, regular jobs," said Juan Carlos Miguel, 50, who was laid off from his job as a cashier in Peru two years ago and now competes with younger men for day-labor jobs.

"I went from a necktie to this. I have done every kind of job people asked," he said angrily. "And now they are telling us to pack our bags and go home."

Although most illegal immigrants in the Washington region and across the United States are Hispanics who walked or waded across the U.S. border without permission, some are migrants from Asia and Africa who overstayed legal visas or were smuggled into the country in flight from distant conflicts. For them, the failure of the Senate bill was equally devastating.

Susan, a 52-year-old teacher from the Philippines who spoke on condition that her last name not be used, came to Gaithersburg with her three young children on a temporary work visa eight years ago. She said the private school that hired her offered to sponsor her for permanent legal status, but then the director changed his mind.

Suddenly illegal, Susan survived on babysitting and restaurant jobs that paid cash. At times, she said, she considered returning to the Philippines, but her children begged her to stay.

"They've been here since they were so young that they speak English the same as any American. And plus, there's no future for them in the Philippines," she said.

When she learned from her father, a legal immigrant, that the Senate bill had failed, she said, "I just felt so sorry. . . . I really don't know what I'm going to do."

Since entering the United States, some illegal immigrants have attended school and learned professions but remained stymied by their lack of legal status. They had placed special hopes on the Senate bill and felt especially devastated by its failure.

Eduardo Tapia, 20, a native of Mexico, said he sneaked across the border at 14 and made his way to Maryland. In 2005, he graduated from Bladensburg High School with high marks and a dream of attending college, but he was dismayed to learn that he could not qualify for in-state tuition or financial aid.

This spring, he has been working at a seafood restaurant for $7.50 an hour, hoping for passage of the Senate bill because it would have granted residency to thousands of U.S. high school graduates who arrived illegally as children.

"I was praying to God that maybe they're going to pass it and I can become a citizen, or resident, and go to college like everybody," Tapia said. Despite his disappointment, he said he only briefly considered returning to Mexico.

"After all this, going back is like" starting again, he said. "I have to hope. I have a dream that they're going to pass it."

Saba Someon, 34, said she fled Ethiopia in 2001, leaving behind her husband and five children, because the government threatened to deport her to neighboring Eritrea. She said she paid a smuggler $3,700 to sneak her into the United States by plane, applied for asylum and was rejected. Since then, Someon said, she has spent six years living "like an animal," surviving on help from other local Ethiopians.

"I think . . . this bill, it [will] help me. Now, no hope," Someon said yesterday through tears. "It broke my heart." Once, she said, she thought of the United States as a country with "more humanity," a country that would help people like her. Now, she said, she feels at sea. "I cannot go back. . . . I don't have [a] country now," Someon said. "I believe my country is here."

Staff writer Karin Brulliard contributed to this report.