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| A monthly look at newcomers to Rochester |
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 Post-Bulletin Passport to Rochester
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Jobs attract Mexicans to the area, some of them permanently Saturday, July 26, 2002
That number increases in the summer and early fall, when migrant workers come to southern Minnesota to help farmers harvest their crops and to work 12-hour days at vegetable-packing plants such as Seneca Foods in Rochester. Other major local employers of Mexican immigrants and seasonal migrant workers are Lakeside Foods in Plainview, McNeilus Truck & Manufacturing in Dodge Center, and Hormel Foods in Austin. The annual migrant stream of workers, often recruited by Minnesota companies from such southern Texas towns as Eagle Pass and San Antonio, reached a peak of about 6,000 parents and children in the middle 1990s, according to Migrant Health Services, in Moorhead, Minn., a federally funded agency that tracks and provides services to the migrants. That number has dropped in recent years to about 2,500 because of technological advances in farming and rising housing prices in the area, the agency says. Yet stresses on Mexican immigrants, migrant workers and local social services throughout southern Minnesota has increased in recent years thanks to the "settling out" of the migrant stream into the area. One reason the migrant stream has dwindled is because increasing numbers of migrants have chosen to settle here permanently. The jobs available to these workers, typically in the $7.50 an hour range with no or few benefits, force many of them to live in crowded and substandard housing. Although a number of community service groups have organized in southern Minnesota to help these immigrants, the actual funds available for health care, English language education and legal counsel is minimal. The key, but largely unspoken, issue is the number of illegal Mexican immigrants who either migrate through, or live permanently, in the region. There is no official statistic giving the percentage of the area's Hispanic population who are illegal, meaning without a permanent resident "green card" or a valid social security number. Yet if the region's statistics follow the national ones, that percentage is high. Legal immigration to the U.S. from Mexico is about 175,000 annually, with illegal immigration between 200,000 and 300,000, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Last year, before Sept. 11 stopped the plan in its tracks, the Bush administration was close to signing a blanket amnesty for the nation's 4 million to 5 million illegal Mexican immigrants. Accepting these high numbers is America's de facto guest worker program giving U.S. businesses access to cheap labor. Yet this policy of accepting lack of legal documentation dooms an immigrant to a furtive, fearful and tenuous existence. "Anyone here without legal status is a lifelong sitting duck," said Rochester immigration attorney Michael A. York. "There are a lot more people here who are deportable than are actually ever deported." Local employers of Mexican migrants, such as Seneca Foods, say they require employees to produce a valid Social Security number as proof of their legal status. Yet social service workers say they work with many undocumented Mexican immigrants in southern Minnesota.
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