ESSAY 6
Richard Leonardi/Bread fo rthe World
sometimes prove unscrupulous and abandon immigrants to find their own
way through a barren landscape.
Once in the United States, unauthorized immigrants must quickly find a
place to stay and a job that doesn’t require “papers” to get hired. Most often, this
work turns out to be in agriculture, construction, or the low-wage service sector.
People who were born here rarely work as hired farm laborers, while immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, may already be skilled farmers
and are, in any case, usually not in a position to turn down work of any kind.
Many farm laborers work seasonally, lowering their annual incomes to an average $11,000. Not surprisingly, they suffer food shortages and hunger far more
frequently than the overall U.S. population.
Other unauthorized immigrants find jobs as dishwashers or kitchen assistants in restaurants, house or office cleaners, babysitters, casual “day” laborers,
or construction workers.
Because they usually have little flexibility to change jobs and are seldom
eligible for promotions, undocumented workers have less control over their
working conditions and schedules than other workers. They run the risk of
being detained and deported if their worksite comes under scrutiny or they are
simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. They cannot leave the country
for any reason—the death of a parent, a child’s serious illness—without gambling on whether they will be able to return safely.
Despite all of this, illegal immigrants view migrating to
the United States as the best option they have. They are not
so much going to a place as they are escaping from a place.
Generally, unauthorized immigration is prompted by poverty
and the lack of opportunities to earn a living either at home
or in a nearby city. Unless conditions at home change, most of
the difficult decisions to migrate to the United States will not
change either. One way for U.S. immigration policy to address
this issue is through development assistance, which can offer a
cost-effective, humane response.
“The Face of Reality”
Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala are considered “lower middle-income” countries, meaning that their annual income per
person falls between approximately $1,000 and $4,000. The problem of poverty is complicated by severe economic inequality
78
:
About
percent
the percentage of Guatemala’s
indigenous children who are
stunted (a sign of long-term
malnutrition).
Families often use remittances from relatives working in the United States to help
pay for basic needs such as food and
children’s school fees.
More than 6
times as high:
the rate of stunting among children
in the poorest 20 percent of
Salvadorans, compared to children
in the richest 20 percent.
www.bread.org/institute
n
Development Works 35