Several of the district's newspapers have looked at immigration in the last week.
Most ambitious is the Rochester Post Bulletin's exercise in civic journalism, Broken Borders/Frontera Rota, a special report that looks at immigration in Southeastern Minnesota. PDFs of the supplement are available in English and Spanish, there's a special blog for reader comments, and
A P-B Dialogues panel discussion focused on immigration issues is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday (Aug. 15) at the Rochester Public Library.
The paper's editor asked the reporter about her project:
Christina Killion Valdez, who reported most of the stories in this package, has been a Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN writer for seven years. A native of Apple Valley, Minn., she has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She lives in Rochester with her husband Miguel, who's from Monterrey, Mexico, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2005.
Managing Editor Jay Furst put these questions to Christina after she filed her stories.
What's the most surprising thing you learned?
That almost half of illegal immigrants entered the country legally, but overstayed their visas. It's such a common belief that all illegal immigrants cut across the border undetected.
What's the biggest misconception people have about U.S. immigration policy?
I think that most illegal immigrants choose to skirt the system instead of coming through legal channels. People say they should get in line like the rest of immigrants, but at this point there is no line for most low-skilled laborers to get in.
Whose story, among the people you interviewed, touched you most deeply?
My heart goes out to refugees like Roda Majok who flee from war and don't have a say in where they end up. She had two children when she and her husband escaped the fighting in Sudan. She radiates such joy when talking about her new-found safety, but it's obvious she's still haunted by the horrors she faced and the fact that she left her brother and sister behind. . . .
What's the key point you want readers to get?
This is not a black and white issue. People on all sides of the debate want to do what is best for our country and its people. In the end though, the decisions that are made will directly impact the lives of many people.
Go read the supplement.
The Austin Daily Herald has published the first two parts of a planned four-parts series: Opportunities drew immigrants to city concludes:
. . .One thing remains undisputed: the [Latino] population is growing. A 2006 report from the State Demographic Center says Latinos are the fastest growing group in Minnesota, up 29 percent from 2000 to 2005.
“The nonwhite/Latino population record more than nine births for each death,” the report said, which attributed that to generally larger families, the influx of incomers and a significantly younger population.
Thus Austin's continually changing face. Local reaction has been mixed to be sure, with some saying Latinos are damaging the community while others believe they are revitalizing it.
“We would be this quiet little town in Minnesota fading away,” former mayor Bonnie Rietz said during a Global Volunteers meeting at Riverland Community College last week. “Change is tough - some people aren't adept at adapting to change well. But it's here.”
The second article examines some of the economics driving immigration in Austin: Low-wage jobs draw immigrants. It begins:
Gaudensio Herrera waits patiently for the cars exiting Quality Pork Processors to pass before he crosses the street to his 3 p.m. shift at the plant, where he cuts hog bellies with a tool called a whizzer knife.
At 42 years old, Herrera lives with his cousin in Austin and sends home a portion of his low-wage paycheck to his wife and three children in Guerrero, Mexico, a coastline state bordering the Pacific Ocean.
He said it was “very difficult” to come to the United States four years ago for his job, which he heard about from friends and relatives.
Having no English skills, employees who speak Spanish at QPP taught him how do his job, which he said he enjoys.
Herrera is one of an undetermined number of immigrants who made the journey to the U.S. to find a better life. Communities like Austin provide low-skill jobs, and even though they may not pay much, it is an improvement over the tough economy, poor education and lack of opportunity in their native countries.
“People are desperate,” Walter Schwartz, an interpreter who immigrated from Guatemala more than 20 years ago, said. “People still believe here, you can get dollars out of trees.”
Schwartz said he came to the U.S. illegally, paying a smuggler $300 to cross the border. He eventually gained citizenship, and now interprets for Spanish-speakers in Austin.
“Very poor people cannot come to the states,” he said. “If you are poor, poor, poor, you cannot pay the fees.”
Schwartz said he has heard of smugglers charging as high as $5,000 to bring illegal immigrants across the border, a price to pay that is steep in more ways than one.
Schwartz believes government “solutions” to curb illegal immigrants, like a guest worker program, are “loaded with political agendas.”
“You are expected to work and stay in your trailer, and go back home in two years,” he said. “Go to the root of the problem. If you fix these injustices in Latin America , they would not need to be here.” . . .
Finally, the Owatonna People's Press printed an Associated Press article Immigration drops at U.S.-Mexico border. The headline is a fair description of the content of the article, which also considers the effects of tighter border controls on the economies of both the United States and Mexico.
Go read it at the OPP (it doesn't like blogs to quite even tiny excerpts without permission, and we don't like to fight about fair use, so we now always simply direct our readers to the paper).
Combined, the coverage from the three papers is fascinating reading which focuses mainly--though not exclusively on Latino immigrants. Though Latinos do make up the lion's share of new immigrants in Southern Minnesota, people from other parts of the world are now calling the first district home as well.
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