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Web posted
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
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Immigration reform methods proposed
BEAUFORT: Residents present 'emotional' arguments for and against undocumented population.
By Will Dean
Carolina Morning News
Two Beaufort County residents with opposing methods of immigration reform for businesses asked state legislators for help Monday.
"We have a major problem and no one seems to want to help us," businessman John Ingram said, citing a lack of job and business opportunities because of an influx of illegal aliens.
Small American businesses and their workers are facing extinction, unable to compete with undocumented business owners who can work for less money because they don't pay taxes, insurance and other required expenses, he said.
Ingram asked the lawmakers to apply the same requirements and laws that citizens are expected to obey to illegal business owners and their employees in Beaufort County.
Applicants for business licenses should be asked if they are U.S. citizens or legal residents, just as job applications require identifying citizenship status, he said.
Those who are undocumented should be denied licenses and all existing illegal businesses should be closed, Ingram said.
"Illegal aliens are illegal," he said. "They broke the law to get here and if you are going to allow the Latinos to break the law, how can you send Haitians, Canadians or any other group back for doing the same thing?"
Illegal aliens account for 8 million to 12 million residents in the United States, according to the 2000 Census. And in South Carolina, Beaufort County had the largest increase in immigration from 1990 to 2000. More than 5,000 immigrants were not citizens, the census showed.
Representing the Citizens for a Better Community, Ingram also addressed the "myths" about illegal aliens. The arguments that illegal workers are doing jobs Americans don't want, they're harder workers than African Americans and whites, and businesses could not survive without them are all false, he said.
Housekeeping, landscaping, construction and other labor-intensive jobs were filled by Americans long before illegal aliens began arriving in the Lowcountry, Ingram said. And citizens still are willing to work in those jobs, but they expect fair wages, Ingram said.
Rep. Thayer Rivers, D-Ridgeland, thanked Ingram for "popping the balloon on the myth that I've been angry about for about a decade now": That Americans don't want jobs as laborers.
He said the deterrent is that pay has capped at $10 an hour, especially on Hilton Head Island, for unskilled labor.
A community disservice is how Ingram described paying workers less than they need to live in their community. It's one of the problems with the H2B visa, a program that allows companies that can't fill jobs with citizens to bring in foreign employees, Ingram said. He said he's seen it happen on Hilton Head with hospitality industry workers from Jamaica and the Czech Republic.
Many of these workers and illegal aliens send much of their pay back to their home countries, relying on assistance from the Deep Well Project, Volunteers in Medicine and other social service agencies to live in Beaufort County, he said.
The drain on the agencies limits the help available for citizens, he said.
Ingram said though it's considered politically incorrect to talk about illegal immigration problems, "As American citizens, we have the right to ask that something be done."
Luis Bell, president of the Latin American Council of South Carolina, believes immigrants also have rights given the "importance of Hispanics to the economy of Beaufort County."
Introducing himself as an advocate for Latinos and illegal immigrants, he called for the lawmakers' support in changing laws regarding driver's and business licenses for immigrants.
The difficulty in getting driver's licenses is a major issue for immigrants, Bell said. Many cannot go to work because they don't have licenses and public transportation is limited, he said.
Bell suggested returning to the policy that allowed immigrants to get a driver's license with only one form of ID - a policy was in effect before 9/11.
Rep. JoAnne Gilham, R-Hilton Head Island, as a member of the state's Public Works Committee, told him the license requirements were tightened for the protection of the country. And she questioned his advocacy for illegals.
"I have a very difficult time (with) making legal someone illegal in our country," she said.
Gilham said it's good that people are talking about the illegal immigration problem, but it's becoming an emotional issue.
"When things become an emotional issue, they don't solve very easily," she said.
For citizens, "It does get emotional when you see what happens in your community," Ingram said.
Sen. Scott Richardson, R-Hilton Head, said that the concerns of both sides need to be addressed further, but there's a federal overlap regarding immigration reform.
"We're not getting much support from the federal government," he said.
The discussion continues today, with the Citizens for a Better Community meeting to begin planning solutions to bring before the town of Hilton Head and the Beaufort County delegation, Ingram said.
Residents also will get an opportunity to address their concerns next month at a community forum Beaufort County Councilwoman Starletta Hairston is planning. She expects members of the delegation, chambers of commerce, sheriff's office, and health, African-American and Hispanic communities to attend.
"I know this is a federal issue that needs some legislation to come down," she said. "Until that happens, we need to find a way to deal with this on a local level so that it doesn't divide us."
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