New York Times
By Damien Cave
June 8, 2014
TULSA,
Okla. — Ignacio, a father of four, bounces along in his pickup truck,
driving at exactly the speed limit through an aging suburb. The clock
says 6:44 a.m. Religious
pendants hang off the mirror. His teenage son sits beside him, chatty
if half-awake, as they approach an apartment building for a day of
roofing in dire heat.
A
police cruiser suddenly appears to the right. Ignacio stays quiet,
hands on the wheel, but in his mind he repeats the prayer that covers
his 12 years living here illegally:
“No me pare, no me pare” — “Don’t stop me, don’t stop me.”
“We
used to have such a comfortable life, money to pay for our house, the
car, to go wherever we wanted,” Ignacio says, referring to a time before
Oklahoma’s 2007 law
against illegal immigrants forced him to close his successful hair
salon. “Now we are biting our nails, trying to make enough money every
month.”
The
routines of life as an immigrant in the country illegally now vary
widely by location — perhaps more than ever. Last year 11 states,
including California and Utah,
passed laws permitting illegal immigrants to obtain drivers licenses,
while 15 states now let immigrant students pay in-state tuition
regardless of legal status, up from 11 in 2012.
Some
other states have followed a different path. Oklahoma led the way in
2007 with legislation that made it a crime to knowingly shelter or
transport unauthorized immigrants,
while preventing them from obtaining licenses, credentials and public
benefits. It was the first sweeping state effort to discourage illegal
immigration, and advocates for the approach — which has been expanded
here and exported to a few other states — argue
that it improves quality of life for legal residents and citizens.
“Every
time you have people coming over from different cultures that don’t
assimilate with the American culture, they develop an underground
culture,” said Maj. Shannon
Clark, a spokesman for the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office. “These people
will try to generate revenue and gain money and do things that are in
total conflict with the law.”
But
Oklahoma’s restrictions did not reduce Oklahoma’s illegal immigrant
population, census figures show. While some families fled, others came
and tens of thousands more
— like Ignacio and his family, who requested that only their first
names be used — have stayed put, hiding and striving in the shadows.
Tulsa
is an especially tough place to pull that off. Even by Oklahoma’s
standards, it is known as a vigilant city, with a suburban lifestyle
that requires driving to work
and a sheriff’s office that has made immigration enforcement a high
priority.
Legal
immigrants and criminals here have also found ways to use the law to
their advantage. Ignacio says he has lost more than $100,000 to frauds
he never reported to
the police, fearing deportation. And it was a former employer and new
competitor — a Mexican woman with legal status — who forced him to shut
down his salon by reporting to inspectors that he lacked a Social
Security number.
“The legal ones without compassion are the worst,” said Maria, Ignacio’s wife.
Dad
The
alarm clock honks at 6 a.m. — and for a few minutes more — before
Ignacio comes out of his bedroom in baggy shorts and a T-shirt. Groggy
and darkly tanned from long
days on rooftops, he collapses into a kitchen chair as Maria collects
10 cans of V8 energy drinks to keep him and their oldest son, José,
hydrated at work.
“Coffee?”
she asks. Ignacio shakes his head. He grabs a bag of bean and cheese
sandwiches on wheat bread and heads to his truck, which is just a few
years old. Despite
the fact that money is tight, nice cars and cellphones are important.
“If you have a nice car, they treat you well,” he says, referring to the
police. “If you drive an old, ugly car, they stop you and arrest you.”
The
journey to the job site lasts less than 20 minutes. A police officer is
looking at his cellphone as they drive past, leaving Ignacio and José
to meet up with a crew
of eight other Hispanic men. A maintenance supervisor from the
apartment complex waves good morning.
“This is the best crew you can have,” he says.
Ignacio
and José climb a tall ladder, then get to work cleaning the roof. They
are sweating within the first hour. “It’s tough work, especially with
the heat,” Ignacio
says. He turns away from the sun and yells for someone to bring him
shears to cut the heavy-duty plastic they are laying down over the old
tar.
He
would much rather be trimming hair. Ignacio, 40, comes from a long line
of barbers in Zacatecas, an old silver city in central Mexico, and he
often says he has “hair-cutting
in his blood.” He used to make a good living at it here in Tulsa,
working first at a salon on the heavily Hispanic east side, then opening
his own shop where he and his wife together made up to $700 a day.
But
then they ran into trouble. Ignacio said that his boss at the first
salon had refused to give him a 1099 form so he could pay his taxes, so
when he opened his own
salon in January of 2004, and voluntarily paid the taxes he owed, he
attracted attention to his previous employer who, in retaliation,
directed state inspectors to his new business.
When
Oklahoma’s illegal-immigrant law arrived three years later, the visits
intensified. He tried to renew his barber’s license, but was rebuffed;
the Oklahoma Cosmetology
Board had ruled that proof of legal status was required for every
credential the state issued.
Ignacio
shut down the shop in 2008. He said he turned to roofing only after
being cheated by other immigrants in other ways. His secondhand toy
store ran aground when
a supplier took his money and never delivered a trailer full of
merchandise. A promised shipment of Christmas trees arrived after
Christmas. The couple considered returning to Mexico, but decided they
would stay for the children’s education.
In
2009, he said, life’s burdens and failures began to make him suicidal.
When his mother died that year, and he could not go home because he knew
he could not return
the way he came in, with a tourist visa, he wrote a note to his wife
asking her to take good care of the children.
“You are the only one they have,” he wrote. “Pray to God for me.”
Sitting
at a table outside the one-story house the couple bought nine years
ago, Maria holds up the note. It is on the back of a sign, and the
children have colored over
parts of the writing. “I don’t know why I kept it,” she says, trying to
laugh.
There
are other documents as well: a scrap of paper with the name and phone
number of the person who was supposed to get them visas; a letter from
an inspector with the
state Board of Cosmetology naming Ignacio’s former employer as the
source of a complaint; another from the Oklahoma Tax Commission
indicating, seven months later, that he had complied with all state
income tax requirements.
The
photos in the pile show the couple’s old salon — Maria and Ignacio on
the day it opened, then later, when snapshots of satisfied clients
covered the wall. She pulls
out a picture of a new Hummer. “He was going to paint it over with the
name of the salon,” she says.
She
laughs again. “Vámanos, hijas,” she says, calling to her three
daughters. The younger two, Michelle, 10, and Cointa, 6, are American
citizens born in Tulsa. They pile
into the family S.U.V. as Maria rolls down the windows, making a joke
about avoiding air-conditioning to save money. The temperature is over
90.
Her
first stop is the grocery store where — after parking carefully within
the yellow lines — Maria spends $16.41 on bread and other items. Most of
the customers are Hispanic
or Asian.
Next,
she stops at a store with a sign out front that says “pay your bills
here.” She hands cash to a woman in a Western Union shirt, for cable and
electricity. “I used
to pay by check,” she says afterward, holding two of her daughters’
hands, “back when we had a bank account.”
Into
the S.U.V. yet again, for a short drive to Dollar Tree for cleaning
supplies, including soap to make sure the vehicles look good as new,
then to Walgreen’s for Gatorade.
This is the only store that requires English and Alejandra, 16,
translates. The first thing she does is make sure the clerk complies
with the sale prices of six bottles for $5.
At
home, after a roundabout route to avoid the police, Alejandra shows off
her immaculate bedroom. The closet is well organized; the bed made. She
plays the violin, and
like her mother, she keeps important records: her membership in the
National Honor Society, a “student of the month” certificate from sixth
grade.
Like
many other children of parents who are in the country illegally, she
seems to feel that doing well will help make the United States more
accepting.
“My
parents can only take us a certain part of the way,” Alejandra says,
warming up lunch for her father and brother. “We have to go the extra
mile.”
But
there are limits. A group of boys threw bottles of urine at her and a
friend a few months ago, and the family decided not to press charges
because it would have meant
a trip to court. When José, 19, who was born in Mexico, recently asked a
military recruiter to find out if he could join now that he has the
right to work with the deferred action program that applies to some
children brought here illegally, the recruiter
never called back.
For
José in particular, the past few years have been a rough introduction
to American law and order. He had gotten used to having money, time, a
girlfriend — not thinking
about his illegal status — until he accompanied his mother to an
appointment at a hospital affiliated with Oklahoma State University.
She
needed to have her gall bladder removed, and an emergency room doctor
had referred her to a specialist. But the hospital refused, the family
said, because it received
state funds and Oklahoma’s 2007 immigration law bars immigrants without
legal status from receiving benefits.
Even
when José explained that his father would pay cash, they did not admit
her. “What I expected from reality,” José said, “it’s not what
happened.”
Maria
eventually got the surgery at a private hospital — with a bill of
$11,000. Ignacio says they are still paying it off, $50 a month. A
spider bite he suffered on a
rooftop a few months ago added another medical bill of about $4,000.
Ignacio is proud to be paying these, just as he is proud not to have asked for food stamps for his citizen children.
And
at times now, the family can see reason for hope. José has secured a
scholarship for the local community college. At night, they all usually
trickle into the sanctuary
of St. Thomas More Catholic Church for choral practice. Ignacio smiles
more with a songbook in his hand. José sings a few solos, raising his
voice to the ceiling, his dark eyes at peace.
But
the relief is never permanent. Tomorrow means another stressful drive
to a 13-hour day on a scorching rooftop. Winter will eventually come
again, the outdoor work
will end. And the worry about being deported lingers.
“You think about it all the time,” Ignacio said. “You are always aware of that danger.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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