Concerns grow over illegal aliens

Virginia Macias makes a steady living as a translator in Baton Rouge, accompanying her Spanish-speaking clients to everything from traffic court hearings to labor and delivery.

Births are one of the most booming aspects of her business, and she attends three or four births per month at Earl K. Long Medical Center. “They’re all illegals,” she says. “They don’t speak any English.”

Macias has been working as a translator for years. A second-generation Texan of Mexican descent, she says she believes there are more undocumented, illegal aliens locally than ever.

Mounting problems associated with illegal immigration are no longer confined to border states such as California and Texas.

Jairo Alvarez is a Columbian-born Baton Rouge contractor who for years has hired Hispanic laborers to build houses. Based on national figures, he figures there are as many as 5,000 illegal immigrants in the Baton Rouge area. That number has certainly climbed since massive reconstruction got underway after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Some came directly from Mexico and other Latin American countries, while many relocated from larger U.S. metropolitan areas.

Alvarez says illegal aliens are especially vulnerable to exploitation by employers who know they can get away with paying low wages in return for identity protection. In some cases employers keep these workers in squalor. If the illegals make trouble the employer can simply report them to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for deportation.

Alvarez even sees illegal immigration posing a long-term threat to domestic prosperity. He envisions millions of aging illegals, unable to support themselves, becoming severe burdens to already struggling health care and Social Security systems.

“It’s a ticking time-bomb,” Alvarez says. “In what, 20, 25 years, there will be millions of retirement-age illegals living under bridges and on park benches. Politicians can’t be myopic and not think about this.”

Temple Black is a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement regional office in New Orleans, which enforces federal immigration laws, deports violators and oversees the Baton Rouge field office. “Business is brisk,” Black says, though he stops short of claiming pickups and deportations are on the rise in the Capital City.

“We work very closely with local police, and Baton Rouge is certainly no exception,” Black says.

But immigration offices don’t break down statistics within their entire five-state region. Similarly secretive, Black will not divulge the number of field agents working out of Baton Rouge. “That information is considered law enforcement-sensitive,” he says. While Black shies away from big statistical claims for South Louisiana, he admits the anecdotal evidence of more illegals is there.

Available stats do suggest a regional rise in illegal aliens. For Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee combined, 6,905 illegals were removed from January through August last year. That’s a significant increase: In 2006, 4,394 illegals were removed during the entire 12-month period.

More significantly, removals in the first eight months of 2007 more than doubled the 2005 total.