Word: hosseim
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...Home or Abroad So long as that dearth of investment in North Africa continues, workers will leave. Outside the southern Italian city of Foggia, the first of the summer's tomatoes could recently be seen on the vine. The local fields are worked almost exclusively by migrants. Hosseim (not his real name), 22, an illegal immigrant from Morocco, came to Europe two years ago, crammed with 65 others in a rickety fishing boat. His family owns 12 acres (5 ha) in the town of El Kelaa, 47 miles (75 km) northeast of Marrakech, but raises only a few cows...
...Still, Hosseim's younger brother wants to follow him to Italy. "He says: 'I can't stay here; there's nothing for me here.' I tell him not to come, but he thinks I'm not telling the truth about my life here," says Hosseim as he sits in a small apartment he shares with four other Moroccans. "All young people think there's money and cars waiting for you. But when you come, you see it's different...
Some prosper. One of Hosseim's roommates got his working papers, does regular shifts at a marble factory nearby, and is putting away as much as $470 a month. But Italians say they're fed up with the illegals who harvest their beloved pomodori. Silvio Berlusconi's new government is pushing through a bill that would mandate jail time for immigrants caught without documents, and the E.U. has passed new guidelines that allow member states to detain illegal immigrants for up to 18 months and impose a re-entry ban of up to five years...
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