Word: legalism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Helens, he used to work in the timber industry, as a lumber broker. But his more recent turn, as a general contractor, brought him face-to-face with an economic force he felt he could influence: illegal immigration. Although St. Helens has a relatively small Hispanic community - some legal, some illegal - the town is just 30 miles (about 50 km) from major population centers like Portland and Beaverton, close enough that out-of-town contractors with crews of underpaid, underdocumented construction workers began bidding on jobs around town eight years ago, says Mayo. Local contractors had a stark choice: either...
...outspent and outorganized by regional activist groups - he raised $430, they raised more than $70,000 - but his proposal still won by 15 percentage points. (A more ostentatious second proposition, to post 4-by-8-ft. [1.2 by 2.4 m] plywood signs at certain job sites declaring them for "Legal Workers Only," failed at the ballot box.) Like many others in the fight against illegal immigration, he sees himself as a reluctant warrior drawn to action by federal timidity. If the government had done its job and enforced laws against illegal immigration, he argues, he wouldn't have...
...camera. After the marchers passed, Chamberlain lit a Marlboro Light and climbed up the embankment to where his wife Kristy, 30, and friend Heather Douglas, 28, were drinking Starbucks coffee drinks near two homemade signs they had hung for the occasion: "Our Country, Our Jobs" and "We Welcome Legal Immigrants...
...celebration was premature. It remains almost impossible to accurately track the population of illegals using data from the census, which doesn't ask people their legal status. Harder still is to tell whether people are leaving the U.S. or simply deciding not to enter in the first place. (Many researchers believe it's the latter.) There's anecdotal evidence that more young workers are staying home in the south than before. Border-patrol arrests are down 24% this year on the U.S.-Mexico border. But for those who are in the U.S., the twin pressures - increased enforcement and a worsening...
Salvador, 27, emigrated from El Salvador eight months ago and is resolved to stay. He knows that he arrived at perhaps the worst time in the past 20 years, confronting a cauldron of economic and legal risk, but he says those pressures can't compare with what he faces back home: a young wife who hasn't been able to work since experiencing complications during childbirth four years ago and a rural hometown where the global downturn hit with brutal effect almost two years...