Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

3/1/00 News Report -- Denver Rocky Mountain News

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Alvro Delgado faced a decision: Stay home or go to work and chance being deported.

"I went to work because I have to make the money to help my family. Sometimes the agents do come and sometimes they don't, so I went to work,'' said Delgado.

Delgado was hanging drywall at the construction site for the new FedEx world headquarters Tuesday when more than 100 law enforcement officials raided the site looking for illegal immigrant workers.

Delgado, 26, said a friend called him late Monday night to tell him that Immigration and Naturalization agents were planning to raid their job site.

"I don't know how my friend knew, but he said they were coming and he was right this time,'' Delgado said.

At about 10:30 a.m., as Delgado worked hanging drywall, he said more than 100 agents appeared at the job.

"I heard people running and yelling about 'la migra,' the immigration agents,'' he said. "I looked up and saw about 100 agents around the fence and everywhere.''

Although 125 illegal workers were taken into custody at the FedEx site and 32 others at four apartment complexes, Delgado said he and many other construction workers hid until the agents left.

"I have been trying to get my green card for six years, and if I get sent back to Mexico, that will stop the process,'' he said. "So I hid because I have a future here.''

Born and raised in San Luis, Mexico, Delgado said he came to America when he was 17.

"My family moved to Texas to seek jobs and a better life,'' he said. "In Mexico, the jobs pay $50 a week or less, so we came to America.''

He said his father and brother are now citizens and are his sponsors while he works to get his green card.

"It is a long process, and I have been in the process for six years now,'' he said.

When friends told him there were better jobs in Memphis, he left Texas last year and came to the Mid-South.

Making $13 an hour, Delgado said he works 10 hours a day, seven days a week hanging drywall at the FedEx site.

"They ask me if I was legal or not, and I showed them my Texas driver's license and my identification papers, and I got work,'' he said. "Many have fake papers because they need the work so bad.''

After the raid, he said his boss told the other workers to come back to the site today.

"I am going back to work, and if the agents come, I will hide again,'' he said. "We only came to America to work, so I can have a home, a car and money in the bank like everyone else.''