Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

8/17/03  News Report -- The Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer

KANNAPOLIS -- Only a few minutes into an orientation meeting last week for laid-off Pillowtex workers, Denise Hernandez learned she was wasting her time.

After all, the Mexican native said she had used a fake driver's license and Social Security card to land her $12.75 an hour job with the textile company three years ago. So when a state official urged those at the Spanish-language meeting without legitimate documents to leave rather than waste everyone's time, she and dozens of others walked out.

"When I applied there three years ago nobody said anything about that," said Hernandez, 25 and the mother of two girls. "But now that the government has to pay, they care. Now, we are illegal."

Their predicament sheds light on a contradictory U.S. immigration policy driven by employers that welcomes illegal immigrants when times are good, but abandons them when the economy turns bad.

The ranks of illegal immigrants, overwhelmingly Latino and predominantly Mexican, swelled nearly eightfold in the state from 1990 to 2000 to an estimated 206,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. Government statistics estimate that 47 percent of the state's 433,872 foreign-born residents in 2000 were in the country illegally.

Many found their way into the region's manufacturing plants or booming construction industry, where they became renowned for their work ethic. Now they are enduring their first economic downturn in the state and finding they are disqualified from collecting unemployment insurance, food stamps or job retraining benefits. That includes the $20.6 million the U.S. Labor Department on Friday awarded North Carolina in training, education and health insurance grants.

The scenario has played out in other parts of North Carolina and brings attention to the long-simmering debate over the nation's treatment of illegal immigrants.

"In the 1990s a lot of businesspeople figured immigration was like trade. If we are going to have free trade, why not free immigration," said Steven Camarota, director of research for the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. "The problem is immigrants are people, not garments. If we import a family and kids what are we going to say to them when business goes down? Get the hell out!"

Pillowtex workers interviewed last week estimated that anywhere from one half to 80 percent of the company's 363 Latino workers used forged documents to get jobs with the company. Pillowtex would not comment on the estimates, but said it complied with the law.

The law requires employers to retain copies of Social Security cards or federally issued "green cards," or other approved documents proving someone is legally entitled to work in the United States. The law also mandates the companies "ensure that the documents presented appear to be genuine and to relate to the individual." Despite rampant counterfeiting, congressional efforts to require employers to verify the authenticity of such documents before hiring workers have been successfully opposed by employer groups.

The result is a loophole that makes U.S. immigration laws vulnerable to abuse by both employers and immigrants.

Denise Hernandez, for instance, said she obtained a fake driver's license and Social Security card for $70 five years ago. Hernandez, who was willing to reveal her name because she is married to an American and expects to resolve her immigration status soon, said she used those documents to get her job at Pillowtex.

Only in the spring of 2002 did the company question the veracity of her documents, after being notified by the Social Security Administration that her information did not match what it had in its database. Hernandez and three other former Pillowtex employees interviewed for this article said Pillowtex gave them a week to provide new numbers in response to the agency's "no-match" letter.

Fearing they might be terminated, employees got assistance from an immigration attorney with the UNITE union. During two days of meetings in Kannapolis, Allison Rosenberg said she met with about 100 mostly Latino employees and convinced Pillowtex they could be sued for discrimination if they fired workers because of a no-match letter. Employees said the issue never came up again, although they heard the company subsequently began verifying all job candidates' Social Security numbers after that.

In a written response to Observer questions, Pillowtex would not confirm the incident, but said that when the company "receives no-match letters, the information is forwarded to the employee. He or she is responsible for resolving the issue on their own at their local Social Security Administration office."

Privacy laws prohibit the Social Security Administration from discussing specific no-match letters, an agency spokesman said.

Short on sympathy

The plight of undocumented workers does not garner much sympathy at a time when many Americans are losing their jobs. "I have exhausted my unemployment and I'm an American citizen and a taxpayer," said Matt Tracy, who was among 375 laid off at an Alcoa aluminum foundry last year in Badin, about 50 miles east of Charlotte. "If I can't collect it, why should they?"

Tracy, who was in downtown Kannapolis last week, said he is struggling to support his wife and their two children.

"I think the Mexican government needs to step up and provide for its own people," he said.

Several of the illegal immigrants interviewed after Wednesday's orientation meeting said they plan to stay and find other work.

"We don't want the government to help us with money," said a 40-year-old man from the Mexican state of Guerrero. "We want the government to open the door so we can work. That's all we ask for."

Dressed in neatly pressed khaki shorts and a collared shirt, the man said he was drawn to the area in 1999 by Concord relatives' tales of abundant, good-paying jobs.

"The salaries are much higher here," he said, standing outside his mobile home park in Concord. "In California, the majority earn minimum wage. To earn a 25-cent-an-hour raise takes you a year or two."

The man, who would not provide his name for fear of being deported, entered the United States on a tourist visa, procured false identification and got a job within weeks of arriving in town packing sheets and pillowcases for Pillowtex at $11 per hour at its Plant 6 in Concord.

Although his wife still works at the packing operation for another textile company, she does not earn enough to support him and their two sons. Because the boys, ages 17 and 7, were born in Mexico, they are ineligible for food stamps and most other government benefits.

"I don't want to pull my boys out of school," he said. "I want them to stay here and learn English."

Since getting laid off by Pillowtex July 30, the man has applied for several jobs. He said one company already rejected his application because it could not verify his Social Security number.

U.S.-born children

If they are unable to find new employment quickly, such families end up tapping state resources. That's because their U.S.-born children are eligible for food stamps, subsidized school lunches and other government assistance.

That growing burden, many experts argue, is a major cause of California's budget crisis.

Such fiscal woes are a long way off for North Carolina, where illegal immigrants made up 2.6 percent of the population in 2000, compared with 6.5 percent in California, according to government estimates.

Many think the Latino community is destined to grow, as its professional and entrepreneurial class gains clout in society.

While some leave the area in search of work, they are just as quickly replaced, said Jonas Perez, pastor for International Baptist Church in Concord.

"Every time I come to the office, I see five or six more families coming and I ask them, `Why did you bring this brother when there is no work?' And they say, `Because the situation is worse where he came from.' They find life more appealing here. They say the people are friendlier. It just keeps growing."

Perez noted that because most Latin American countries offer no or little social welfare benefits, illegal immigrants from the region don't miss them.

"For them it is alien to think they are going to receive unemployment benefits," said Perez, whose congregation has turned over three times in the last six years with the comings and goings of illegal immigrants.

Even single workers, like Ernesto Hernandez, are reluctant to leave.

Another former Pillowtex worker, Hernandez is living with three other single men and a couple in a $750-a-month rental house in Kannapolis. Only two in the household are employed, both in construction. Two, including Hernandez, were laid off by Pillowtex three weeks ago and cash is running short.

"The best thing would be to find something in the area of Charlotte," said Hernandez, 20, "but I don't think I'll leave North Carolina."