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LISA MULLINS: I'm Lisa Mullins and this is The World. All this week, we've been reporting on how the recession is affecting people in California. We've told you about people involved in a variety of industries – agriculture, healthcare, and child care. All of them are seeing their opportunities diminish as California's embattled economy sheds jobs. Same can be said for those undocumented workers who wait to be hired each day on street corners and parking lots. They toil in an underground economy that's been hit hard by the recession, as The World's Jason Margolis found out.
JASON MARGOLIS: The City of Industry is a 30-minute car ride east of downtown Los Angeles. In a sprawling Home Depot parking lot, about 50 men stand around, looking bored. I approach a few of them, but they shy away. Most of the men here are likely undocumented and wary of strangers asking questions. But Lloyda Alvarado advocates for me. She's with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. The men crowd around as she explains that I'm a reporter. She says if people speak with me, they don't have to give their names. Soon, a big guy in his 20's steps forward and freely gives me his name: Reuben Garcia from Mexico City. And he has no problem admitting he's here illegally.
REUBEN GARCIA: I got no rights to be here, but I'm still here, you know.
MARGOLIS: How long have you been here for?
GARCIA: For like seven years, eight years.
MARGOLIS: 7, 8 years. And what do you do here?
GARCIA: I used to do construction, but it's kinda slow. So I'm right here on the corner looking for work. It's kinda slow, too.
MARGOLIS: On the other side of the parking lot, a car pulls up while we're talking. About a dozen men rush towards the vehicle, frantically waving at the driver, trying to get chosen. This interview has just cost Garcia a potential job. It's survival of the fittest out here.
GARCIA: Right now, I do anything. I just help people. When they come and pick us up, we just help them to clean their houses, their backyard, or do painting.
MARGOLIS: Last year, men like Garcia worked most days and got paid around $10 an hour. Now, they're lucky to work a couple of days a week, and wages have fallen dramatically, says Antonio, a 34-year-old from Mexico.
ANTONIO: They come asking to us for help under the price.
MARGOLIS: How much?
ANTONIO: Like $6, $5 an hour.
MARGOLIS: At those wages, Antonio says he can barely feed himself, let alone send money to his family in Mexico.
ANTONIO: My regular price, I say the person is $10. But if they want to start lowering the price too much, I say if they receive my help, the lowest I can do for you is just $9 an hour.
MARGOLIS: Organizers like Lloyda Alvarado are trying to convince the men here not to lower their price. She says she's not trying to create a union, but she is trying to teach the men the benefits of staying united.
LLOYDA ALVARADO: I mean, the only thing that they can do is stay organized. And for them to understand that if somebody goes for less than $10, you know, people, the employer, the next time he comes, he's going to ask for that same person. Or for somebody that goes for lower.
MARGOLIS: Legally, undocumented workers have the right to join a union. In fact, they have a lot of rights.
ALVARADO: Well, actually the irony is that undocumented workers are protected by almost all the labor and wage and hour laws in the United States. And actually, most other laws –
MARGOLIS: Ruth Milkman is a UCLA sociologist specializing in labor. Despite those protections, Milkman says, undocumented workers are often afraid to report labor abuse for fear of deportation. She says that fear increased three years ago.
ALVARADO: The Bush administration really stepped up on immigrant raids. Before that, there were raids now and then, but they were relatively rare events, and especially in a place like Los Angeles with its millions of undocumented immigrants, you know, the chances of your getting apprehended in a raid were fairly low for any one individual. So I don't think people worried about it too much. That really changed in the last couple of years.
MARGOLIS: Immigration raids appear to have cooled down in recent months. Now, some undocumented immigrants are making their voices heard. In Fresno, hundreds of people marched through the streets this month, calling for immigration reform. Luis Angel Sanchez was one of the marchers. He says Americans should be willing to let the undocumented workers stay, because the country benefits from their work.
LUIS ANGEL SANCHEZ: I believe it's unfair for individuals to be let into this country and then thrown back out, just as you would throw out a tool wrench when it's busted. Just as you would throw out any old tool once you've overused it and exploited it.
MARGOLIS: But many Americans don't see the argument this way. Undocumented immigrants weren't let into this country. They broke the law to get here. Rick Oltman is the spokesman for the group “Americans for Border Security Nowâ€. He says the US government should send this message to would-be illegal immigrants.
RICK OLTMAN: Don't waste your time or spend your money or risk your life trying to get to America, because we're now seriously securing the border and there's no job for you when you get here.
MARGOLIS: Oltman says illegal immigrants are a burden on California, especially during a recession. He calls them a drain on hospitals, schools, jails, and law enforcement.
OLTMAN: We don't blame all of our social problems on illegal aliens. That would be unfair. What is fair to say is, however, that every social problem we have is made worse by massive illegal immigration. And that's a good enough reason right there to put an end to it.
MARGOLIS: Oltman says he's not against immigration, just illegal immigration. Those who advocate for immigrants agree that the system is broken, but they have a different approach to solving the problem. Undocumented workers should be legalized, argues Maria Teresa Peterson, the executive director of Voto Latino. She says Americans benefit from undocumented workers. For example, most pay social security taxes with phony ID's, but they never get social security benefits in return. Peterson adds that American workers would also stand to benefit if undocumented workers were legalized.
MARIA TERESA PETERSON: Well, if you take them out of the shadows, all of a sudden employers here have very little incentive to suppress wages artificially. They have to compete in the open market. So it's not just good for the undocumented for various reasons, but it's also fair to American workers, where all of a sudden we're not talking about wage suppression. What we're doing right now is exactly that. We're ignoring the issue. It's an economic issue, and employers are really getting away with it.
MARGOLIS: Employers may have a harder time getting away with it now that the recession is scaring off a lot of new immigrants. The Mexican government says there's been a steep decline in the number of people crossing into the US this year. Still, despite the collapsing US job market, there hasn't been an exodus of Mexican immigrants heading back to Mexico. Out on the corner by Home Depot, all the men I spoke with, like Cesar de los Santos, say even if things are tough here, there's little point in returning home.
CESAR DE LOS SANTOS: Right now, no, because over there it's the same, you cannot find a job over there.
MARGOLIS: For The World, I'm Jason Margolis, Industry, California.
MULLINS: That's a 2004 song called “Is This All There Isâ€, by Los Lobos, another voice of the immigrant experience. You can hear more of those voices and experiences, and see Jason's videos from an immigrant town in California. It's all at theworld.org. More news still to come on PRI, Public Radio International.
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Immigration in times of recession