Audio By Carbonatix
Lobbyist Alfredo Gutierrez still winces when he remembers the dark, dark days ten years ago when the United States government tried to sabotage its own census.
At least that’s how Gutierrez, then a state legislator, looked at increased raids by federal immigration agents against undocumented Hispanic workers in Phoenix.
Despite an order by then-President Jimmy Carter not to interfere with the census count, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service clearly wanted to produce a “chilling effect” with “highly visible, outrageous raids” on restaurants and other places where illegals worked just days before the 1980 census was to begin, Gutierrez recalls.
Infuriated by the raids, Gutierrez and other Hispanics throughout the country banded together, threatened to boycott the census altogether, and eventually made a noise loud enough to cow the INS into a moratorium on all raids until the census had been completed.
Of course, we all know why everybody wanted the illegals counted: A larger population would earn the Southwest more federal funds and more seats in Congress.
Well, some things never change.
As the 1990 census gets under way, everybody still wants more money and more political power. Arizona may gain more than one congressional seat after this census, and that may depend on how many illegal immigrants are counted.
Just as they did ten years ago, Hispanics have banded together to pressure the INS to stop rounding up illegal immigrants until the census has been completed.
“This is pure, cold-hearted, unadulterated politics,” says state Representative Armando Ruiz of Phoenix, who’s urged undocumented workers to step forward and be counted.
The theory held by some Hispanic leaders and others in the Southwest is that the INS is being controlled by Eastern politicians who don’t want the illegal immigrants counted in the census, fearing that would give the Southwest more political power and government funds. The INS has consistently denied this allegation.
This year, it seems like the INS isn’t quite as blatant about rounding up illegals as it was in 1980. There are no widespread raids, but at least one local Hispanic leader says the INS is quietly trying to sabotage the census by hassling illegals on an individual basis.
“I call a raid any apprehension of an undocumented worker without a search warrant,” says Manuel Vasquez, executive director of the Maricopa County Organizing Project, an eleven-year-old group that advocates for undocumented Hispanic workers. “And these raids have picked up about 100 percent. Our phone logs show it, and we hear about them daily when people walk in off the street. The INS really doesn’t want undocumented workers counted in this census.”
Vasquez says he’s been tape-recording accounts of the INS’ activities, but he really doesn’t have much faith that the agency will stop hassling illegals during the census.
“We’ll have this problem as long as there’s a border,” he says.
Other Hispanics say the INS is much better behaved now than it was in 1980. Which is good, since no one has managed to persuade the INS to agree to a moratorium on raids until the census is over in a few months.
The INS has refused to stop apprehending undocumented workers in Arizona or any other state, but the agency has publicly promised not to interfere with the census.
“All I can tell you is that our commissioner specifically stressed that we would do nothing to discourage people from getting counted,” says Connie Mackey, a spokeswoman for the INS in Washington, D.C.
“We’ve been assured the INS will cooperate. They stated over and over they won’t hurt the census,” says Phoenix Councilmember and Hispanic leader Mary Rose Wilcox.
Wilcox says the INS has even agreed to listen to a statewide committee of Hispanic leaders, including Vasquez, who might have gripes about how the agency treats undocumented workers.
Gutierrez says he believes that INS agents are doing a fairer job this time around, adding, “There are stupid laws, but they have to enforce them.”
