For Lack Of A Green Card

The three-quarter-mile walk between 13th and Euclid Streets and 18th and Columbia Road is usually alive with the cultural blend of black, white, and Hispanic faces and accents. My latent Latin blood never fails to stir at the beat of the Mexican salsa blasted from the Guatemalan disco shop.

Yet on this Thursday afternoon the streets seem oddly empty. The small concrete park in front of the Churreria Madrid restaurant, often filled with local musicians, lies bare.

I arrive at my destination, a family drop-in center, and learn that almost no one has come for its free lunches all week, and not many are expected for dinner.

In yet another "necessary" maneuver to improve our troubled economy, the Reagan administration approved efforts by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to oust "illegal aliens" from jobs that could be held by unemployed citizens. During the week of May 2, 400 INS agents descended on major cities like Chicago, Denver, Houston, New York, and Los Angeles, raiding workplaces. By the week's end, the Washington Post reported that about 5,800 people had been captured.

The streets were empty in Washington that week because hundreds of Salvadorans, Mexicans, and other Latin Americans were in hiding, living in fear of "Operation Jobs." While I was at the drop-in center, Roberto told me he had seen five Latino men arrested by INS agents while crossing 18th Street. Juanita got word that another 200 had been arrested along nearby Connecticut Avenue.

Washington had not been mentioned on the official hit list, but the agents are here, and the people know it. Word spreads quickly among those who are being hunted. They know that Operation Jobs is officially sanctioned white-collar terrorism designed to unemploy the desperately needy and rid the country of "undesirables."

Our Central American sisters and brothers are here primarily because they've found a way to escape the poor and often brutal conditions of their own countries. Paula, age 25, left her parents, brothers, and sisters in El Salvador a year and a half ago. She found work as a domestic, discovered she was pregnant, and began looking for an additional job. She does not own a green card, a legal visa.

Tonight I asked her why she came to the United States. Speaking in halting English, she said, "My country is not good. I come to make a better life. Washington, New York..."

Later on I found out that, before coming tonight, she called to notify the center that she was on the way and to ask us to watch for her; she lives less than two blocks away. She was fearful of being out on watched streets and the possibility of arrest.

Arrest means a probable $5,000 cash bail. Failure to post immediate bail opens the threat of deportation within 24 hours back to a situation that is uncertain at best, and for many means certain death. Paula uses what little money she scrapes together to support herself and her daughter. There is no extra--certainly not enough for bail.

Many of these people swallow pride and work long hours at factories, mills, processing plants, and restaurants doing menial labor unwanted by most Americans. Most stay with whatever they can find, knowing that unemployment compensation or a welfare check aren't options for someone without a green card.

Juan, a 30-year-old Mexican, supports a pregnant wife and infant daughter on the salary of a construction worker. He has not gone to work all week, knowing that his job site is a sure target for the INS agents. No work, no pay, no food, no money for rent...eviction. He joins the ranks of those who live in an endless stress-filled cycle.

At a recent public hearing, Duke Austin, a spokesperson for the INS, admitted that openings created as a result of Operation Jobs would hardly make a dent in solving this country's unemployment problem. He went on to say, however, that the project should be applauded as a symbol of the administration's commitment to solving it. And he said further that the fact that some few positions had opened up indeed proved that "illegals" had been taking jobs from citizens.

I do not understand how some can be convinced by cold-hearted economic rhetoric that has no room for compassion. Unemployment does not stem from one group of people trying to survive. Record high unemployment is not simply a question of who has what job. Neither is the solution to unemploy the employed--legal, "illegal," naturalized, or native.

The administration has created another class of scapegoats for its failing economic policy. These are not "aliens," but our Latin brothers and sisters who have no legal means of self-protection and no recourse but to hide in fear.

A week ago our drop-in center was abuzz with plans for a special Mothers' Day dinner on Sunday; the men have offered to cook the meal. But only those men, women, and children daring enough to take a risk will come.

Dolly Arroyo was a member of Sojourners Fellowship and an occupational therapist when this article appeared.