In their East Lake home, Marcos Tomás and his wife, Lidia Velázquez, recently packed 10 years of their lives into cardboard boxes, preparing for their long journey back to their native Guatemala.
“My dream was for my children to study and be raised here, but the current economic situation has stolen the dream I had for my children,” Mr. Tomás said, standing in an almost empty house with a few portraits of the family on the wall and a framed painting of the words “Home Sweet Home.”
The economic slowdown, high unemployment rates and tighter immigration laws are pushing local immigrant families to head back to their native countries, local residents and community organizations say.
Victor López, owner of La Michoacana, a Mexican grocery store on Main Street that sells bus and airplane tickets, said he has noticed more people traveling south with no plans to return.
Staff Photo by D. Patrick Harding
Marcos Tomas Garcia, right, packs household items with his wife Lidia Velazquez as they prepare to return to their native Guatemala due to the economic crisis here in the U.S.
“Ticket sales have increased between 60 and 70 percent from last year and most people traveling are families, parents and children,” he said. “A lot of them say they are going back to Mexico or Guatemala because they can’t find a job here.”
Guatemalan Consul Beatriz Illezcas said the consulate in Atlanta has seen more people leaving the area, not only to other states, but back to Guatemala.
“Before, they would go to other states where there wasn’t so much persecution,” she said, referring to Georgia’s immigration laws, considered among the toughest in the nation. “But now they’re going back to (Guatemala). We’ve had a lot of people come to ask us for money because they’ve lost their job.”
The applications for Guatemalan passports have increased about 25 percent during the last three to four months, although there’s no data of how many of those are from people returning to Guatemala, said the Consul.
immigration slowdown
Although the illegal immigrant population has risen, its annual growth has slowed substantially since 2005, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center.
From 2000 to early 2005, the unauthorized immigrant population grew by an annual net average of about 525,000, increasing to 11.1 million. From 2005 to 2008, annual growth has averaged only 275,000, the report states.
In Dalton, Ga., Javier Delgado, who briefly owned a transportation business, said he knows a lot of people who have returned to their home countries.
“I have a lot of friends from Mexico, Guatemala, who have gone back because they say there’s no point of staying here,” he said.
“More than anything else I think it’s the economy that’s making people leave, a lot of companies are closing or cutting back hours,” said Mr. Delgado, who also works at Shaw Industries, which recently announced cutbacks of 450 employees. Mr. Delgado, however, kept his job.
Mr. Tomás first came to the United States in 1994 to work agriculture in Florida, he said. Between 1994 and 1997, he went back and forth between Guatemala and the United States twice before finally landing for good in Chattanooga.
Three years later, Mr. Tomás and Ms. Velázquez, whom he met in Chattanooga, got married and eventually had three U.S.-born children — Tania, Cesar and Cristina.
During the last eight years, the Guatemalan couple worked in chicken processing plants, carpet companies and temporary jobs until Mr. Tomás was laid off about three weeks ago from Big Horn, a saddle producer that closed.
“When we first came (to the United States), you could find a job in two or three days,” he said. “For the past two to three years, when you ask for a job, they tell you they’ll call you back, but they never do.”
saying good-bye
On Saturday, Mr. Tomás and his family waited outside La Michoacana for their ride to Atlanta, where they took the three-day bus trip back to border of Mexico and Guatemala.
Flor de Maria Velázquez, Lidia Velázquez’ older sister, made the difficult trip back home with her sister and her family.
“I came to Chattanooga about three years ago and I’ve been unemployed for almost a year,” she said in Spanish.
Flor Velázquez said she made the decision to come to the United States and leave her four children — ages 6 to 15 — behind in Guatemala with relatives after her husband died six years ago and she couldn’t afford to support them.
“But I feel that now with the help of my oldest son, we are going to be able to succeed and get ahead in life,” she said of her 15-year-old son.
With teary eyes, Mr. Tomás said good-bye to friends and family who waved at them as the white van left the store parking lot.
Although Mr. Tomás and Mrs. Velázquez were sad to leave behind the lives they had built in Chattanooga, their three children were excited to finally meet their grandparents and live in a place where they’ve heard kids can have a lot of animals.
“I’m going to have 10 dogs in Guatemala and I’m going to meet my Grandma and my Grandpa and my cousins,” eight-year-old Tania said, smiling outside the store. Her 3-year-old sister Cristina said she would own a lot of chickens.
Mr. Tomás said they will start a new life in Guatemala and work in the fields just like they did before they came to the United States a decade ago.
“It’s not easy going back. You get used to the lifestyle here,” he said. “But we’re not from here and you have to return to where you are from.”
Text Size:
Lower Lights
I for one have hope; hope that all the illegal aliens here go back "home".
I am just SOOOO sorry for them. Yeah, right.
Very interesting they do not consider the US their home. Just more "takers" and fewer "givers".
What a distorted view they have of John Kennedy's famous line re: Doing FOR your country. But then, they do not consider this THEIR country, do they? It is just a place for the illegal aliens to take, take, and take more. Then laugh and "go home".
Well, good riddance and the sooner the illegals are gone the better.
Perla, I wish you would not call these illegal aliens, "immigrants".
What an insult to REAL immigrants.
I have complained in the past to you about this deceptive travesty in your reporting.
Calling them "aliens" doesn't make it much clearer for many of us less politically aware readers. "REAL immigrants" is even more of a puzzler. Maybe you and Rolando need to spend more time besmittening your red-state followers with such explanations and your "think local" approach to life in general. You all should especially now have bandwidth for such mean spirited nonsense since it looks like those of your all's ilk will be way out of meaningful influence for quite a while.
Fact: Unless you're a Native American, you're a descendent of an illegal immigrant. And by the looks of the white trash that are the majority around here, all y'all are illegals. Ask a Cherokee who the illegals are.
It's really shocking that rednecks don't care about illegal Canadians or Europeans in the U.S. (sarcasm, folks), but if there is a dark-skinned immigrant, then they scream, "kick 'em out!". No wonder the south is the U.S. leader in ignorance.
I don't particularly care what the World thinks of Americans, reh86; most of Europe, with few exceptions, detests us. It is the human condition to detest those to whom you owe so much; life itself, in fact. And all we asked of them in return for pulling their ashes from the fire of war was enough land to bury our dead.
As to who is illegal here and who isn't, cavedemon, this land was won from the Indians by right of conquest -- an age-old, honorable method Indians repeatedly used themselves in Indian vs Indian warfare. Is right-of-conquest "fair"? Conquest is never fair; the stronger always win. Might as well ask the Cherokee what they did with the Creek after taking their land. Let us not confuse LEGAL immigrants who tirelessly built this country into a premier, first class world power with those ILLEGALS who take all and return nothing. Then whine [in their foreign tongue, of course] that we don't want them here.
The only illegal aliens here today are those who sneaked in in the dead of the night, robbed us blind, brought with them their illegal drugs [which they promptly sold], used our house as their gang HQ, took our well-paying jobs and now, finally, are going back "home". Godspeed to them, I say. Try as you may to make this a skin-color issue, cavedemon, it is anything but. They are here illegally doing illegal things.
And I don't see illegal Canadians and Europeans taking our jobs away from us, living 20 to a house, whelping anchor babies for free, etc., as do our "friends" to the south.
So, olhoalzo, you consider legal immigrants and illegal immigrants to be equals. Hm-m-m. So liberal of you -- and so insulting to those who took their turn and arrived here legally, worked hard to learn our language and our history [better than me and thee, no doubt] and with a fierce pride, sometimes tearfully with a trembling voice, took an oath and American citizenship.
And you treat those new citizens in such a manner. You equate THOSE citizens with thieves in the night who sneak in, take what they want when they want it, then cry, whine and moan when the jobs they stole from us disappear and they have to go "home" -- meaning another country, never the US.
Again -- good riddance, I say. Godspeed to them.
Most of Europe detests us because of people like you, rolando. And frankly, I do care what the rest of the world--the rest of the COUNTRY--thinks of us. Like it or not rolondo, but we now live in a global economy; what the other countries think of us is more important now than ever. Thank goodness your brand of conservative small-mindedness is becoming less and less influential (see latest election results for example.)
"Hispanic" is not a race, cavedemon; racism is immaterial on this thread and constitutes name-calling, the last resort of free-speech detesting liberals. To say nothing of attacking a person's education and mental abilities. You evidently consider the loss of billions in free health care, etc., not to be theft; I do. Do try to read beyond the literal... Illegals do not pay either taxes or Social Security; that is what off-the-payroll wages is all about. Not only are they afraid to, but their employers don't have to pay their share into SS either. Finally, cavedemon, you know next to nothing about my sources of information; you presume much. Care to cite a few of those "report after report[s]"? Something tangible beyond "diversity" or "cultural enrichment", please. Having been raised in Los Angeles, I am quite familiar with "advantages" brought to us by illegals from south-of-the-border.
Europe is not America, reh86 [to state the obvious]. Internal American concerns for and opinions of its citizens is not the issue. I invite your consideration of Natalie Maines' comments in England, Hollywood's comments and our reaction to them as examples of the difference.
We are a global economy by design and by political machinations, not by popular choice [outside the pocketbook, of course]. The global economy represents American jobs going overseas and increasing unemployment here; need I cite our current recession? Expect to see more of it post-20 January.
We differ in our opinions of what is important and what isn't. Equally obvious, I am an American patriot of the old school; I believe in the melting-pot theory of nationalism rather than the balkanized, diverse theory of globalism. One non-hyphenated, common language people here is what made us the world leader. Our global influence has dropped exponentially since balkanization and diversity began.
How great to know that many are leaving. Many more need to leave. Over 300 million dollars goes to illegal immigration in Tennessee, and people have lost jobs and cannot find jobs due to illegal aliens. They steal social security numbers of Americans, they take education and health care dollars, and they fraudulently take other benefits and services at taxpayer expense. They are part of the big mortgage scam, and taxpayers are bailing them out of home loans with 0 percent down, no proof of job security, no proof of identity, and every chance that they could be deported.
In Bradley County,TN (Cleveland,TN) construction workers went before the County Commission to tell the truth of how illegal aliens and those who hire them affect their lives. They cannot get work, they are forced with the possible loss of their homes, and food stamps are now necessary for some. How sad that many Americans betray their fellow citizens and hire illegal aliens for the cheap labor and the opportunity to pay off of the books. Many workers in Bradley County and elsewhere are fighting back with calls to ICE and to other officials so that these employers will be reported to the Tennessee Department of Labor.
With the economy as it is now, every job is precious and no American should have to compete with foreign illegal labor. These individuals need to return home and build their nations and make their complaints and demands there.
This comment comes to you from the illegal alien capital of America: Los Angeles.
First off, let's get one thing straight. Illegal aliens never do jobs that Americans won't do ; they do jobs that Americans are willing to do until the illegals show up and replace them. Once some greedy SOB realizes that he/she doesn't have to pay payroll taxes, workmans comp. premiums or social security for the illegals, they get rid of the American workers and hire the " cheap labor." The only person who benefits from this so called cheap labor are the people who hire them. The rest of society is burdened with paying their hospital bills, maternity care, public education, bilingual services and many other peripheral cost associated with the care and nurturing of illegal aliens. Like I said, I have been all over this country and I have seen Americans building houses, fixing cars, bussing tables, cutting grass, digging ditches, baby-sitting, plucking chickens, cleaning toilets and every other job you can think of. THEY DO THESE JOBS EVERY DAY UNTIL THE ILLEGALS SHOW UP AND THE AMERICANS ARE REPLACED. Every city I have been in that has a large illegal alien population ( L.A., Miami, Houston, Atlanta, Detroit, Denver.. ) also has all the problems associated with a population that uses more public services than their tax contributions pay for.
The person that cites the Social Security taxes, that a very small percentage of illegal aliens pay, as an example of how the illegals are being short changed is an idiot. At most they may pay a few hundred dollars per year, and one trip to the E.R., where they never pay their bill, will wipe out that contribution. Guess who ends up paying the 8,000-10,000 dollars per student it costs when the illegals put their kids in public school. The maternity wards in L.A. are completely filled with Latino women just waiting to have their anchor babies. Who do you think pays that bill ? Every where the illegals go, the red ink follows them. If I use your convoluted logic, then every time I go out to lunch with someone I should not complain when they eat twenty dollars worth of food but they only put five dollars into the pot. Morons.
Finally, I would like to say something about the tired old cries of racism. I've been all over the South, and I've spent over twelve months working on movies in Mexico. Mexico today is more racist than the South was in the sixties. Latin cultures are the epitome of racism. You are your family ancestry and your skin color is everything. Have you watched Spanish language TV lately ? They have more light-skinned people than Swedish TV. Mexico is filled with people who have very dark skin and none of them have political power or wealth. If Obama, Colin Powell, Bill Cosby or Denzel Washington lived in Mexico they would be washing cars. Letting an illegal alien apologist call you a racist is like letting Adolf Hitler call you a jew hater.
I do not have much to say but rolando is a latino racist and is very sad to hear how a person like him talks crap about some of his own race, he should be thankful he was born here wich makes him a american citizen decendant of inmigrants and who knows maybe at some point they were illegals too.
Someone needs to tell the illegals who are still coming.
STOP THE INVASION!!!
UNITED STATES BORDER APPREHENSIONS (Source DHS/CBP)
1987--1,190,488------1995--1,394,554------2003----931,557
1988--1,008,145------1996--1,649,986------2004--1,160,395
1989----954,243------1997--1,412,953------2005--1,189,075
1990--1,169,939------1998--1,555,776------2006--1,089,902
1991--1,197,875------1999--1,579,010------2007----876,704
1992--1,258,482------2000--1,676,438------2008----723,825
1993--1,327,259------2001--1,266,213------2009----(beginning 10/01)
1994--1,094,717------2002----955,310
FACT: In the last 22 years, over 26 million illegals, have been apprehended, after crossing the border, into our United States.
THE PROBLEM IS: Less than 1, out of 4 illegals, are estimated to have been apprehended.
Mind boggling, isn't it.
According to the U.S. Immigration Service another 6 million illegals in this country are visa overstays.
STOP THE INVASION!!!
BUILD THE FENCE!!!
MANDATE E-VERIFY!!!
Southwest Border Patrol Sector Apprehensions (Source DHS/CBP)
Fiscal Year-------------2005---------2006---------2007-------2008 (ends 9/30)
San Diego------------126,879-----142,104---- 152,460--- 162,390
El Centro--------------55,725-------61,465----- 55,883----- 40,961
Yuma-----------------138,492-----118,549----- 37,992------ 8,363*
Tucson --------------439,053-----392,074---- 378,239--- 317,696
El Paso---------------122,624-----122,256----- 75,464----- 30,312
Marfa ------------------10,532--------7,520------- 5,536------ 5,391
Del Rio -----------------68,547------42,636----- 22,920----- 20,761
Laredo -----------------75,268------74,840----- 56,714------43,658
Rio Grande Valley --134,136----110,528------ 73,430----- 75,473
Apprehensions----1,171,386--1,071,972-----858,638----705,005
*The Yuma Sector presently has a total of 94 miles of fencing. The difference is apparent.
ENFORCE OUR LAWS AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION!!!
THERE WILL BE NO AMNESTY!!!
OUR ACCEPTABLE IMMIGRATION REFORM
#1. Make Illegal Entry a Felony Permanently Barring Citizenship
#2. Secure Our Borders with our National Guard!!!
#3. Mandate E-Verify for ALL Employees!!!
#4. Cut Off ALL Public Assistance to Illegals and Their Children!!!
#5. Stop the Underground Economy!!!
#6. End Birthright Citizenship for Illegals!!!
......and make it retroactive!!!
#7. End Chain Migration!!!
#8. Make English our Official Language!!!
#9. Cut Off Federal Funds to Sanctuary Cities!!
NOTHING MORE!!! NOTHING LESS!!!
Dear Legislators,
Mandate, AND STRICTLY ENFORCE, E-Verify for ALL employers, for ALL employees, and for ANY benefit, and the I.C.E. raids, as well as all of the expemsive new detention facilities, would not be needed.
The illegals would have to begin leaving of their own accord.
Think of the economic effect of giving the 8.7 million jobs, that the illegals have illegally obtained, using forged, or stolen documents, back to Americans.
Think of the economic effect of 65 billion more dollars being spent in our United States, rather than being remitted to Mexico, and South America.
Think of the money saved by decreasing I.C.E.'s effort.
Think of it, and then let's do it!!!
BOYCOTT ANY BUSINESS THAT HIRES ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS!!!
AND LET THEM KNOW ABOUT IT!!!
DURING HARD TIMES, WE CAN HAVE AN IMPACT!!!