Meatpackers back reform efforts
By Tim Vandenack
The Hutchinson News
April 12, 2006
Kansas, US
In their fight for change that would let them stay in the United States legally, undocumented immigrants in southwest Kansas have allies in the meatpacking plants here.
Like immigrant and Hispanic advocacy groups, meatpackers have come strongly on the side of reform granting illegal workers a pathway to legal residency. And they are doing what they can to prod the workers themselves to raise their voices with lawmakers.
"We're going to again encourage them to contact their representatives, senators to tell them how they feel," said Mark Klein, spokesman for Minneapolis-based Cargill, in the wake of a series of nationwide rallies Monday on the issue. Wichita-based Cargill Meat Solutions, a Cargill subsidiary, operates a meatpacking plant in Dodge City, known as Excel Corp.
Similarly, officials at Springdale, Ark.-based Tyson Foods, which operates the Tyson Fresh Meats meatpacking plant in Holcomb, distributed fliers to company workers last week asking them to raise their concerns with legislators. The pitch came in the lead-up to Monday's demonstrations amid talk that many meatpackers would skip work to sound off on the topic.
"You can effectively express your views by writing, calling or e-mailing your U.S. senators and representatives to tell them you support comprehensive immigration reform," said the flier. "These are the officials who make the decisions. Let them know your opinion - it counts!"
The flier went on to say that company officials would provide workers with contact information for lawmakers.
U.S. lawmakers are in the midst of talks about reforming the nation's immigration system. A controversial U.S. House of Representatives proposal, HR 4437, focuses on stricter border enforcement and removal of the 11 million or so illegal immigrants already here. U.S. senators, meanwhile, have been discussing change that, along with tightening border controls, would grant some undocumented workers a means of attaining legal status.
Southwest Kansas' four large meatpacking plants - National Beef outlets in Dodge City and Liberal round out the quartet - have been powerful magnets for Mexican and other Latino jobseekers, legal and otherwise. Accordingly, the issue for them is of particular importance.
"We need a legal vehicle for people to come in," said Laura Reiff, co-chair of the Washington, D.C.-based Essential Worker Immigration Coalition. The group represents Tyson and the American Meat Institute, a meatpacking trade organization, among many others.
As is, undocumented aliens have slipped across the border absent a means to formally bring in "lesser skilled" workers for jobs that U.S. workers don't want, Reiff says. Hence, the group says some sort of system needs to be implemented enabling foreign workers to come here legally and allowing undocumented workers a means to legalize their status.
Leaders at National Beef's Dodge City plant expressed similar sentiment in a letter distributed to workers last week.
Company management "understands your concerns and is supporting a more workable solution, as is proposed in the United States Senate," said the letter. It went on to say that company officials were working with local reps in Congress to "allow a person to have the ability to obtain the right to work without making it a felony in the process."
Similar to Tyson and Cargill, the National Beef letter also encouraged contact with lawmakers and included information on how to reach the local congressional delegation.
hutchnews.com
Protests spread across Kansas
By ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press Writer
The Ark City Traveler
April 11, 2006
WICHITA -- Thousands of Hispanics across Kansas closed their businesses, walked off jobs and skipped classes Monday to join nationwide demonstrations in support of immigration rights.
In Garden City, about 3,000 supporters carried signs urging rights for immigrants. In Emporia, some Hispanic businesses closed down for the day to march in demonstrations. In Topeka, they gathered at the statehouse. In Wichita, a throng of around 4,000 protesters spanned several downtown blocks as they marched from city hall and through the city's downtown.
Among them was Meriam Janet, 25, who came with her 4-year-old son, Jesus. She works as a cleaning woman in Wichita and has been living in the United States illegally for 10 years.
She said she wants the to be able to get a work visa, and hoped something good came out of the rally.
''We don't come here to take anybody's job,'' Janet said in Spanish. ''We come to do the work that others can't or wouldn't do.''
Demonstrators waved U.S. and Mexican flags, carried signs, sang the Star Spangled Banner and chanted ''Si se puede,'' or ''Yes we can.'' Scrawled on the signs were slogans such as ''We are not criminals,'' ''We need to stop living in fear,'' ''We pay taxes,'' among others.
At the outskirts of the crowd, two demonstrators stood apart at the request of police, but were mostly unnoticed by the immigrant supporters. One carried a sign saying ''Invading America is our civil right'' and the other sign declared ''Laws we don't need stinking laws.''
Gerry Domitrovic, a Wichita lawyer, said he came out because he felt at least one or two Americans should come out and say no to the immigrants: ''I should be playing golf instead of doing this,'' he said.
Lawmakers would probably eventually cave in to immigrant demands because they will be afraid to be labeled racists.
''They are afraid to say no,'' Domitrovic said.
Other Hispanics showed up in support of their brethren.
Guadalupe Freeman, a U.S.-born citizen, clutched her Kansas driver's license as she and thousands of others marched in front of the Wichita offices of U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts. She said immigrants should be able to get a driver's license and other documentation needed to work.
In Topeka, hundreds of people crowded the south steps of the Statehouse for the city's pro-immigrant rally. Participants held signs that said, ''We bring honor to America,'' and ''We came to work in peace.''
Tammy Guerrero, a Topeka teacher, came to the rally with her husband's six children, ages 8 to 15, all American citizens. Their father, Geraldo Ortiz, faces deportation, she said, even though he's lived in the United States for 17 years.
''After 17 years of paying taxes, shouldn't he be a citizen?'' she said.
Jesus Rivera had both American and Mexican flags draped across his shoulders, and a pair of handcuffs dangling from his right arm. The 19-year-old works two jobs as a cook, and worries that he might be caught and deported.
Rivera and his family came to the United States from Juarez, Mexico, when he was only 10, because, ''We wanted a better life.''
''I love living here,'' he said. ''I love America.''
The impacts were felt in some meatpacking plants, where Hispanic workers comprise much of the work force.
Excel Corp., the nation's second-largest beef processor, said Monday the company noticed a slowdown in production at its plants in Dodge City and Schuyler, Neb., because of immigration rallies in those cities. The company declined to disclose exact attendance figures at those two plants, but said its other plants were unaffected.
''I wouldn't want to say how much production has been slowed, but it has been slowed. Definitely,'' said Excel spokesman Mark Klein.
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef shut down its Arkansas City plant Monday because management thought workers should be able to protest a U.S. House bill that would make it a felony to be an illegal immigrant and would build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Three-fourths of the company's workers are Hispanic.
Tyson also closed its plant near Holcomb. Fewer than 10 of the more than 100 facilities the company owns were closed because of the potential absence of workers due to the immigration rallies and market conditions, said company spokesman Gary Mickelson. Most Tyson plants ran regular shifts, although there were reports of higher than usual absenteeism at some locations.
In Garden City, a morning rally brought out an estimated 3,000 people, making their voices heard as Congress considers immigration reforms. Signs demanded an end to racism and discrimination, and some showed pictures of uniformed Hispanic military personnel.
About 20 percent of the students in Garden City schools were absent from classes Monday to attend the rally in that city, far above the 4 percent normal absentee rate, said Roy Cessna, spokesman for the district. About 60 percent of the more than 7,300 students in Garden City's public schools are Hispanic.
Donalda and Rony Martinez told The Garden City Telegram they brought their own four children and two other children to the Garden City rally after calling the schools to tell them they were taking them to the rally.
''I think it is important our children participate in this and understand what's happening,'' said Donalda Martinez.
Among those attending the Garden City rally was Andrea Hernandez, a 33-year-old illegal immigrant who has lived in the United States for three years. Her two U.S.-born children are citizens.
''There are many people like us, who come here to work, to try to give our children a better life than we've had,'' Hernandez said. ''We work, we follow the laws, we stay out of trouble. There are citizens who break more laws than we do. All we want is a chance.''
The Kansas events came as Congress considers legislation on immigration reform and were part of a national day of action billed as a ''campaign for immigrants' dignity.''
--------
Newsman John Hannah in Topeka contributed to this report.
Source: The Ark City Traveler
--------
arkcity.net
In Crete, fear could have kept people at work
BY ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star
April 11, 2006
Nebraska, US
CRETE — Outside the San Miguel grocery store Monday, 4-year-old Alexis Castovena dipped his idle fingertips into the grooves of the store's brick surface and indulged his daydreams.
Inside, his mother, Yolanda Chavez, rose from her seat near the cash register and talked about waking in the middle of the night without feeling in her hands.
As thousands of minority meatpackers marched in favor of friendlier immigration laws in Lincoln and Omaha Monday, former meatpacker Chavez acknowledged the damage done by dull knives and cold slabs of pork.
Can she envision something better for her Nebraska-born son and his 7-year-old sister, Melanie?
"I think living here in the United States, they will get a better life," she said in her halting English.
Twenty-five miles away in Lincoln, people from Crete and other area towns carried banners, waved tiny American flags and made a visible claim to belonging in this state and this country.
By their presence, they also spoke out against the chance lawmakers will end their immigration gridlock by deporting millions of undocumented workers and building a fence along the Mexican border.
In Crete, home to hundreds of immigrants who work at the nearby Farmland pork-processing plant, things were quieter.
Men, women and children hurrying across a park toward three buses chartered by immigration advocates in Lincoln were one of the few signs of anything out of the ordinary.
Farmland worker Maria Sanchez and 15-year-old daughter Jennifer were among those getting ready to depart.
While action in Washington could improve the outlook for immigrants, Jennifer was more focused on a possible crackdown.
She and her mother would march "because they don't need to pass that law. We have to be treated equally."
As she spoke, more truckloads of squealing hogs rumbled past a Farmland-Smithfield Foods sign a few miles away that proclaimed "Good Food from the Heartland Since 1959."
Relaying their response through security guards, officials at the plant between Crete and Wilber said they were too busy to talk about any disruptions in pork processing.
However, the parking lot appeared to be almost full of cars driven by workers from the first shift.
Across the road at Seajay Cold Storage, everybody from a workforce of about 40 was at work, said Human Resources Director Heather Schafer.
Back in Crete later, convenience store worker Tara Montejo said her husband, an El Salvador immigrant, was among those who decided to pass up a trip to Lincoln out of fear for his job.
While he supposedly had the option of asking for time off, Montejo said, the call-in line available for that purpose carried a recording saying it had no more memory capacity.
"That means so many people called in and it was full. And none of those (messages) was retrieved and erased."
She mentioned earlier rumors about Farmland closing for the day, but said they were completely without substance.
"There were signs up all over that you had to be at work."
One of the three buses waiting at the park left without any passengers about 9:30 a.m.
In a follow-up phone interview, Milo Mumgaard of the Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, which chartered the buses, said rally organizers "anticipated quite a few more people from Crete than actually came."
He said fear of employer reprisal appeared to be a factor.
The number of absences from the ranks of about 2,000 employees at the Cargill Meat Solutions plant in Schuyler was apparently somewhat higher.
Spokesman Mark Klein called the pace of cattle slaughter and processing there, about 65 miles northwest of Lincoln, "slow today."
Klein cited "the number of people calling in, which most likely was to participate in the rallies. For competitive reasons, we haven't said how much slower. But it slowed production there and at one of our seven other major plants."
A sister beef-processing plant that employs about 500 at Nebraska City "slowed down slightly," Klein added, "but nothing like in Schuyler."
Schuyler had its own immigration rally Sunday. City Clerk Mary Peschel said police estimated the crowd marching toward courthouse speeches at 2,000 people.
Barb Blum, based in Schuyler as business agent for Local 22 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, said the Sunday choice may have boosted participation from a plant that operates under a union contract.
Blum said many workers were absent Monday, but Cargill wasn't going out of its way to encourage marching in Lincoln or Omaha.
"This is what they said: 'This is Monday and we will work.'"
Back at Crete, school absences rose to 21 percent of Crete Public Schools' enrollment of about 1,500.
That number is normally about 8 percent of the study body, which is about 35 percent minority, said Assistant Superintendent Kyle McGowan.
"This is hitting very close to home," McGowan said, "so my perception is that families in Crete are very interested in it."
Across the street at Blue Valley Community Action, Antonio Cubas said absences were higher than usual among Head Start students.
"At least 10 of our families went to march," Cubas said.
Cubas, a Peruvian immigrant, wore the white shirt meant to symbolize unity at the rally, but he was far from certain that Monday would matter in making U.S. immigration laws tougher or easier.
"It's just an argument," he said. "I don't think it will help either way. We're trying, as a community, to win the battle. But I can see it not happening."
journalstar.com
By Tim Vandenack
The Hutchinson News
April 12, 2006
Kansas, US
In their fight for change that would let them stay in the United States legally, undocumented immigrants in southwest Kansas have allies in the meatpacking plants here.
Like immigrant and Hispanic advocacy groups, meatpackers have come strongly on the side of reform granting illegal workers a pathway to legal residency. And they are doing what they can to prod the workers themselves to raise their voices with lawmakers.
"We're going to again encourage them to contact their representatives, senators to tell them how they feel," said Mark Klein, spokesman for Minneapolis-based Cargill, in the wake of a series of nationwide rallies Monday on the issue. Wichita-based Cargill Meat Solutions, a Cargill subsidiary, operates a meatpacking plant in Dodge City, known as Excel Corp.
Similarly, officials at Springdale, Ark.-based Tyson Foods, which operates the Tyson Fresh Meats meatpacking plant in Holcomb, distributed fliers to company workers last week asking them to raise their concerns with legislators. The pitch came in the lead-up to Monday's demonstrations amid talk that many meatpackers would skip work to sound off on the topic.
"You can effectively express your views by writing, calling or e-mailing your U.S. senators and representatives to tell them you support comprehensive immigration reform," said the flier. "These are the officials who make the decisions. Let them know your opinion - it counts!"
The flier went on to say that company officials would provide workers with contact information for lawmakers.
U.S. lawmakers are in the midst of talks about reforming the nation's immigration system. A controversial U.S. House of Representatives proposal, HR 4437, focuses on stricter border enforcement and removal of the 11 million or so illegal immigrants already here. U.S. senators, meanwhile, have been discussing change that, along with tightening border controls, would grant some undocumented workers a means of attaining legal status.
Southwest Kansas' four large meatpacking plants - National Beef outlets in Dodge City and Liberal round out the quartet - have been powerful magnets for Mexican and other Latino jobseekers, legal and otherwise. Accordingly, the issue for them is of particular importance.
"We need a legal vehicle for people to come in," said Laura Reiff, co-chair of the Washington, D.C.-based Essential Worker Immigration Coalition. The group represents Tyson and the American Meat Institute, a meatpacking trade organization, among many others.
As is, undocumented aliens have slipped across the border absent a means to formally bring in "lesser skilled" workers for jobs that U.S. workers don't want, Reiff says. Hence, the group says some sort of system needs to be implemented enabling foreign workers to come here legally and allowing undocumented workers a means to legalize their status.
Leaders at National Beef's Dodge City plant expressed similar sentiment in a letter distributed to workers last week.
Company management "understands your concerns and is supporting a more workable solution, as is proposed in the United States Senate," said the letter. It went on to say that company officials were working with local reps in Congress to "allow a person to have the ability to obtain the right to work without making it a felony in the process."
Similar to Tyson and Cargill, the National Beef letter also encouraged contact with lawmakers and included information on how to reach the local congressional delegation.
hutchnews.com
Protests spread across Kansas
By ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press Writer
The Ark City Traveler
April 11, 2006
WICHITA -- Thousands of Hispanics across Kansas closed their businesses, walked off jobs and skipped classes Monday to join nationwide demonstrations in support of immigration rights.
In Garden City, about 3,000 supporters carried signs urging rights for immigrants. In Emporia, some Hispanic businesses closed down for the day to march in demonstrations. In Topeka, they gathered at the statehouse. In Wichita, a throng of around 4,000 protesters spanned several downtown blocks as they marched from city hall and through the city's downtown.
Among them was Meriam Janet, 25, who came with her 4-year-old son, Jesus. She works as a cleaning woman in Wichita and has been living in the United States illegally for 10 years.
She said she wants the to be able to get a work visa, and hoped something good came out of the rally.
''We don't come here to take anybody's job,'' Janet said in Spanish. ''We come to do the work that others can't or wouldn't do.''
Demonstrators waved U.S. and Mexican flags, carried signs, sang the Star Spangled Banner and chanted ''Si se puede,'' or ''Yes we can.'' Scrawled on the signs were slogans such as ''We are not criminals,'' ''We need to stop living in fear,'' ''We pay taxes,'' among others.
At the outskirts of the crowd, two demonstrators stood apart at the request of police, but were mostly unnoticed by the immigrant supporters. One carried a sign saying ''Invading America is our civil right'' and the other sign declared ''Laws we don't need stinking laws.''
Gerry Domitrovic, a Wichita lawyer, said he came out because he felt at least one or two Americans should come out and say no to the immigrants: ''I should be playing golf instead of doing this,'' he said.
Lawmakers would probably eventually cave in to immigrant demands because they will be afraid to be labeled racists.
''They are afraid to say no,'' Domitrovic said.
Other Hispanics showed up in support of their brethren.
Guadalupe Freeman, a U.S.-born citizen, clutched her Kansas driver's license as she and thousands of others marched in front of the Wichita offices of U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts. She said immigrants should be able to get a driver's license and other documentation needed to work.
In Topeka, hundreds of people crowded the south steps of the Statehouse for the city's pro-immigrant rally. Participants held signs that said, ''We bring honor to America,'' and ''We came to work in peace.''
Tammy Guerrero, a Topeka teacher, came to the rally with her husband's six children, ages 8 to 15, all American citizens. Their father, Geraldo Ortiz, faces deportation, she said, even though he's lived in the United States for 17 years.
''After 17 years of paying taxes, shouldn't he be a citizen?'' she said.
Jesus Rivera had both American and Mexican flags draped across his shoulders, and a pair of handcuffs dangling from his right arm. The 19-year-old works two jobs as a cook, and worries that he might be caught and deported.
Rivera and his family came to the United States from Juarez, Mexico, when he was only 10, because, ''We wanted a better life.''
''I love living here,'' he said. ''I love America.''
The impacts were felt in some meatpacking plants, where Hispanic workers comprise much of the work force.
Excel Corp., the nation's second-largest beef processor, said Monday the company noticed a slowdown in production at its plants in Dodge City and Schuyler, Neb., because of immigration rallies in those cities. The company declined to disclose exact attendance figures at those two plants, but said its other plants were unaffected.
''I wouldn't want to say how much production has been slowed, but it has been slowed. Definitely,'' said Excel spokesman Mark Klein.
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef shut down its Arkansas City plant Monday because management thought workers should be able to protest a U.S. House bill that would make it a felony to be an illegal immigrant and would build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Three-fourths of the company's workers are Hispanic.
Tyson also closed its plant near Holcomb. Fewer than 10 of the more than 100 facilities the company owns were closed because of the potential absence of workers due to the immigration rallies and market conditions, said company spokesman Gary Mickelson. Most Tyson plants ran regular shifts, although there were reports of higher than usual absenteeism at some locations.
In Garden City, a morning rally brought out an estimated 3,000 people, making their voices heard as Congress considers immigration reforms. Signs demanded an end to racism and discrimination, and some showed pictures of uniformed Hispanic military personnel.
About 20 percent of the students in Garden City schools were absent from classes Monday to attend the rally in that city, far above the 4 percent normal absentee rate, said Roy Cessna, spokesman for the district. About 60 percent of the more than 7,300 students in Garden City's public schools are Hispanic.
Donalda and Rony Martinez told The Garden City Telegram they brought their own four children and two other children to the Garden City rally after calling the schools to tell them they were taking them to the rally.
''I think it is important our children participate in this and understand what's happening,'' said Donalda Martinez.
Among those attending the Garden City rally was Andrea Hernandez, a 33-year-old illegal immigrant who has lived in the United States for three years. Her two U.S.-born children are citizens.
''There are many people like us, who come here to work, to try to give our children a better life than we've had,'' Hernandez said. ''We work, we follow the laws, we stay out of trouble. There are citizens who break more laws than we do. All we want is a chance.''
The Kansas events came as Congress considers legislation on immigration reform and were part of a national day of action billed as a ''campaign for immigrants' dignity.''
--------
Newsman John Hannah in Topeka contributed to this report.
Source: The Ark City Traveler
--------
arkcity.net
In Crete, fear could have kept people at work
BY ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star
April 11, 2006
Nebraska, US
CRETE — Outside the San Miguel grocery store Monday, 4-year-old Alexis Castovena dipped his idle fingertips into the grooves of the store's brick surface and indulged his daydreams.
Inside, his mother, Yolanda Chavez, rose from her seat near the cash register and talked about waking in the middle of the night without feeling in her hands.
As thousands of minority meatpackers marched in favor of friendlier immigration laws in Lincoln and Omaha Monday, former meatpacker Chavez acknowledged the damage done by dull knives and cold slabs of pork.
Can she envision something better for her Nebraska-born son and his 7-year-old sister, Melanie?
"I think living here in the United States, they will get a better life," she said in her halting English.
Twenty-five miles away in Lincoln, people from Crete and other area towns carried banners, waved tiny American flags and made a visible claim to belonging in this state and this country.
By their presence, they also spoke out against the chance lawmakers will end their immigration gridlock by deporting millions of undocumented workers and building a fence along the Mexican border.
In Crete, home to hundreds of immigrants who work at the nearby Farmland pork-processing plant, things were quieter.
Men, women and children hurrying across a park toward three buses chartered by immigration advocates in Lincoln were one of the few signs of anything out of the ordinary.
Farmland worker Maria Sanchez and 15-year-old daughter Jennifer were among those getting ready to depart.
While action in Washington could improve the outlook for immigrants, Jennifer was more focused on a possible crackdown.
She and her mother would march "because they don't need to pass that law. We have to be treated equally."
As she spoke, more truckloads of squealing hogs rumbled past a Farmland-Smithfield Foods sign a few miles away that proclaimed "Good Food from the Heartland Since 1959."
Relaying their response through security guards, officials at the plant between Crete and Wilber said they were too busy to talk about any disruptions in pork processing.
However, the parking lot appeared to be almost full of cars driven by workers from the first shift.
Across the road at Seajay Cold Storage, everybody from a workforce of about 40 was at work, said Human Resources Director Heather Schafer.
Back in Crete later, convenience store worker Tara Montejo said her husband, an El Salvador immigrant, was among those who decided to pass up a trip to Lincoln out of fear for his job.
While he supposedly had the option of asking for time off, Montejo said, the call-in line available for that purpose carried a recording saying it had no more memory capacity.
"That means so many people called in and it was full. And none of those (messages) was retrieved and erased."
She mentioned earlier rumors about Farmland closing for the day, but said they were completely without substance.
"There were signs up all over that you had to be at work."
One of the three buses waiting at the park left without any passengers about 9:30 a.m.
In a follow-up phone interview, Milo Mumgaard of the Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, which chartered the buses, said rally organizers "anticipated quite a few more people from Crete than actually came."
He said fear of employer reprisal appeared to be a factor.
The number of absences from the ranks of about 2,000 employees at the Cargill Meat Solutions plant in Schuyler was apparently somewhat higher.
Spokesman Mark Klein called the pace of cattle slaughter and processing there, about 65 miles northwest of Lincoln, "slow today."
Klein cited "the number of people calling in, which most likely was to participate in the rallies. For competitive reasons, we haven't said how much slower. But it slowed production there and at one of our seven other major plants."
A sister beef-processing plant that employs about 500 at Nebraska City "slowed down slightly," Klein added, "but nothing like in Schuyler."
Schuyler had its own immigration rally Sunday. City Clerk Mary Peschel said police estimated the crowd marching toward courthouse speeches at 2,000 people.
Barb Blum, based in Schuyler as business agent for Local 22 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, said the Sunday choice may have boosted participation from a plant that operates under a union contract.
Blum said many workers were absent Monday, but Cargill wasn't going out of its way to encourage marching in Lincoln or Omaha.
"This is what they said: 'This is Monday and we will work.'"
Back at Crete, school absences rose to 21 percent of Crete Public Schools' enrollment of about 1,500.
That number is normally about 8 percent of the study body, which is about 35 percent minority, said Assistant Superintendent Kyle McGowan.
"This is hitting very close to home," McGowan said, "so my perception is that families in Crete are very interested in it."
Across the street at Blue Valley Community Action, Antonio Cubas said absences were higher than usual among Head Start students.
"At least 10 of our families went to march," Cubas said.
Cubas, a Peruvian immigrant, wore the white shirt meant to symbolize unity at the rally, but he was far from certain that Monday would matter in making U.S. immigration laws tougher or easier.
"It's just an argument," he said. "I don't think it will help either way. We're trying, as a community, to win the battle. But I can see it not happening."
journalstar.com
