Immigration divides local residents, too

The loud debate about illegal immigration playing out in street demonstrations and in Congress is forcing people to take sides.

Some people believe illegal immigrants embody the promise of this nation, that most are making a productive contribution to its economy and culture and should be given a chance to remain here legally. Others say they should not — that by coming here illegally in the first place or overstaying a visa, they forfeited a right to remain.

And many people are torn over the question, recognizing the role illegal immigrants play but fretting over our porous borders. Here are the views of some Seattle residents:

An "average person" is torn by the issue

In the past, Ric Thorning of Lynnwood never gave much thought to illegal immigration.

"I'm probably like the average person out there that knows it exists," said the 54-year-old facilities coordinator for a downtown Seattle law firm. He isn't sure what the right thing to do is.

But the recent immigrant-rights demonstrations in Seattle and elsewhere are clarifying what he feels, which is that "our borders are not being respected."

"On the other hand, it seems acceptable that if [illegal immigrants] can find a way to come in, then more power to you," he said. "I really find it very difficult in my mind, if that's the premise on which you arrived, that you now are demanding rights on top of that."

For Thorning, the issue isn't jobs. He thinks illegal immigrants take jobs that would not be filled as readily otherwise. And he doesn't think children who are here illegally should be turned away from schools or medical care.

"But that doesn't come free to any of us. How does that get paid for? So that gets back to citizenship."

But if the government grants residency status to people who have entered illegally, "are we then saying we're not a sovereign nation? I'm not sure we're setting a precedent that we can live with in future years."

Thorning doesn't know what the solution is. He doesn't want to "become so polarized that I become one of those people who say: 'Send everybody back and put up a high wall.'... On the other hand, there needs to be a respect for America's laws, borders and the country in general."

— Janet Tu

Student here illegally wants to contribute

Sam Wang has watched recruiters from big accounting firms come to the University of Washington in recent weeks and snap up his friends with big-money job offers.

The 25-year-old knows that, by contrast, when he graduates next month with a business degree from the UW, he will likely return to his job as a server at a local restaurant.

Wang overstayed a visitors' visa when he came to the United States from Taiwan 11 years ago and has since lived in the country illegally.

"I'd rather not be this way, but I am," he said. "Even with a college degree, it really doesn't matter how hard I work. The recruiters don't even talk to me."

But Wang sees hope in legislation now being debated in Congress that would create a path to legal residency. Specifically, the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act would offer a way to legal status for about 600,000 young people bound for college or beyond who came to this country illegally as minors.

"I got my public education here and I should be allowed to contribute," Wang said.

He was 14 when his parents sent him to live with family friends in New York; he moved out to live on his own when he was 16. He graduated from high school in Queens and enrolled at the UW.

But the degree he'll receive won't do him much good. Without legal status, he can't get a professional job in the United States and under immigration law would face an automatic 10-year ban from the country if he returned to Taiwan.

"All my friends are getting great jobs offers — at $40,000 a year" to start, he said. "The only thing I can do is go back and work in the restaurant."

— Lornet Turnbull

A legal immigrant says let's get tough

Agnes Trichak, a Hungarian immigrant whose first husband was a Japanese American, speaks proudly of her heritage and the melting pot that is America.

This is a country of great opportunities, said the 81-year old Bellevue retiree, but that doesn't mean people who crossed the border illegally should demand citizenship and access to social services.

"That would be a burden to the taxpayers," she said. The only reform she favors: Seal the borders tighter.

Trichak, who married an American soldier in Germany, landed at Ellis Island in 1947. After divorcing her first husband, she remarried and moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, and ran a gift shop and a bakery before coming to the Puget Sound area.

Just because you're an immigrant doesn't mean you support illegal immigration, she said.

"I got here legally," Trichak said. Providing more rights to illegal immigrants, she said, just encourages more people to sneak across the border.

— Tan Vinh

Businessman cites "huge contribution"

David Huether, president and chief operating officer for Taco Del Mar, said he has great empathy for people demonstrating today for immigrants' rights.

"We don't support the hiring of illegal aliens, and we don't do that in our restaurants, but the reality is they have a significant impact on our lives that's not acknowledged," he said. "Hispanic Americans of all nationalities who are in this country make a huge contribution."

Roughly 2,200 people work for Seattle-based Taco Del Mar and its 195 fast-food Mexican restaurants. Most of them work for franchisees, and some have arranged with their employers to take time off today to demonstrate.

Illegal immigrants affect almost every sector of the economy but their contributions are not acknowledged because they have no political power, Huether said.

"They have only the economic power of what they're going to do on Monday, which is walk out. They're an underclass that's not represented."

Huether favors reforms that would provide documents to illegal immigrants, bring them into the tax base and give them a way to become citizens.

That would help the country afford the health care and schooling that it's already providing them, he said.

"There's a huge demand for the labor that Hispanic Americans provide in this country, and we need to recognize that and allow that need to be met," Huether said. "If we took all the undocumented aliens out of the labor chain, we probably wouldn't have all the produce we have, along with a large amount of other goods and services."

— Melissa Allison