Irving is a city of about 200,000 people nestled just west of Dallas. It is part of the Dallas-Ft Worth Metroplex area, a large continuous city stretching from small cities east of Dallas to small cities west of Ft. Worth. It is estimated that as many as 40% of the population are illegal aliens.

Irving has gotten a lot of attention lately because of the protests that have happened around the "Illegal Immigrant Situation"

http://www.xomba.com/2000_protest_program_to_deport_criminal_illegal_aliens
deals with the protest last week against the program that Irving follows of referring criminal illegal aliens in the Irving City Jail to immigration to be processed for deportation.

"Life Under The Radar" http://www.xomba.com/life_under_the_radar

deals with some of my experiences in the community of those who live under the radar of the immigration authorities.

Today I would like to look at some different viewpoints within the community.

First, lets look at the position of the Irving City Council. Several council members were elected on a platform promising control of the illegal alien "problem" plaguing Irving. In the last ten years there has been an explosion of people withing the Latino community. Homes that housed a quiet family of two parents and three children years ago, now house a family in every room. One bedroom apartments which once housed one person, now house a family of five. In other words, the number of persons housed in the same number of homes has risen exponentially.

What does that mean for the community?

Schools are bulging and suffer from a shortage of teachers and buildings. Streets are crowded and need more frequent repairs. Parks and recreational facilities are teeming with people... all the time; people who dont speak English and are unable to communicate with those around them. The police and fire departments need more and more staff and equipment. Social Services are stretched and strained and need more funds. So are medical facilities.

With more use comes more expense for staffing, upkeep,growth and maintainance. Taxes have been raised and raised again to pay for it all.

The voting residents have spoken. They want the illegal alien situation brought under control. They feel that their good will and compassion for these people has been taken advantage of and they have said "No more".

The City Council has responded by following the Federal Criminal Illegal Alien Program and referring those illegal aliens who are incarcerated in the Irving City Jail to the immigration authorities for processing for deportation at the rate of about 300 persons a month.

The Council is debating adopting another Federal Program which will allow them to send their law enforcement officers for training that allows them to function as Immigration Officers and to verify citizenship of those individuals they deal with on other criminal issues. There is a lot of pressure from the voting residents for them to take this next step in identifying and deporting illegal aliens.

Lets move on to another viewpoint.

Daniel and Anna are a young Latino couple. They have a daughter Rose, who is 2 years old. (Look for an upcoming article "Itsy Bitsy Spider" about Rose) They live in a house they recently purchased in Irving with Anna's brother and his wife who is expecting their first child, and another young couple and their one year old son Mario.

Rose and Mario were born here and are eligible for U.S. citizenship. No one else in the house is in this country legally. Daniel speaks some English and between his bad English and my bad Spanish we are able to communicate.... more or less.

Daniel works at two jobs...unskilled labor to support his family. Anna was working as a Spanish speaking customer service phone operator for a company that serves the Latino community. She speaks no English.

She quit her job this week. She does not believe her papers are good enough. She has no Texas drivers license. If she is stopped she will go to jail for driving without a license, and if she goes to jail she will be deported. She was driving on a license from her country with a Texas validation, but her license has now expired and she can not get it renued without going to her country. If she does that she will not be able to get back into this country as she came here on a tourist visa and over stayed it. She will not get another.

So, she quit her job and stays in her house. She is afraid to go out of her house, afraid the police are targeting Latinos and that she will be stopped for no reason and deported. Rumors in the community run rampant and feed the fear and desperation.

Immigration is rumored to be everywhere. At the grocery, at the garage, at the school. The Spanish speaking radio stations announce warnings... don't go here...don't go there... immigration is here... immigration is there.... Most of these warnings are not true. I have personally gone and looked and there were no bus loads of people being hauled off.... no car loads of immigration officers stopping cars and checking papers..... But the warning continue and the fear builds.

Daniel still has a valid drivers license from his country which has been validated in Texas, so he is safe to drive until it expires.... in 2009.

I asked him what he will do then. He has no answer. We talk. I play games with Rose and Mario. I listen. Sometimes people forget that I understand more Spanish than I speak and if I listen sometimes I learn things I would not otherwise.

Finally, I am told.... they are all hoping for amnesty. They know there are no solutions to their problems. Just amnesty.... They hope that will happen. Hopefully, they ask me if I think it will happen....

I tell them I dont think it will happen. We gave amnesty once. It was a once only deal. And the American people are not happy with the situation. The Latino leaders are making demonstrations and speeches that are making people mad. They make threats of boycotts and make demands that they be given gifts. No one likes to give a gift at gunpoint.

When Rose has a temper tantrum because she wants candy.... you do not give her candy. The leaders do not understand Americans and they have done the wrong thing. They have made American people mad who did not care before. Now they care, but not the way the leaders wanted.

These are hard things to explain when we have no complete common language. But a two year old is a common language. They understand about Rose and temper tantrums.

I have no solutions for them. I ask them to keep in touch with me.... but I know they could disappear in a heartbeat.

Next I visit Mabel. Mabel is a 68 year old Anglo widow who has lived in Irving since she was a young married woman. She lives in the house where she raised her children, although she may not be able to keep it much longer. The taxes on her house keep increasing. Already she works two part time jobs and makes as much money as Social Security will let her. It is not enough.... She does not know what she will do.

Through the years she has had Latino friends. People who immigrated here legally and learned English and blended into the community. They lived as Americans tend to live... one family per home. Their children went to school with her children. They played sports together... they cooked out in their yards. They were just people... like any other people...

But Mabel does not know what to think of these new immigrants. They don't speak English. They seem almost defiant about not learning English. They are demanding that she learn Spanish to get along with them. They are demanding that she accommodate them and their culture. They paint their houses bright colors and decorate them with great enthusiasm and extremely poor taste. The house next door to her is painted bright purple, red and turquoise. They play loud, Tejano music. There are a lot of men without their families. They spend a lot of time outside...

Mabel is frightened by her new neighbors.

With so many people living in each house... there are a lot of cars... everywhere... parked in the yards... crowding the street. So many cars in the street it is hard to navigate between them to get in and out of her driveway.

Mabel feels she is being driven from her home. She has lived in this community most of her life and has worked hard to raise her children and maintain her home. Now it seems to be slipping away from her. She does not know what she will do. She wants her City Council to solve this problem and to stop the erosion of her way of life. She is angry... very angry at the protests.. the demands... the threats... Her compassion is at an end.

There are no good solutions for her problems either.

I guess that is the bottom line in Irving.

There are no good solutions.