Standing in the shadow of the bus station in his pristine white T-shirt, plaid shorts, and Reebok sneakers, Cesar Mejia appeared to be just another Eugene wanderer. But as he turned his face toward the streetlight, the deep crevices in his skin were illuminated, and it became clear he had been traveling much longer than the other riders exiting the bus behind him.

He wandered over to sit and unfold his story, but each step seemed to carry a heavy regret. He seemed surprised at the offer of a handshake and looked skeptical as if he were waiting for something traumatic to unfold. As his anxiety subsided, tears streamed down his leathered skin as he revealed
his reasons for coming to the United States.

The Willamette River flows through Eugene in the early afternoon. For many Like Mejia, the Willamette River is a symbol of home.

“My story is very long, and it is very sad,” he said through a translator. “I wish I could say it ends well, but I am afraid I am still working toward a
happy ending.”

Nearly as compelling as his reasons for leaving El Salvador were his reasons for staying in the United States, when so many Americans were furious
over bailouts, lost mortgages, and diminishing
credit scores.

Mejia’s undaunted faith in U.S. economic buoyancy is not unprecedented. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, Mejia is one of 11.2 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. Despite the economic hardship he has experienced since the recession began, including difficulty finding jobs and coping with diminishing wages, Mejia is surprisingly confident the American dream is not an idealistic fantasy, but indeed a reality.

“I have faith in the economy in the United States. Things will get better here, life will bounce back
to normal here,” he said. “The United States
is resilient.”

Civil war and bloodshed

Mejia came to the United States in 2004 from El Salvador after he said rebel gangs made it impossible for him to make a living in the wake of civil war. The gangs threatened him and demanded part of his profit as a street vendor. His life as a salesman had been Mejia’s attempt to move ahead in his country professionally, and he was discouraged his plan failed so miserably despite his work ethic.

“I knew I needed to go somewhere, where dreams meant something,” he said.

He grew up as a Catholic peasant in the 1970s and participated in campesino protests against fraudulent elections in 1972 and 1977. In response to the protests, the Salvadoran government began sending death squads armed with machetes and AK-47s into the fields where he worked. Mejia said he was terrified.

“They would come and just started killing people, anyone they thought disagreed with them: women, children, students, Catholics, and men. It didn’t matter; they just kept on killing,” he said.

The civil war raged for 12 years while the Salvadoran government fought against Salvadoran leftist rebel group, the FMLN guerrillas.

Immigration and the decaying economy

Even after the peace accords of 1992, Mejia said that the country was in shambles. There was no land available to farm, and the crumbling economy proved an impossible climate for him to make a living. He lived in constant fear that war could return. Left with few options, Mejia said goodbye to his wife and five children and left to find work in the United States in the spring of 2004.

When he arrived, Mejia had less than $500 and was overwhelmed with the prospect of starting life over again in a foreign place. Mejia moved to Oregon after he heard about the many job opportunities and the Latin American support programs the state had to offer. He did his best to find any work he could get, which ranged from odd jobs such as laying grass seed in Linn County to motel cleaning and maintenance to construction.

Bob Daynes, a spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said illegal immigrants are used by industries because they will work for less, and that immigrants take jobs that have wages many working-class Americans can’t afford to do.

“Everything from big business to mom-and-pop shops have become dependent on foreign workers at the exclusion of everyone else,” Daynes said.

Daynes argues that by making jobs available to illegal immigrants, the country invites the poorest and least educated to drain social services that are supposed to be used to help American citizens who are in need. Daynes said that in economic hardship,
it is unfair to have illegal immigrants draining the state’s resources.

“The cost of immigrants to the state of Oregon is estimated to be about $270 million. However, their social impact is even more. Immigrants cost taxpayers an estimated $479 million in a range of things from healthcare to education to incarceration,” he said.

Jobs for immigrants increasingly sparse

Although the recession in Lane County has contributed to an unemployment rate of 12.1 percent, B.J. Bennet,
co-owner of Ziniker Orchards in Creswell, is happy to have immigrants to hire and is convinced they provide a service to the country that too many Americans overlook.

Bennet and her husband hire a few migrant workers each fall to help with her walnut crop. They pay $150 a day for workers who work eight to 12-hour days on the small, 12-acre farm. The Bennets started hiring immigrants years ago because they were the only ones willing to take on the backbreaking job.

“We are so grateful that we have found such wonderful workers,” she said. “You couldn’t get a white boy out there on their hands and knees picking walnuts during the coldest and rainiest days of the year.”

Because of the small size of their farm, Bennet said it is likely that the immigrants might only work two or three days before they leave the farm and move on to the next job.

Orchards like this one outside of Coburg, Oregon provide work for incoming immigrants looking to join the work force.

“We don’t ask for papers, we just let them work, pay them and let them be on their way,” she said. “We are just so happy to reward such good people with some extra money.”

Francisco Lopez, the director of CAUSA, an Oregon grassroots immigrant rights organization, said in the recession, jobs such as the ones available at Ziniker Orchards are getting more difficult to find, but it has not been extreme enough to send illegal immigrants packing.

“It doesn’t matter how bad things get in the U.S. Most immigrants can find support from family, churches, or the government. Having less in the United States beats looking for food in garbage cans or spending your days asking for quarters,” he said. “Immigrants believe in the American dream. They know that if they work hard enough now, their children will be able to go to college and make a better life for themselves later.”

Mejia agreed that the living conditions in the United States are much better than El Salvador’s. Even when he had to travel as far as Texas from Oregon to try to find work in the winter months, he said he would never return home because of the economy.

“When I first laid my foot onto American soil I breathed easier,” he said.

However, despite stories of immigrants and the findings of research specialists, the Pew Hispanic Research Center reported the immigration rate has decreased, and more than one million illegal immigrants have left the country largely because of job scarcity.

“It is becoming much more difficult to live and work in this country than it ever has been before,” Pew Hispanic Research Center Communications Associate Bryan Griffith said.

Immigration laws intensify

Rather than being a negative reaction to the economy, the Center for Immigration Studies reports the decreasing growth of immigration to the United States is likely because of an escalation in immigration enforcement laws.

When efforts to legalize illegal immigrants failed in the U.S. Senate in the summer of 2007, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez wrote in a report that “until Congress chooses to act, we’re going to be taking some energetic steps of our own.” Chertoff and Gutierrez pledged to better enforce border security, as well as pursue employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The Bush administration fenced a significant portion of the U.S. border and doubled the number of border patrol agents to more than 16,500 in 2007. The number of jail beds designated to hold illegal immigrants also doubled to more than 30,000 in recent years. The total number of illegal  forcefully removed from the United States has risen substantially since 2002. CIS estimated that at least 285,000 illegal immigrants were physically removed in 2007.

Even new technologies such as E-Verify now allow employers to screen workers to see if they are authorized to work in the country, and one out of every 10 businesses in the country uses it, according to Daynes. 

Oregon laws also make it difficult for Mejia to live in the state. The Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles began electronically verifying information contained on U.S. immigration documents in 2008, making it difficult for immigrants to attain a driver’s license, and making it nearly impossible for immigrants to get jobs and earn a living.

“It is hard to measure exactly how efficient the program has been at keeping immigrants from coming into the state, but we have seen a slow downturn in the amount of immigrants coming in with immigration papers in general,” Oregon DMV Public Affairs Manager David House said. 

However, worksite enforcement and immigration raids have contributed to the largest increase
in deportations.

Mejia was picked up in one such raid in October when he was living in San Antonio.

“I was at work and they just came through demanding for us to show them our papers,” he said. “I didn’t have any, and so I spent five months in jail.”

Seeking political asylum

Mejia was let out on bail in March, by a former boss, but is still considered an illegal immigrant. He learned while in jail his background in El Salvador could be the key to legalized citizenship: His involvement in the protests, and his looming fear of the government, may be enough to get him political asylum. In an effort to build up his case, he has stopped working.

The High School Equivalency Program at the University of Oregon can be found on 17th street off of Agate.

“I don’t want to risk getting picked up in an immigration raid,” he said.

While preparing to fight for political asylum, Mejia has applied to the High School Equivalency Program at the University of Oregon in an effort to get a General Equivalency Degree and continue his education.

“I don’t want to do anything illegal that would jeopardize my case, “ he said. “But I need to do some-thing to prepare to support my family in the future.”

The HEP is a federally funded program available in the United States and is not authorized to verify the legal status of any of its students.

“We would never dream of asking people whether or not they are in this country legally,” HEP spokesperson and recruiter Armando Bravo said. “It shouldn’t matter. We have to remember that education benefits everyone; it doesn’t recognize borders.

The HEP provides migrant workers with housing, transportation, class costs, books, and a $20-per-week stipend for other living expenses. Bravo said the program is more than an opportunity for students to learn about subject matter, but is an opportunity for students to build self-esteem and foster long-term connections with others in the program.

“I won’t ever be able to provide a life for my family without getting an education,” Mejia said. “This program has given me a reason to stay and fight for my right to stay in the U.S.”

Bravo said the program launches many students into colleges or careers that offer much higher pay. Andy Manuel graduated from the program in 1970 and still credits it with his current success as a DJ at Oldies 99, a Eugene radio station. Bravo also added that several students attain college degrees and return to become teachers in the program.

“There are only 35 students in the program each term, but they are a very close-knit group. And, I think it is safe to say they feel kinship for the program and keep us informed long after they are gone about where they end up,” he said.

Mejia said that when he worked in odd jobs he sent a majority of the money home to his family for food, and most importantly an education.

For Mejia, crossing the River into Eugene was a powerful moment. For many Eugene locals, seeing this University of Oregon sign is really a welcome home sign.

“My sons could go to the university because my jobs created enough money to send them. That made me feel good,” he said.

Today, one of Mejia’s sons works at a mechanical institute, while his other son has had to drop out of school because Mejia cannot afford his tuition.

Although he misses his family, Mejia said he can’t go back until El Salvador becomes more stable. He said there are still violent outbreaks in the country and he would be in danger as a past dissenter of
the government.

“It is either I live away from them alive, or I live near them in a grave,” he said.

Jorge Navarro, executive director of Centro Latino Americano, a community support organization for immigrants, said Mejia’s story is unusual, but that he represents so many immigrants who believe in what America has to offer.

“Mejia told me that when he drove over the bridge into the city of Eugene he began to weep because he knew that he was home,” Navarro said. “He is like so many hardworking people that see the Willamette River and know they are at home.”