Speech #820078901

If not guarantee. the return to the same farm as quickly as possible of a wetback employee who may be apprehended and taken back to Mexico. The term "deposit" requires some explanation. Members of this Commission personally interviewed wetback workers apprehended by immigration officers in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. These workers had been paid for the cotton they had picked (luring the preceding 2 or 3 weeks. However. their employers had withheld $10 to $15 from their pay. Such sums. we discovered. are known as "deposits." To redeem this deposit. the wetback was required to reenter illegally and to reappear on the farm employers premises within 10 days. Once on the United States side of the border and on the farm. numerous devices are employed to keep the wetback on the Job. Basic to all these devices is the fact that the wetback is a person of legal disability who is under jeopardy of immediate deportation if caught. He is told that if he leaves the farm. he will be reported to the Immigration Service or that. equally unfortunate to him. the Immigration Service will surely find him if he ventures into town or out on the roads. To assure that he will stay until his services are no longer needed. his pay. or some portion thereof. frequently is held back. Sometimes. he is deliberately kept indebted to the farmers store or commissary until the end of the season. at which time he may be given enough to buy shoes or clothing and encouraged to return the following season. When the work is done. neither the farmer nor the community wants the wetback around. The number of apprehensions and deportations tends to rise very rapidly at the close of a seasonal work period. This can be interpreted not alone to mean that the immigration officer suddenly goes about his work with renewed zeal and vigor. but rather that at this time of the year cooperation In law enforcement by farm employers and townspeople rapidly undergoes considerable improvement. Of course we have to be mighty careful when we devise a penalty to be sure that only those who harbor. those who retain. those who hire wetbacks have knowledge or reason to believe or could easily find out those whom they employ are wetbacks shall be subject to penalty. Intent must be proven before conviction. It is a very simple matter for those who hire a wetback to ask the wetback: Where is your card issued by the immigration authorities? Where is your socialsecurity card? Identification would not be difficult. Up in New York or up in Rochester. for instance. where the gentleman from New York comes from. or out in Chicago. where the gentleman from Illinois comes from. if anyone would hire. retain. harbor. and give comfort to an illegal alien coming down from Canada or coming in from Poland or Russia or what have you. they would be on top of that individual in a minute. would detain him and invoke all possible penalties against him. But when it comes to farm laborers who come from Mexico. no. The shoe is on the other foot.