Cell towers are hard sell in Ancram

First in a series

By DEBORAH E. LANS

HUDSON–In November, when The Columbia Paper first decided to write about our local immigrant population, our primary goal was to speak to local residents – to understand their feelings about the incoming administration, their reasons for moving not just to the U.S. but also to Columbia County, their lives and their plans.

We reached out broadly to individuals and to businesses that employ and work with immigrants.  For the better part of two months, we were met with unexpected and unsettling silence.

Where usually we find people eager to spread the word about their work, lives, successes and worries, we found instead nothing. Calls and emails went unanswered or contact declined. We promised anonymity. No pictures. No identifying details. Still nothing.

That silence, we realized, was one truth of the story.

Even before the first confirmed ICE raid in nearby Cairo this week — when two people, neither of whom has a criminal record, were swept up and transferred to the Buffalo-area detention center — people were deeply afraid. Protectiveness of self and others is displacing pride in achievements, the details of daily life, even perhaps the dreams. Churches that have and intend still to act as sanctuaries have preferred not to be named as such, lest they attract the wrong people’s attention. Businesses that hire, and indeed rely on, foreign workers prefer not to say so, for the same reasons. If schools are developing plans against the event that ICE visits to remove a child, mum’s the word.

Ever so slowly, though, a few voices have emerged. This, and subsequent articles will speak to the subjective and external facts of immigrant life in the county.
A man we’ll call Omar lived in a village in the mountainous region of Guatemala, where most inhabitants are of Mayan descent. Historically, the area experiences a rainy season and a dry season. Lately, likely a result of climate change, it has been hit by a years-long drought that has crippled food production, layering widespread hunger on top of the country’s existing poverty.

Omar’s village had no public school and only a poor hospital. Economic survival was challenging. The government, according to Omar, is only interested in itself, continually granting itself raises so that its members earn many multiples of what citizens can scrape by on, while levying regressive 12% sales taxes on its already impoverished citizens. Gangs sometimes demand money simply so a child can pass by to school.

From the age of 12 or 13, Omar worked, operating a sewing machine in a factory making clothing. He left the Catholic school he attended after 9th grade. He worked seven days every week, usually for 16 to 20 hours each day. With his brother, he dreamed of opening his own factory, to make bed sheets. Covid hit the country’s economy hard, ending that dream. Omar’s plan then became to move to the United States, where he could earn enough to send money home to his struggling parents and siblings and have opportunities for himself.

Omar knew one person, also from his village, in the U.S. The man lived in Hudson with his two sons. Omar called him and asked if he would help Omar if Omar made his way to Hudson. The man said yes, Omar could stay with him.

Omar hired a “coyote,” paying him $16,000 (more than a year’s earnings in Guatemala) that was borrowed from a bank and guaranteed by Omar’s brother. Starting in Guatemala with 10 others, Omar’s group grew to several hundred, walking and driving, by the time Omar crossed the border in Mexico. His journey to Hudson took more than one month. Omar arrived on March 2, 2022.

Nearly three years later, Omar, now 25, has upgraded from an air mattress on the floor of his acquaintance’s home to a bed in his own room, in an apartment he shares with two other young men. He works at an area restaurant, seven days each week, for 8-10 hours each day (except the day he does a double shift), which allows him time to “improve” himself, by taking ESL classes, and even to enjoy himself. (After two years of ESL classes, his English is good, and most of our interviews were conducted in English.) At the restaurant he cooks and, on some days, also makes deliveries. He has obtained a driver’s license and, with help from his boss, has bought a pre-owned Toyota RAV (a far better car, he says, than he could have afforded on his own). Like many immigrants, including those who are “unauthorized,” although the country provides him no benefits, he pays taxes on his income and has a tax ID number.

His current dream is to be able to stay here, learn, send money home and perhaps one day have a business of his own. He finds Columbia County “beautiful,” and revels in the snow (of which his home village had none). Today, Omar calls himself a “guest” here, a status which will only change, he says, if he “has papers.” But, currently, there are no routes to lawful residence or citizenship for him which, he explained, is why he had to enter the country illegally. At the same time, asked where his “home” is, he says “here.” Like most immigrants, he regularly sends a big chunk of his earnings (25%) home, which helps his brother to repay the bank loan and his family to buy basic necessities. He Facetimes with them weekly.

It pains Omar that the president speaks of all immigrants “as one – all criminals and drug dealers. That may be true of some, but not everyone. It is unfair.” He is worried about his future. Having a license makes him feel better, and, while he is cautious and “keeps his head down,” his view is that “what happens, happens.”

Omar estimates there are around 1,000 fellow Guatemalans in Columbia County alone.

Five members of a local ESL class (not the one Omar attends) agreed to answer some questions for us, on paper and anonymously, as a writing exercise. They are from Ecuador, Bangladesh and Haiti, all poor countries experiencing internal turmoil and violence. They range in age from 25 to 48. Each came to the country for better economic opportunities and one also because he was “at serious risk in my country.” Columbia County was a destination because they had family or friends here. Every one of them has a job. They work: in a restaurant (though having a marketing and business degree); as a shelf-stocker; as machine operators; and as a salesperson.

Their dreams align with Omar’s: to stay, become a citizen, better their English, gain more education, work. One, very ambitiously, plans to study medicine (he already has seven years of higher education), and his older family members are currently studying nursing and accounting. The citizens of his country of origin have “Temporary Protected” status in the U.S. currently but the federal government can withdraw or not renew that status, as it did with Venezuela this week, literally overnight making people who were lawfully admitted into unauthorized residents.

Surprisingly, not every one of them is fearful about the future but most are — not knowing what the government will do. Accordingly, they are making contingency plans and considering whether to rethink ambitions like attending college that might make them more visible and put them at greater risk.

The highly-publicized ICE raids of the past weeks are, according to Bryan MacCormack, co-executive director of Columbia County Sanctuary Movement (CCSM), “successfully terrorizing the community.”

In this chilling environment, Omar speaks of a famous twentieth century Guatemalan poet of Mayan descent, Humberto Ak’ Abal. One of his poems seems to speak, in turn, of all the immigrants we encountered:

The only day in life

where the sun doesn’t set

is called

hope.

Future articles will look at other aspects of the local immigrant community and the resources available to them.

To contact reporter Deborah Lans, email deborahlans@icloud.com.