Ricardo Lisade waits to be fingerprinted on a bus at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti the morning of his arrival on Sep. 13, 2011. Jacob Kushner/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

By Jacob Kushner

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The United States this year has deported more than 250 Haitians, half of whom were jailed without charges in facilities so filthy they pose life-threatening health risks.

Some Haitians faced lengthy confinement in U.S. immigration facilities before the deportations. Officials held Chicago resident Ricardo Lisade in a Kenosha, Wis. detention center for five months before deporting him, and Haitian authorities then placed him on probation without charging him with a crime.

An investigation by the nonprofit Florida Center for Investigative Reporting found evidence that the Obama administration has not followed its own policy of seeking alternatives to deportation when there are serious medical and humanitarian concerns.

One deportee who arrived in April suffered from asthma, hypertension, diabetes, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and head trauma, among other ailments. That same month, the U.S. government deported a mentally ill immigrant whose psychiatric medications were lost by Haitian authorities after his first day in jail.

“What’s distinct about the situation in Haiti is that, unlike in other countries, people are immediately jailed, and the conditions in Haitian jails are condemned universally for violating human rights,” said Rebecca Sharpless, director of the University of Miami Law School Immigration Clinic, which helps immigrants appeal deportation orders.

The health risks for incarcerated deportees have increased significantly since October 2010, the beginning of a cholera outbreak that has infected more than 470,000 people and killed 6,500, including some prisoners.

International health experts say deportees in Haiti’s jails are at risk of contracting cholera, which can spread rapidly in overcrowded cells that lack clean water, soap and waste disposal. Once exposed to cholera, victims can die in less than 24 hours. One deportee has already died — two days after he was released from detention in a Haitian jail cell where he became stricken with cholera-like symptoms.

Haitian authorities told FCIR that they place approximately half of all deportees in jails to monitor what they term “serious criminals” — a largely arbitrary determination.

These detentions, which have lasted as long as 11 days, have occurred although the Haitian constitution bans the detention of anyone for more than 48 hours without appearing before a judge, and a United Nations treaty states that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.”

‘Crisis has not gone away’

One day after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake destroyed much of Haiti’s capital, the U.S. government suspended deportations. Since then, the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an independent initiative of the Organization of American States mandated to promote and protect human rights among member nations, have lobbied countries against deportations due to worsening conditions in Haiti.

“The crisis has not gone away,” said Michel Forst, the U.N. independent expert on human rights, appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council to examine and report on conditions in Haiti. “The most important help the international community can give to Haiti is to suspend the forced return of Haitians.”

Still, the Department of Homeland Security resumed deportations to Haiti on Jan. 20 —the same day the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning urging Americans to avoid Haiti due to health risks and lawlessness.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said deportations to Haiti resumed because a U.S. Supreme Court decision required detainees to be released after 180 days. That requirement, they said, would have placed“some detained Haitian nationals with significant criminal records into U.S. communities, which in turn poses a significant threat to the American public.”

But FCIR found at least three deportees arriving in August and September were convicted of non-violent drug offenses, and three-quarters of all Haitian deportees in recent years had no criminal convictions at all, according to immigration records.

“The hypocrisy is stunning,” Sharpless said. “U.S. officials have known for a long time that it’s dangerous to send people back to jail in Haiti. They also knew that the cholera outbreak raised the stakes even higher because cholera and Haitian jails are a deadly combination. Yet they decided to resume deportations anyway.”

Held in Wisconsin

When U.S. immigration officials finally placed Chicago immigrant Lisade on a deportation flight to Haiti in September, he was eager to be released after spending most of the previous 17 months in immigration detention centers in Wisconsin, Illinois and Kentucky.

Lisade, 33, who was brought to the United States from Haiti at age 8 as a legal resident, amassed a criminal record in the Midwest that included a 1994 conviction for armed robbery and home invasion, a 1999 residential burglary, and a 2007 domestic violence conviction.

Ricardo Lisade, 33, was deported to Haiti in September after spending 17 months in and out of immigration detention centers in Wisconsin and other states. Jacob Kushner/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

But in March 2010, after completing a prison sentence, Lisade was surprised that instead of being allowed to return to his family in Chicago, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials took him into custody. He was confined in a section of Kenosha County Jail reserved for ICE detainees, from which an immigration judge ordered Lisade deported to Haiti two months later.

Because the U.S. had temporarily stopped deporting people to Haiti due to the conditions after the January 2010 earthquake, Lisade spent the next five months in that Kenosha jail.

Immigration authorities released Lisade on extended supervision in August 2010 because a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling forbids ICE from detaining immigrants with final orders of removal for more than six months in most cases.

In December 2010, Lisade was taken back into custody on the premise that his deportation to Haiti was imminent. On Jan. 20, ICE sent the first flight of deportees to Haiti since the earthquake. But Lisade would spend an additional eight and a half months in a Kentucky immigration center before his time came.

Key details of his case were confirmed for this report by an attorney with the nonprofit National Immigrant Justice Center in Illinois.

An unexpected homecoming

After officials finally deported Lisade to Haiti on Sept. 13, he was surprised when Haitian authorities placed him on 18 months of probation — even though he was not charged with a crime in Haiti. The probation requires Lisade to report weekly to a judicial police station to sign his name, and forbids him from obtaining a passport, visa or other travel documents until he successfully completes the period.

A flight carrying deportees from a Louisiana detention center arrives at Toussaint Louverture airport in Port-au-Prince on Sept. 13, 2011. Jacob Kushner/Florida Center for Investigative Reporting

Some deportees have no other form of identification in Haiti, meaning they cannot receive wire transfers from their family in the United States and risk being apprehended by Haitian police who routinely stop people and demand such identification. At the time he was interviewed, Lisade said he did not have any Haitian ID.

“I haven’t been on probation since I was a juvenile,” Lisade said the morning he arrived at the airport in Port-au-Prince. “Now I have to do another probation for a country where I never committed a crime? A country I left when I was eight years old? That doesn’t make no sense at all.”

The day of Lisade’s arrival, another deportee, longtime Chicago resident Samuel Durand, learned he would be immediately placed in “administrative detention” — meaning a Port-au-Prince jail.

Durand said he moved to the United States in 1996 with his mother and five siblings to join their father, a U.S. citizen and longtime Chicago cab driver. He grew up playing soccer in the Oak Park neighborhood West of Chicago and graduated from Oak Park and River Forest High School in 1999.

WATCH VIDEO: Samuel Durand’s story

On Dec. 14, 2006, Durand violently confronted a man he says scratched his car, and he was arrested later that day – one of about 20 times he was arrested in the United States, court records show.

Durand eventually was convicted of robbery, battery and marijuana manufacturing and delivery, according to court records. He was sentenced to four years in prison and served two before being ordered deported to Haiti due to his felony conviction and because his 10-year legal residence had expired.

“It is a shock to me because the country is not functioning … and the U.S. government is still sending people here,” Durand said.

But the bigger shock came when he arrived in Haiti expecting freedom, only to be placed in a 20-by-10 foot cell along with three other deportees and various Haitian prisoners.

“The holding cell holding like 15, 17 people in that little cell,” Durand said. “Ain’t nowhere to sleep, people sleeping on top of other people—the jail condition is not good at all.”

Dr. John May, president of Health Through Walls, a North Miami nonprofit organization that works to improve jail conditions in foreign nations, travels frequently to Haiti. He visited the facility where Durand was held one week before his arrival.

“This is what we see everywhere,” May said. “Tuberculosis would thrive in this environment, certainly skin conditions like scabies, which we see often. And most seriously and concerning in Haiti recently is cholera, and it would just take one person with cholera here and it would quickly spread to the others.”

Because there is no waste disposal, a shower stall and toilet fill with garbage and urine in the Pettionville jail cell on a day when five deportees were held there. Jacob Kushner/Florida Center for Investigative Reporting

Cholera is spread primarily through feces and can result in severe vomiting and diarrhea. “Any situation that doesn’t have a lot of good hygiene is a great setting for the spread of cholera, which is what we have here,” May said.

In January, 34-year-old deportee Wildrick Guerrier, whose Florida criminal record included convictions for battery and possession of a firearm, died from what doctors described as cholera-like symptoms two days after being released from the holding cell where he became ill — one of the same cells where deportees are incarcerated today.

When asked if detaining deportees in such conditions poses life-threatening health risks, Chairman of Haiti’s Commission in Charge of Deportees Pierre Wilner Casseus said only that deportees exhibiting symptoms of illness are released immediately.

“We don’t give them any medicine,” Casseus said, adding that the International Organization for Migration, which works to improve living conditions in Haiti, attends to the health needs of jailed deportees. But an IOM spokesperson said Haitian officials do not allow access to the deportees once they are in jail.

Medical care denied

Sometimes, jailhouse conditions in Haiti complicate existing medical problems, as they did for Jeff Dorne, a longtime Boston resident from Haiti diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Dorne served six years in prison for a 2003 rape conviction in New Jersey, after which he was ordered deported by an immigration judge because his felony violated his legal permanent residency, which had also expired while he was in prison.

An Aug. 12, 2011, photo of the Petionville jail cell where some deportees are detained upon their arrival in Haiti. Jacob Kushner/Florida Center for Investigative Reporting

After he was deported in April, Haitian authorities immediately imprisoned him — without charge — in the same Petionville cell where Durand would later be held. Dorne’s illness required him to take four medications daily, so U.S. immigration officers sent a one-month supply of those prescriptions to Haiti’s judicial police. But jails in Haiti do not have medical personnel and Haitian police are not trained in basic medical care.

On Dorne’s first night in the Petionville jail in Port-au-Prince, the municipal police gave him the medication, and then, according to Dorne, held onto — or lost — the remaining pills.

“The prescription said every night. So Saturday night I asked the chief officer, ‘Can you get my medication for me?’ ” Dorne said. “They told me they can’t find it. Every day I asked them for it. After two, three days, I stopped asking.”

During his next few days in jail, Dorne said some of the symptoms that had subsided after he began psychiatric treatment in the New Jersey prison returned.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “My hands started shaking.”

May, the doctor at Health Through Walls, said mentally ill inmates face grave risks because they are often unable to negotiate for themselves.

“A person who requires antipsychotic medications … could rapidly deteriorate without having them,” May said.

The police officer in charge of that jail said he was not familiar with Dorne’s case.

An FCIR review of statements made by federal immigration authorities after deportations resumed in January found evidence that ICE sometimes fails to abide by its policy involving Haitians with medical problems. An April 1 ICE memorandum explaining the decision to resume deportations said alternatives would be considered for medical and humanitarian purposes. Yet Haitians with documented medical problems continue to be deported from the United States.

The U.S. government deported Dorne, for example, three days after the Department of Justice documented his paranoid schizophrenia and the four psychiatric medications prescribed to him.

Ralph Celestin, 51, was deported to Haiti in April even though he suffers from numerous health ailements including asthma, diabetes and hypertension. He has not been convicted of a crime in the United States since a burglary convction in 1978. Jacob Kushner/Florida Center for Investigative Reporting

Deportee Ralph Celestin, 51, suffered from so many health problems that a list of his conditions and medications filled six pages of a New Jersey prison document. Despite his having asthma, hypertension and diabetes, ICE deported Celestin to Haiti on the same April flight as Dorne.

Immigration attorneys in the United States are fighting deportations of individual Haitian clients under the 1984 U.N. Convention Against Torture, which forbids governments from deporting people to countries where they will undergo “severe pain or suffering.” In April, a mentally ill Haitian immigrant in Miami had his deportation deferred on the grounds that the conditions in a Haitian jail could meet that standard in his case.

Deportee detentions in Haiti are well-documented, dating back to at least 1998, when deportees were placed in the dangerous National Penitentiary sometimes for months. In some instances, deportees bribed their way out of jail, though FCIR found no evidence that suggested corruption influences deportee detentions today.

The 2010 earthquake destroyed all but one of the government ministry buildings and killed an estimated 20 to 40 percent of civil servants. Today, Haiti’s judicial police must process hundreds of U.S. deportees annually with drastically fewer resources. Each time a deportee flight arrives, for example, routine identification procedures at the judicial police station stop, so the only functioning digital camera can be used to photograph the deportees.

Freedom roulette

On the morning a deportee flight arrives in Haiti, members of Haiti’s Commission in Charge of Deportees arrive at the airport grounds. They mingle with Haitian police officers, U.S. immigration officials and deportee advocates.

The commission includes representatives from four government ministries and the independent Office of Citizen Protection. Once the deportees have been transferred to the judicial police holding station, commission members decide who will go free — and who will be incarcerated.

The process is largely ad hoc. No written policy exists, and there is little consensus among members of the deportee commission about the primary purpose of the detentions.

Secretary of State for the Ministry of Public Security Aramick Louis said detentions are meant for deportees’ protection during the “vulnerable” transition to Haiti.

Frederic Leconte, the commissioner of Haiti’s judicial police, said the detentions allow the state time to understand each individual’s situation — even though the U.S. government provides detailed files on each deportee two weeks prior to arrival, and FCIR was unable to document any instances in which detained deportees were interviewed or even observed directly by officials.

Head of Haiti's Citizen Protection ministry, Florence Elie serves as an adjunct member of the Haitian comission that decides which arriving deportees will be freed and which will be detained. Jacob Kushner/Florida Center for Investigative Reporting

Haiti’s Citizen Protection chief Florence Elie, an adjunct member of the commission, said the detentions are meant to allow authorities “to get to know” the deportees.

“Whenever I have to make a choice between the welfare of the community against the welfare of one person, I have to be very careful,” Elie said. “These people who come to Haiti are a threat to the society.”

But Haitian law does not allow someone to be jailed based on the possibility he may commit a crime in the future. “This is what I fought against,” said Privat Precil, the director general of Haiti’s Ministry of Justice from 2002 to 2004. “It is just a police policy that is not legal under Haitian law.”

Length of the deportee detentions varies. The deportees who were incarcerated after arriving Aug. 9 spent seven days in jail. After FCIR questioned government officials about the length of the detentions later that month, the head of the deportee commission was replaced, and deportees on the following flight were released after three days – still plenty of time to risk exposure to cholera.

According to an April memo from ICE, deportees are prioritized “through the consideration of adverse factors, such as the severity, number of convictions, and dates since convictions, and balance these against any equities of the Haitian national, such as duration of residence in the United States, family ties, or significant medical issues.”

Barbara Gonzalez, ICE’s press secretary, said in an email that the agency would “prioritize those who pose the greatest threat to the community.”

But an FCIR review of ICE data shows the agency deported at least 2,684 non-criminal immigrants to Haiti from 2007 to 2010, and FCIR found three deportees who arrived in August and September whose criminal records included only non-violent offenses.

The Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and the White House did not respond to questions about FCIR’s findings.

Total deportations have risen over the past decade, with the Obama administration deporting 387,000 immigrants worldwide in the year beginning October 2009 — more than twice the number deported under President George W. Bush at the beginning of his term in the year starting October 2001.

As recently as 2008, 74 percent of all Haitian deportees did not have criminal convictions, according to ICE data. In the three months leading up to Haiti’s earthquake, 67 percent of deportees were non-criminals.

In August, Gonzalez was asked to provide a list of post-earthquake deportees’ convictions to support the agency’s claim that those deported since the earthquake would have posed a threat if released in the United States. After nearly four weeks without a response, a follow-up elicited this answer from Gonzalez: “We have nothing to add. Regards.”

Deportations came as surprise

Whatever conditions the United States used to justify halting deportations to Haiti had not changed by the time ICE sent the first flight in January, said Laura Raymond, international human rights associate for the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting constitutional rights.

“You look at what they said right after the earthquake when they suspended deportations; it cited conditions. The only thing that changed in Haiti between then and when they reinstated deportations was a cholera epidemic — things got much worse,” Raymond said.

Today, approximately 587,000 Haitians live in the United States. Although only 426 of them are estimated to live in Wisconsin, an additional 4,439 reside in Illinois, giving it the eighth largest Haitian population in the country.

For Bernadette Durand, the September deportation of her son, Samuel Durand, is nothing short of tragedy.

“Haiti isn’t good for people to live. They have sicknesses, cholera. People who leave here have gone back and gotten sick from the water. All bad things happen in Haiti,” Bernadette, 56, said in Creole from her Chicago home. She said her husband died in 2002 from an unknown cause, leaving her job as a hotel maid as the family’s primary source of income. She also cares part-time for her son’s five children.

“They’re growing up without their daddy,” said Durand’s brother, Jean Marc, 34. “He was a good father. He had a part-time job. Now sometime they cry that they want to see their daddy. It’s painful.”

The nonprofit and nonpartisan Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Chris Swart, owner of the Dutch Mill Residence Hall, believes local officials should adopt regulations to improve housing for temporary workers in the Dells. Here, he shows a common area students staying at his motel can use. Alec Luhn/WCIJ

PHOTO GALLERY

Dells foreign student workers

Each year, 2,000 foreign students descend on the Dells to fill out the summer tourism work force. Click the image below to see a pop-up gallery of photos by Luke Davis and Alec Luhn.

RELATED STORIES

Main story: An estimated 2,000 foreign students flock the Dells each year on special visas to work in the tourism industry. But jobs or hours aren’t always guaranteed, and some of them report the experience isn’t what they had hoped.
Transportation troubles: Getting around the Dells isn’t always easy for foreign students, and it was fatal for one student this summer.

By Alec Luhn
For the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

WISCONSIN DELLS — They were once vacation destinations, quaint motels with small rooms or cabins.

But with the development of large motels such as the Kalahari Resort Convention Center with its 752 modern guest rooms, the old motels that dot the Wisconsin Dells area began losing clientele.

Many have been reborn as group lodging for international students and other temporary workers in one of Wisconsin’s top tourist destinations.

For the estimated 2,000 college students who come from abroad each year to fill the  labor gap in the Dells, finding housing is far from guaranteed.

Many employers don’t provide quarters, and everyone acknowledges there’s barely enough capacity for the temporary workers.

“After the middle of June, it’s impossible to get housing,” said Mark Nykaza, owner of the 49-room Fairview Motel, which uses most of its rooms for group lodging. “This year, if we had 200 rooms, we’d still be turning people away.”

Chris Swart, the owner of three group housing establishments, blamed the “shortage of clean, safe, licensed (group lodging) facilities” on local governments’ failure to require large resorts to provide employee housing. That means workers often have to travel long distances to work and buy groceries, he said.

Swart said housing for temporary workers in the Dells “has always been an afterthought.”

“It’s something that should have been developed a long time ago,” he said.  “As the resorts grow, they’re going to have more and more people, and the problem’s going to grow more and more.”

Aleksandr Kataev of Ukraine, Elizaveta Chernousova of Russia, and Hai Fan and Xueying Ding, both from China, begin preparing supper at their summer home at the Stanton Motel. They are among an estimated 2,000 students from around the world who come to the Dells area each summer to work. Alec Luhn/WCIJ

Some motels substandard

Beside the obvious challenges of living in a motel room for several months — shared beds, small quarters and limited or no access to laundry or a kitchen — the student residents sometimes suffer additional hardships posed by dilapidated and overcrowded establishments.

At least two group housing facilities have been closed by local building inspectors in recent years for unsafe conditions, violating maximum occupancy limits and other problems, prompting a call by some motel owners for increased regulation.

Local residents also complain about noise and trash at some motels populated by large numbers of international students.

Most recently, the Shady Nook Motel in the town of Delton was shut down for fire safety and other hazards. Residents were ordered to leave in late June after a Shady Nook resident reported sparks coming from a power connection outside.

An ensuing inspection revealed several problems with the electrical system and other issues, according to town of Delton Zoning Administrator Robert Roth.

The 22-unit motel, which offered group housing from May through October, wasn’t serving any international students this summer, but rented to 12 students last year and about 30 the year before that, according to owner Al Grieshop. He said foreign student workers expressed interest in lodging there this summer, but the motel was already full.

Although Grieshop admitted the motel had some violations, including power lines strung on trees, he disputed the motel was “run-down.”

“What does ‘run-down’ mean? Because it shows that it’s old?” he said, adding, “The people who were living here were happy to be living here.”

In August 2008, the Coachlight Motel in Wisconsin Dells lost its group lodging permit for overcrowded rooms, among other violations.

One room had eight occupants sleeping on four bunk beds, said Chris Tollaksen, assistant director of public works. Local ordinance requires 400 cubic feet of space per person, or between two and four people for a typical motel room, Tollaksen said.

In addition, the motel was “very run down,” had problems with mold and wasn’t maintaining fire extinguishers and smoke detectors properly, he said. The motel has fixed the problems and no longer offers group lodging, he said.

More regulation needed, some say

Some motel owners, however, say those who regulate group housing in the Dells area, including the city of Wisconsin Dells, the town of Delton and the village of Lake Delton, should do more to improve conditions. Swart, for example, provides common laundry and kitchen facilities for residents at his Dutch Mill and Kilbourn residence halls.

“I think (regulation of group housing) needs a lot of work,” Swart said. “Enforcement needs to be stepped up.”

Swart and other motel owners say they believe many of those who provide housing to international students are violating local safety and occupancies laws. He said much of the housing in the Dells area is “well below college student housing” in terms of quality.

In Lake Delton, the group housing ordinance stipulates that the first occupant of a room have at least 150 feet square feet of space and each additional occupant have at least 100 square feet.

Technically that means only one resident for each 200-square-foot motel room. But the Lake Delton Housing Committee often lets motels house two people per room if their establishment is clean with well-maintained smoke detectors, said Bob Wagner, Lake Delton’s building inspector.

This summer, for example, the Holiday Motel got an exception to house four people per  390-square-foot room because the motel is clean and well-kept, he said.

Other motel owners violate the regulations with relative impunity, Wagner said, because unless a complaint is lodged, they’re inspected only when they reapply for an annual license.

“I think a lot of motels are putting more kids in there than we allow, but they’re not going to let us know that,” Wagner said.

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with its partners — Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio and the UW-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication — and other news media. The Wisconsin Dells Events newspaper contributed to this report. Alec Luhn can be reached at aluhn *at* wisconsinwatch.org.

Mikael Sankko (foreground), 22, from Finland, cleans up after the Tommy Bartlett Water-Ski Show along with other foreign workers from Turkey, Ecuador and Finland. Luke Davis/WCIJ

PHOTO GALLERY

Dells foreign student workers

Each year, 2,000 foreign students descend on the Dells to fill out the summer tourism work force. Click the image below to see a pop-up gallery of photos by Luke Davis and Alec Luhn.

RELATED STORIES

Transportation troubles: Getting around the Dells isn’t always easy for foreign students, and it was fatal for one student this summer.
Substandard housing: For foreign students, it’s hit or miss finding a decent place to stay; some motels have been closed.

By Alec Luhn
For the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

WISCONSIN DELLS — Osman Mehmeti, a college student from Kosovo, traveled more than 5,000 miles and paid $3,000 in fees and airfare to work at Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells, which bills itself as “The Waterpark Capital of the World.”

Mehmeti was hired by the hotel and water park in 2009, joining an estimated 2,000 foreign students who use a federal work-travel exchange program to help keep one of Wisconsin’s top tourism destinations running. The program has become a crucial source of seasonal labor for tourism areas around the country and in Wisconsin, including the Dells and Door County.

“Always in the beginning they were saying you are working good,” Mehmeti, 23, said in an interview.

But, Mehmeti said, he was among a group of students fired in August 2009 before the scheduled end of their jobs at Chula Vista. Other foreign student workers in the Dells say they’ve had to contend with substandard housing conditions. And one was killed this summer in a bicycle accident that officials say illustrates dangerous transportation problems for student workers in the Dells.

A two-month investigation by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism found that while many foreign students have positive experiences in Wisconsin Dells, some encounter economic, housing and transportation safety problems while working under the federal work-travel program overseen by the U.S. Department of State.

Interviews with business owners, federal officials, sponsor agencies, overseas and local recruiters, former participants and 24 current student workers in the federal program show that problems in the Dells include:

– Some students arrive from abroad to find their job offers have been canceled, their work hours are fewer than promised, or they are let go when business slows down.

– Federal regulations don’t cover employers or recruiting agencies, leaving students with little recourse if they feel they’ve been mistreated.

– While many businesses provide reasonable living arrangements, a high demand for housing leaves other students living in substandard conditions. Since 2008, two Dells-area motels that had housed students have been closed because of health and safety violations.

– A lack of public transportation means some young workers face dangerous bicycle rides on heavily congested roads. In July, a Russian student was killed while riding along Wisconsin Dells Parkway. Nineteen of the 21 bicycle-vehicle crashes reported in Wisconsin Dells and Lake Delton since 2008 involved international students, police reports indicate.

In 2009, 99,672 international students came to the United States on the work-travel exchange program, down 35 percent from 152,958 the year before.

The decrease followed a call by the Department of State for work-travel sponsors to voluntarily reduce the number of participants in light of the national economic downturn, according to an agency spokesperson.

Daniel Saenz, 22, from Ecuador, sells refreshments at the Tommy Bartlett Water-Ski Show on Lake Delton. Luke Davis/WCIJ

For many students, the gamble of working in America pays off. They improve their English, gain work experience and earn money to pay off the program cost, travel to places like the Grand Canyon or pay for their college education back home.

Some also overstay their visas; one Dells motel manager who has worked with many work-travel students believes at least 10 percent don’t return as scheduled to their native countries.

Others, including Mehmeti, leave disappointed and with little of the goodwill that the federal program is supposed to engender.

Mehmeti said he was fired by Chula Vista last August along with 12 other foreign student employees. He said managers complained they weren’t performing housekeeping work quickly or carefully enough. But he believes it was because of slow business.

A second student employee, Elitsa Hristova, from Bulgaria, said she was among those who were fired.

Pat Finnegan, general manager of Chula Vista, said he doesn’t recall any such incident from last summer. He said the resort would not have terminated student workers because business was slow.

“Simply firing someone because we don’t have hours is not how we do business,” Finnegan said, adding, “Even at the slowest time of year, we’re still looking for people.”

But GeoVisions, the New Hampshire sponsor company that arranged for Mehmeti to work at Chula Vista, isn’t placing any students at the resort this year because of several “things” that happened there in 2009, chief operating officer Jim Miller said. He declined to provide details.

“My dream was to come here and see the U.S.A. and improve my language and to make some money,” said Mehmeti, whose journey began with an advertisement he saw at his university back in Kosovo. ”But when I came to the U.S.A., everything was terrible in Chula Vista.”

Some local residents say there should be someone to stick up for the temporary workers.  The Rev. Jay Heesch, pastor of the Pine Valley Church in Wisconsin Dells, often invites students for meals and other activities. He hears complaints about work and living conditions.

“They need an advocate, and I am beginning to lose my patience as summer after summer they get treated like second-class citizens,” Heesch wrote in an e-mail.

Foreign workers fill labor shortage

Sunrise on the Wisconsin Dells Parkway: About 2,000 foreign students come to the Dells each year to fill out the summer work force. Many pay between $2,500 and $4,500 in airfare and fees to get the jobs, but they’re not always guaranteed. Luke Davis/WCIJ

The Dells, a conglomeration of resorts, water parks and other attractions, is one of Wisconsin’s top tourist destinations. It draws 3 million visitors who spend an estimated $1 billion a year.

The local tourism industry is fueled by the equivalent of 23,500 full-time jobs  — even though the year-round population of Wisconsin Dells and adjacent Lake Delton is about 5,500.

A significant portion of that gap is filled each year by thousands of foreign student workers who come to the Dells to clean hotel rooms, operate amusement rides and wait tables.

No one is sure how many Dells workers are work-travel students, since no private or government agency tracks the number of them in the area.

Lake Delton Village Board member Tom Diehl, who owns properties including the Tommy Bartlett Water-Ski Show on Lake Delton, estimated there are about 2,000 work-travel students this year among the thousands of summer workers, about the same as last year.

Participants come to the United States on J-1 exchange visitor visas, as do nannies, visiting scholars and others. The program was established in 1961 to increase understanding between the people of the United States and other countries through educational and cultural exchanges.

Of the 24 current participants from 14 countries interviewed for this article, 10 said they were having a positive experience. An additional four said their experience is positive overall, but they have some complaints.

Claudiu Aionesei, a former work-travel student from Romania who has a permanent job at the Kalahari Resort Convention Center, said he has “heard more positive opinions than negative ones” from students about the program. He said students who were allowed to work plenty of hours tended to be content.

Ten students interviewed for this article said their experience has been negative in the Dells.

The students’ grievances included a lack of communication with their physically distant sponsors, poor housing conditions, false or incomplete claims made by work-travel recruiters abroad and poor or deceitful treatment at the hands of employers.

It’s not clear who’s to blame. Some work-travel participants and business owners feel international students arrive with unrealistic expectations about how much they will earn or the type of housing they will have.

Labor gap grows over decade

Tom Diehl, owner of the Tommy Bartlett Water-Ski Show, prepares for the evening’s entertainment. "The Dells could not survive without J-1 kids," says Diehl, referring to the visa program that brings thousands of international students to the Dells each year. He said the success of the student-worker program rests on employers treating students fairly. Luke Davis/WCIJ

The Wisconsin Dells tourism industry began to expand in the early 1990s as new resorts including the Wilderness, Great Wolf and Kalahari were built and existing properties such as Mt. Olympus Water & Theme Park and Noah’s Ark Waterpark expanded. The demand for labor came to far exceed the supply of willing workers.

International students with J-1 visas now form an integral part of the Dells labor force, according to large employers in the area. Diehl, for example, has been bringing in work-travel students from Finland for 11 years and currently employs 38 Finns, one student from Ecuador and one from Turkey among his 150 summer workers.

Although Diehl had more Americans applying for positions this year because of the recession, it’s still not enough to meet his employment needs, he said.

“The Dells could not survive without J-1 kids,” Diehl said.

Part of the demand for international students stems from the fact that many young Americans who in the past filled seasonal jobs are no longer willing to move to south-central Wisconsin to perform onerous, low-wage work such as housekeeping, said Katherine Frankov, a local motel manager who has worked with many J-1 students.

By contrast, “J-1′s are willing to do anything and everything,” she said.

Several large employers were reluctant to discuss their employment of work-travel students.

Of the eight largest businesses that belong to the Wisconsin Dells Visitor and Convention Bureau, a representative of Mt. Olympus declined to say how many work-travel students the company employs or be interviewed for this article. Management at the Great Wolf Lodge, Ho-Chunk Casino and Hotel and Kalahari didn’t return several phone calls.

Those that did respond reported employing about 700 international students who make up varying fractions of their workforces: 6 percent at Original Wisconsin Ducks and Dells Boat Tours, 18 percent at Chula Vista Resort, about 23 percent at Wilderness Resort and 33 percent at Noah’s Ark.

Traveling across the world to work

With several steps and middlemen along the way, coming to work in the United States on a J-1 visa can be fraught with difficulties.

The road to work-travel can start with an employer seeking student workers, a student job-searching from abroad or an agency soliciting job offers and recruiting participants.

“It’s hard to generalize because the program can work in so many different ways,” Department of State spokeswoman Laura Tischler said.

In many cases, a foreign recruiting agency — which may or may not be affiliated with a U.S.-approved sponsor organization — advertises work-travel opportunities and helps students apply, for a fee.

Eventually, each student must apply with a sponsor organization designated by the Department of State. The sponsor then issues a form confirming the student has enough money to live in the United States. Students bring that form to a U.S. consulate or embassy to get their visas.

Counting fees from the sponsor company, a foreign recruiting agency and the visa process, as well as insurance coverage and airfare to the United States, most students pay between $2,500 and $4,500 to come to Wisconsin to work.

Some jobs missing on arrival

Federal regulations require sponsor organizations to place at least 50 percent of their participants in jobs. But employers aren’t obligated to hire any student who signs a job offer, leaving some stranded with no job upon their arrival.

That’s what Emil Aghayev, a student from Azerbaijan who thought he was slated to work at Wilderness Resort, said happened to him.

When Aghayev arrived at the resort June 14, he was told his offer to earn $7.50 an hour as a lifeguard starting June 18 had been canceled, he said.

Wilderness spokeswoman Heidi Fendos said Aghayev was denied employment because the resort had issued a job offer to “Emil Guliyev,” and that “Guliyev” had been whited out on the job offer, and “Aghayev” written in.

Aghayev’s recruiting agency in Azerbaijan, Delta Education, offered a conflicting version of events. A Delta spokesman said Aghayev forgot to bring the job offer document with him from Azerbaijan. According to the company, it e-mailed Aghayev another copy June 30 and helped him try to find another job in the Dells when that didn’t work.

But Aghayev contended he never heard back from Delta Education after he told them the job at Wilderness had been cancelled.

Regardless, Aghayev found himself halfway across the world with no job, unable to pay back the $3,000 in fees and airfare his family had lent him.

“I am angry because I have paid so much money,” he said. “My father and my mother need me; I must earn money, and I didn’t get anything.”

After weeks spent searching unsuccessfully for a job, Aghayev returned to Azerbaijan in mid-July, according to a receptionist at the motel where he had lived. Attempts in August to reach Agheyev to further discuss his job quest were unsuccessful.

Adam Muller runs a Dells-based agency that places foreign students in jobs and housing. He said he wears a captain’s hat so students can easily identify him. Alec Luhn/WCIJ

Jobs sometimes hard to find

Other students arrive without an offer and must begin job hunting, often hampered by poor English skills and limited knowledge of the United States.

The federal rules require sponsors to “undertake reasonable efforts to secure suitable employment” for those who haven’t found a job after a week of searching.

Employment for such students is hard to find, said Adam Muller, a former Dells motel owner who now runs International Employment Resources, the only Dells-based agency that finds jobs and housing for work-travel students. He said students should be required to sign a form warning they may not make extra money or even be employed once they get to the United States.

Because of errors in immigration databases, students also sometimes face delays of up to three months in getting Social Security numbers to work in the United States, said Lois Magee of the nonprofit immigrant rights organization the American Immigration Council. Magee has years of experience working with J-1 students at both the council and the YMCA.

“If you’ve got a good Romanian last name, it is likely that the (customs) agent didn’t enter it in correctly,” Magee said. “In my experience, roughly 50 percent of the people who come into the U.S. do not have their information correctly entered.”

Too few hours

Finnish employee Kira Koljonen, 23, talks to a child at the Tommy Bartlett Water-Ski Show snack stand. According to her boss, Tom Diehl, many foreign students have applied to Tommy Bartlett when they can't get enough hours at their first job. Luke Davis/WCIJ

The biggest problem mentioned by students is fewer work hours than expected.

No minimum or maximum number of hours is established in federal regulations, although many sponsors include a spot on their documentation for employers to indicate hours per week. Six of the students interviewed, however, said they were receiving fewer hours than stated in their job offers.

Diehl said he has seen a stream of international students apply for second jobs at his properties this summer.

“They are not getting the hours they thought they were going to get,” he said.

Gizem Akarsu, 24, from Turkey, said she was told she would work 40 hours a week at Wilderness, but only gets 20 hours a week, which isn’t enough to cover her living costs.

Fendos, the Wilderness spokeswoman, said the number of hours stipulated in the job offer is an average that may fluctuate, adding that the resort will work with any student who feels he isn’t getting the correct number of hours.

Gabriela Martinez, Stephanie Russo and Viviana Oñate, friends from Ecuador who work at the Polynesian water park and resort, said their job offers stated they would work 30 hours a week, but they’ve been working less than that. The general manager of the Polynesian declined to be interviewed for this article.

“We don’t get anything we were supposed to,” Russo wrote in a follow-up e-mail.  “I think this trip is not being what I planned.”

Under the J-1 visa rules, employers aren’t regulated by the Department of State.

“The only real incentive in place for employers to treat people fairly is they don’t want to get a bad reputation in the host country,” said Patrick Hickey, director of the Workers’ Rights Center of Madison, an advocacy group seeking to resolve problems in the workplace.

Diehl agreed, saying, ”The success or future of an international program depends on word of mouth.”

‘Sweet words’ hide true cost of program

Recruiting agencies located in students’ home countries also aren’t subject to state department oversight. Students say recruiters sometimes fan unrealistic expectations.

“They told us we were going to win a lot of money and a lot of hours,” Russo said of Ordex International, the Ecuador-based recruiting agency that placed her and her friends.

Teresa Rivera, the director of Ordex, said the agency helps students create a budget of likely expenses and expected income based on their job offers but doesn’t guarantee the students will earn enough to pay off the cost of the program.

Yevgenii Moiseyev, 19, from Russia, said in an interview in Russian that the recruiting agency he worked with in St. Petersburg exaggerated earning potential with “sweet words” to attract students.

“They play on naivete, and that’s the way they make money,” said Moiseyev, who works 25 to 30 hours a week at the Park Motel and wants a second job to help pay off $2,600 in airfare and program fees.

“The first job only covers coming here, (program) fees and room and board,” said Russian student Elizaveta Chernousova, 21, who works full-time as a housekeeper at the local Best Western Ambassador Inn. With a second job, you can travel, she said.

But many students “need to work two jobs just to make ends meet,” said Frankov, the motel manager, adding, “That’s not even talking about saving money.”

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with its partners — Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio and the UW-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication — and other news media. The Wisconsin Dells Events newspaper contributed to this report. Alec Luhn can be reached at aluhn *at* wisconsinwatch.org.

Of the 21 bicycle-vehicle crashes reported in Wisconsin Dells and Lake Delton since 2008, police reports indicate 19 involved international students on bicycles. People who live and work here say that out-of-town drivers unfamiliar with the area, congested roadways and international students' ignorance of local bicycle laws have created a perilous mix for bikers. Luke Davis/WCIJ

PHOTO GALLERY

Dells foreign student workers

Each year, about 2,000 foreign students descend on the Dells to fill out the summer tourism work force. Click the image below to see a pop-up gallery of photos by Luke Davis and Alec Luhn.

RELATED STORIES

Main story: An estimated 2,000 foreign students flock the Dells each year on special visas to work in the tourism industry. But jobs or hours aren’t always guaranteed, and some of them report the experience isn’t what they had hoped.
Substandard housing: For foreign students, it’s hit or miss finding a decent place to stay; some motels have been closed.

By Alec Luhn
For the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

LAKE DELTON — It was the first and last time Maria Kolesova would ride a bicycle in Wisconsin Dells.

On the morning of July 9, Kolesova, an 18-year-old work-travel exchange student from Russia, set out from the Surfside Motel in Lake Delton and headed into Wisconsin Dells, reportedly to go to the bank.

Kolesova, who studied economics and was an only child, worked five days a week at the Kalahari Resort Convention Center and three days a week at Domino’s Pizza in Lake Delton, a friend said.

Legally riding on the sidewalk on her way back, Kolesova struck the passenger side of a garbage truck as it turned right onto Wisconsin Dells Parkway. Her front wheel became lodged between the tire and the side step, and she was run over and killed.

Kolesova’s death throws into sharp relief a larger problem of transportation safety in the Dells.

Since the area has no public transit besides taxi, many of estimated 2,000 international students who come to work in the Dells each summer ride bicycles to get around. Of the 21 bicycle-vehicle crashes reported in Wisconsin Dells and Lake Delton since 2008, police reports indicate 19 involved international student riders.

A large number of out-of-town drivers unfamiliar with the area, congested roadways and international students’ ignorance of local bicycle laws have created a perilous mix, according to police, business owners and work-travel students.

“It’s the perfect situation for someone to get hurt,” said Sgt. Dan Hess of the Lake Delton Police Department, who teaches bicycle safety classes for students at local resorts.

The transportation problems in the Dells defy an easy solution.

Lake Delton Village Board president John Webb said public transit such as a bus or monorail have been discussed, but the cost would be too much of a tax burden for the 2,745 residents of Lake Delton.

Maria Kolesova, an 18-year-old Russian student, died in July in a bicycle-vehicle accident along Wisconsin Dells Parkway. This was her bicycle. Courtesy of Wisconsin Dells Events.

There are bicycle lanes on Canyon Road in Lake Delton and on Broadway Avenue in  Wisconsin Dells. But there are no lanes on Wisconsin Dells Parkway, which is the main thoroughfare for the largest resorts and attractions.

The state Department of Transportation tentatively plans to reconstruct Wisconsin Dells Parkway in 2015 or after. The project, if approved, could include adding bicycle lanes, said Anne Wallace, a DOT project manager.

But the northern portion Wisconsin Dells Parkway where Kolesova was killed poses difficulties because of the limited right of way, Webb said.

Many bicycle hazards in the Dells

Seventeen vehicle-bicycle crashes were reported in Lake Delton, and four were reported in the city of Wisconsin Dells since 2008. Wisconsin Dells Police Chief Bret Anderson said his city’s lower numbers show the difference having a bicycle lane makes.

Thirteen of the 21 accidents in Wisconsin Dells and Lake Delton, including Kolesova’s, occurred on Highway 12, also known as Wisconsin Dells Parkway, or “The Strip.”

Besides heavy traffic, the road is punctuated by intersections, both side streets and entrances to motels, restaurants and attractions. According to a 2003 statewide DOT analysis, intersections are the most likely location for bicycle-vehicle crashes, accounting for two-thirds of the accidents.

The analysis also found that nearly one-third of bicycle-vehicle crashes are “sidepath” impacts that happen on a sidewalk, crosswalk, or path adjacent to a roadway.

In Wisconsin, riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is illegal unless local ordinance permits it. Lake Delton requires bicyclists to ride on the sidewalk on the parkway since the four-lane road leaves little room for bicycles.

Hess said the Lake Delton sidewalk ordinance reduces accidents on the parkway significantly.  Nevertheless, as the accident involving Kolesova showed, it is far from an ideal solution.

One transportation option is a shuttle service run by the Fairview Motel, which houses foreign student workers.

Motel owner Mark Nykaza’s Ford E-350 van runs from Vine Street in downtown Wisconsin Dells to the Wal-Mart on the southwest side of Lake Delton eight times a day during the summer, making 10 stops along the way. The cost is $2 each way for the service, which started in 2008.

Nykaza also organizes trips to the Social Security office in Portage. He believes one reason his motel is full this summer is due to the shuttle service. Even so, many of the students who live at Fairview continue to use bicycles to get around, he said.

Bicycle rules different in U.S., abroad

International students don’t always know the rules of the road. Nyoka Robinson, 22, a work-travel student from Jamaica, said a lot of students think they’re supposed to ride against traffic. In fact, the DOT advises bicyclists to ride in the same direction as traffic.

“The way traffic is set up is totally different in my country … it’s very hard for me to get used to,” said Kayann Hemmings, 21, a fellow student from Jamaica, where drivers drive on the left hand side of the road.

Hemmings said she refused a friend’s offer of a free bicycle because she’s afraid to ride along area roads. She wakes up early to walk to work at McDonald’s and Culver’s restaurants.

Hess said sometimes, students’ reckless riding contributes to the problem. Motel owner Barbara Janus said she sees students cut across the middle of Wisconsin Dells Parkway on their bicycles.

“They think the driver’s gonna see them and stop, but sometimes it’s too late,” said Janus, who owns the Surfside Motel where Kolesova was staying.

Unlike many international students working in the area, Kolesova had never ridden a bicycle in the Dells until that morning, said her friend and fellow student worker Korab Ukshini, 21, who is from Kosovo.

She had come to the Dells with her boyfriend and another friend, both of them also from Russia, and usually caught a ride in their car.  Ukshini said her inexperience may have played a role in the accident. Or, he said, she may have been tired.

Hess said most local residents know the dangers of the Dells Parkway and “don’t want anything to do with riding a bike” there.

Safety education, equipment needed

Hess said greater use of safety equipment would help avoid serious injury and nighttime crashes, since many students ride after dark.

Although Wisconsin law stipulates that a white headlight and red rear reflector be used at night, a quick survey of roughly 25 bicycles on a rack at the Sandman Motel revealed that none had a headlight, and some were missing reflectors.

Helmets also aren’t in vogue. “I cannot recall ever seeing one of our foreign workers wearing a helmet,” Hess said.

Webb, the Lake Delton village board president, said more education could boost safety, and he suggested a licensing course for bicycle operators. Although no specific proposal is in the works, Webb said he hopes the village board will address bicycle safety this fall.

Anderson, Wisconsin Dells police chief, said he may ramp up enforcement of local bicycling laws. The high cost of tickets, typically $175.30, could prompt more compliance, he said.

Hess said he doesn’t like to write tickets,  but hefty fines may be the only way to get students’ attention. He called the number of crashes involving international students “heart breaking.”

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with its partners — Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio and the UW-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication — and other news media. The Wisconsin Dells Events newspaper contributed to this report. Alec Luhn can be reached at aluhn@wisconsinwatch.org.

Mark McFall, 57, of Platteville, buys a coconut from Efrain Garcia, a dairy farmer from Dubuque, Iowa. Garcia's relatives live in Darlington and run the taco stand next to his at the community's annual Fiesta Latina. Jake Naughton/WCIJ

By Jacob Kushner
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

DARLINGTON — Before Sgt. Antonio Ruesga arrived in this southwestern Wisconsin community a decade ago, the police could barely communicate with the few Spanish-speaking immigrants who had come to work at local dairies.

While tensions mount in Arizona and elsewhere over how to curb illegal immigration, Ruesga, who is Hispanic and fluent in Spanish, has created an atmosphere of trust among police and local immigrants. Latinos — once fearful of the police — now help solve crimes in this city of 2,400 located 60 miles southwest of Madison.

A Hispanic grocery store owner recently called Ruesga about a suspicious group of men attempting to cash checks from a business where they didn’t work. Ruesga later arrested three men for alleged check fraud against local banks.

“They choose to take the next step which was to report a crime — to actually call us even though they weren’t victims themselves,” Ruesga said. “That means that they care about Darlington, they want to see it safe.”

It is, after all, their community too.

On the weekends, Christian music blares in Spanish from inside a church on Louisa Street.

Darlington High School students create brochures reading “Bienvenidos a Darlington, Wisconsin,” welcoming Spanish-speaking immigrants to their community.

There are two Mexican grocery stores in Darlington and similar markets in other small communities across the state.

And each May, residents turn out to celebrate Mexican culture through food, dance, music and conversation at Fiesta Latina.

A decade ago, Darlington was home to 27 Hispanics, according to the census. Today police say there are about 300 Spanish-speaking immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere living here. An unknown number are in the U.S. illegally; others have earned legal residency.

The rise has fueled a growth in Latino students in the Darlington School District, where 38 of the 752 students are Hispanic. As recently as the 2001-02 school year, all students were white.

Most of the foreign newcomers are lured by jobs in Wisconsin’s dairy industry, which is increasingly reliant upon immigrant workers. Dairies employ about 5,300 immigrants in Wisconsin, making up an estimated 40 percent of the industry’s workforce, up sharply from about 5 percent a decade earlier, according to the UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies (PATS).

The trend could continue as farmers implement plans to expand herds, requiring even more workers.

‘Bringing new diversity’

Hispanic immigrants across rural Wisconsin have begun stepping off the farm and onto Main Street, working at jobs outside of agriculture, joining in community events and starting small businesses that boost local economies.

Darlington is an example of how a rural Wisconsin community overcame its hesitation toward an unfamiliar culture. And it isn’t the only one: Eighty percent of the dairy workers surveyed in a 2009 PATS study said they felt accepted in the communities where they lived.

“Immigrant workers are bringing new diversity to rural communities that hasn’t existed for decades and contributing to the local economy throughout dairy Wisconsin,” said Wilda Nilsestuen, executive director of the nonprofit Council of Rural Initiatives, which organizes summits to improve relationships between immigrants and local residents.

“It’s poverty that drives them from their homelands and opportunities that bring them here,” said Nilsestuen, whose brother Rod is Wisconsin’s agriculture secretary.

Darlington native Savannah Blaser has witnessed the change since her graduation from high school in 2005. Blaser now holds degrees in Spanish and global studies from UW-Milwaukee. And she’s using her worldly knowledge right here in Darlington.

“There were no Hispanics in my class (and) in the whole school maybe three when I was there,” said Blaser, who now teaches English to Spanish speakers at the city library. “Now there’s a lot more integration of the culture.”

A visitor to Darlington probably would notice more grumbling about the increase in Amish horses and buggies on the roads than the influx of immigrants. But Darlington’s transformation into a culturally diverse community wasn’t always smooth.

Police and local residents recall fights a few years back between local residents and Spanish-speaking newcomers. In the past, some parents told their children not to interact with Hispanics at school, Darlington High School teacher Dianna Rogers said.

Police Sgt. Tony Ruesga came to Darlington to build ties with its rapidly growing Hispanic population that initially was hesitant to interact with police. Now, immigrants report crimes just like other residents. Jacob Kushner/WCIJ

Police help ease tensions

These tensions became a challenge for Darlington Police Chief Jason King, who saw it as his duty to improve relations between long-time locals and the new immigrants.

“When I started policing here … there were not any non-English speaking citizens in this community. Darlington was not very diverse; it was 99 percent Caucasians,” said King, who is white and doesn’t speak Spanish.

When immigrants began arriving, the chief said he had a hard time connecting with them.

“There was a definite gap — we couldn’t communicate with them,” King said. “We weren’t providing the same level of services to them that we were other residents of the community. They were afraid of us.”

To build trust between Hispanics and his department, King hired Ruesga, now a well-known figure among both immigrants and native Darlington residents. Ruesga spends time interacting with local Hispanic residents to build trust and explain laws, like reminding them to fill out their U.S. census forms. He also started an advisory committee that helps integrate the newcomers into the community.

Ruesga was exactly what Darlington needed, King said.

“The end result in my mind has been, they aren’t afraid of us, they cooperate with us, they’re reporting crimes to us — all the things that we would want citizens in our community to do,” the chief said.

Immigrants themselves sometimes end up on the wrong side of the law in Darlington, mostly for minor infractions, Lafayette County District Attorney Charlotte Doherty said.

Obtaining a Wisconsin driver’s license became impossible for many undocumented immigrants since a 2005 state law passed to comply with the federal Real ID Act required applicants for a driver’s license to submit proof of citizenship or legal resident status.

“The vast majority of the cases involving Hispanic descendants are (for) operating without a license,” Doherty said. “They can’t get driver’s licenses, and they work on farms. The farms are out of town, and they live in town, and they drive back and forth to work.”

Francisco, who asked that his last name not be used because he’s in the country illegally, works on a dairy farm outside of Darlington. Because of his status, the Mexican immigrant can’t get a driver’s license. Francisco said he knows it’s not legal for him to drive, but he has no other way to get to work.

“If you don’t have a license, you’ll have problems with the police,” Francisco said. “In Mexico you just bribe the police, but here you can’t bribe the police.”

Doherty said about 5 percent all prosecutions involve Hispanic residents, and the costs associated with processing them are minimal. “These people pay their tickets — that increases the revenue in the clerk of courts office,” she said.

Adults struggle to learn English

Across the street from the police department, a librarian browses through the Spanish-language section at the Johnson Public Library before teaching an English class to Hispanic adults. Library director Nita Burke uses the collection to draw in members of the Hispanic community, but she said making connections to that group hasn’t been easy.

Eduardo Dorantes, a son of Alfredo Dorantes, works on Jay Stauffacher’s farm outside Darlington when he’s not attending class at Darlington High School. He hopes to go to college so he doesn’t have to do dairy work forever. Jacob Kushner/WCIJ

An adult learner may only come a few times and not return, or miss a lot of sessions, making consistent instruction difficult. “I’m reaching out to them,” Burke said. “It’s a long process.”

Immigrants say they don’t have a lot of free time to get deeply involved in local programs and organizations.

“The problem is that when we came here, we were thinking about working to earn money,” said Alfredo Dorantes, a Darlington resident and dairy worker who’s been in the U.S. for eight years. “We put school off to the side; we didn’t have time to study English.

“I can’t talk with Americans because it’s very hard work to communicate, and I feel bad when I can’t communicate with anyone,” he added in Spanish. “It’s uncomfortable to be sitting next to someone that you can’t have a conversation with.”

Integration starts at school

Dorantes said his three children, on the other hand, are all fluent in English.

In fact, schools often are the first place rural Wisconsin life meets Hispanic culture.

When Spanish-speaking students arrived in Darlington, teachers say they had trouble helping them learn English quickly enough to understand the material being taught. Sending notes home to parents was impossible for all but the handful of teachers who knew some Spanish. Some of those hurdles have evaporated as the children learn English.

“In the schools, they interact with Americans, their friends are Americans,” Dorantes said. “They are better adapted than us.”

But not everyone in the community was initially pleased with the arrival of foreigners to Darlington schools.

“When I first started, I would get a lot of ‘My dad doesn’t think I should learn Spanish because they should learn English,’ ” said Rogers, who teaches Spanish at the high school. “Now, it’s ‘I’m taking Spanish Three and Four because I know that I need that. I want to be able to talk at the restaurant … I work here and I need to be able to speak it.’ ”

Undocumented immigrants pay for, use public services

Many of the immigrants interviewed for this reporting project don’t have valid work visas to be in the United States. Farm owners say they deduct federal and state taxes from the paychecks of all of their workers — money that goes toward benefits such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare that only legal residents are eligible to receive.

Still, volunteer firefighter and Darlington resident Mark Nelson said he takes issue with immigrants who are here illegally, especially when they break the law by driving without a license. He’s seen the problem play out at accident scenes involving undocumented residents.

“I’ve seen seven or eight licenses come out of their billfold,” Nelson said. “It takes two hours to run all of them through and figure out which one’s correct.”

Nelson, who ran unsuccessfully for Darlington mayor this spring, said illegal immigrants also may be suppressing wages in Darlington and elsewhere.

“If they’ve got these illegals coming in, and these companies can hire them seven, eight bucks cheaper, that’s not helping the unemployment rate at all,” he said.

Immigrants also use public services at Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County, and many are unable to pay for the emergency care the hospital is mandated to provide, hospital administrator Sherry Kudronowicz said.

Kudronowicz said dairy workers — both native and foreign — often don’t have medical coverage because most employers don’t offer it. She said uninsured Hispanics, like other patients without health-care coverage, make costly emergency room visits because their lack of insurance prompts them to skip preventive care. In the UW-Madison survey of immigrant dairy workers, 29 percent reported having health insurance.

Patients who can’t pay for emergency care may be eligible for the hospital’s charity-care program, which forgives part or all of the bill for poor patients. Kudronowicz said funding for that program comes from the hospital’s operating budget, which is supported by patients whose bills are paid in full.

“They’re using the services, they’re not abusing the services,” Kudronowicz said. “They’re using the services that they need, and as a hospital, that’s why we’re here.”

Local businessman Diego Camacho insisted that even immigrants who are here illegally aren’t a drain on the community. Camacho is an interpreter whose family owns the Steil Camacho Funeral Home in Darlington. He said many immigrants strive to improve themselves and their communities through hard work.

“They all want to contribute — nobody wants to be a parasite,” he said. “Very few people come to take advantage of the system.”

Bigger farms mean more immigrant workers

Click here to see data: In Part 5 of Dairyland Diversity, we explored the causes of the Wisconsin dairy industry's newfound reliance on immigrant workers.

Dairy farmers said they need the new immigrants to keep their industry growing. The flood of workers from Mexico to rural Wisconsin towns is likely to continue as dairy farms continue to get bigger — and hire more immigrants to shoulder the growing workload.

Farmers spent nearly $1 billion to modernize or expand their dairy facilities between 2003 and 2007, and they are expected to continue at least that level of investment between 2008 and 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2007 survey of dairy producers.

Among those investing is farmer James Winn. He’s one reason Darlington’s Hispanic population increased significantly over the past decade. Eight years ago, Winn hired his first immigrant laborer because he couldn’t find enough local workers to milk the cows at his expanded dairy operation.

Now, 16 of his 23 employees are Hispanic, and Winn has been an official sponsor of Darlington’s annual Fiesta Latina.

State Rep. Steve Hilgenberg, D-Dodgeville, whose district includes Darlington, said the arrival of Hispanic immigrants is a boost to the struggling economy of southwestern Wisconsin.

“This is a labor force that dairy owners are pretty satisfied with. They seem to be hard working, they seem to be engaged,” Hilgenberg said. “It’s kept a lot of dairy farms running that would have had a difficult time doing so.”

Hilgenberg said waves of immigrants are part of Wisconsin’s history. Foreigners come to Wisconsin “to improve themselves and help the state develop,” he said — just like the others before them, including Germans, the Hmong, Italians, Norwegians and Poles.
Fitting into Darlington’s future

When Margarita Hernandez first came to Darlington in 2002, she expected to encounter xenophobia and uneasiness. Instead, she found acceptance and success. Over the past eight years, Hernandez has worked at a variety of jobs, including factory work. Until recently, she owned Las Margaritas, a Mexican grocery.

“Here, racism hardly exists at all,” Hernandez said. “In other places, racism is how Americans most frequently approach Mexicans, but not here — it’s a very easygoing town.”

Her son, Alex Rivera, 15, agreed.

“We have a lot of Hispanics here attending school, many Mexicans,” said Rivera, who switches easily between English and Spanish. “The (Americans) interact with us, they’re not racist, we all hang out together, we have class together — the teachers too — racism doesn’t exist.”

Moving in and up

Perhaps even more significant than the movement of immigrants to Wisconsin’s dairies is their movement beyond the farm.

Eduardo Dorantes, a son of Alfredo Dorantes who will be a junior at Darlington High School, works four shifts a week on Jay Stauffacher’s dairy farm outside of Darlington. He’s been there for a year and a half, balancing a social life, work and school. He recently got a 25-cent raise to $8.25 an hour, but Eduardo Dorantes doesn’t plan to be a farmworker forever.

“The truth is, I don’t want to keep working on a farm — I want to keep studying,” Eduardo Dorantes said in Spanish. “My interest is in learning, no matter where that may be.”

Parents often encourage their children to become educated, and many immigrants who begin working on dairy farms and other entry-level positions move on to other jobs.

The son of Puerto Rican parents, Camacho began 35 years ago as an apprentice at a Middleton funeral home. Now he owns two funeral homes in southwestern Wisconsin, and his daughter, Cristina, owns the family’s funeral home in Darlington.

Camacho has this advice for the new immigrants: “Don’t just take advantage of the employment at the dairy. One day you may be able to own that dairy.”

This is the sixth report for Dairyland Diversity, a collaborative project with The Country Today newspaper and other news organizations examining how immigration is reshaping Wisconsin’s dairy industry — and the state. The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with its partners — Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication — and other news media.

Darlington dairy owner James Winn, left, turned to immigrant labor a few years after expanding his farm to 600 cows in 1998. Winn said he needed more workers to help milk the larger herd, and local residents were unreliable or uninterested. Jacob Kushner/WCIJ

By Jacob Kushner
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Throughout America’s Dairyland, at places such as the dairy farms of James Winn in southwestern Wisconsin and Mike and Sandi Zirbel near Green Bay, farmers say they need immigrants to operate their growing farms.

As Wisconsin dairy farms expand, farmers have become increasingly reliant upon immigrant workers to milk the cows and clean the barns.

Immigrants make up nearly 60 percent of the work force at the state’s largest dairy farms, those with more than 300 cows, while just 20 percent of workers at smaller dairies are immigrants, according to a 2009 University of Wisconsin-Madison study.

Farmers are “looking for low-cost reliable workers,” said Brad Barham, a dairy researcher with the UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies, which conducted the study of immigrants’ roles on dairy farms.

“It’s met by immigrants or second-generation Americans.”

The demand for immigrant dairy workers is expected to remain strong as dairy producers and processors, who invested an estimated $1 billion in modernization projects from 2003 to 2007, have forecast similar expenditures in upcoming years.

But many — no one know how many — of Wisconsin’s immigrant dairy workers are in the United States illegally. Farmers say they follow federal rules to ensure their workers are here legally. Immigration experts say the system doesn’t screen out all undocumented workers.

And farmers say the immigrants, most of whom are from Mexico, are now critical to their operations.

“If I couldn’t have my Hispanic labor, I’d sell the dairy tomorrow,” said Lafayette County farmer Winn, whose work force of 23 includes 16 Hispanic immigrants.

“I couldn’t do it without them.”

About 5,300 immigrants, 40 percent of Wisconsin’s total dairy work force, are employed by dairy farms, according to the study. A decade ago, immigrants composed just 5 percent of the dairy work force.

This rapid shift toward immigrant labor on dairy farms follows earlier labor patterns, the study said, such as the reliance upon Latino immigrants in the Upper Midwest’s vegetable farms since at least the 1930s, and the employment of immigrants in the region’s meatpacking and food-processing industries throughout the 20th Century.

To increase production, farmers are adding animals to their herds or milking three times a day instead of two.

These strategies “require more workers,” the study noted.

Immigrants also tend to work for lower wages than do native-born workers. The study found that in a review of pay for comparable jobs, immigrant dairy workers earned about $9 to $12 an hour, and those figures tended to run about $1 lower than what native-born workers earn.

“The lower wage seen for immigrant workers may be related to language ability and legal vulnerabilities,” the study reported.

Getting bigger, one step at a time

By the time Green Bay dairy farmers Mike and Sandi Zirbel more than doubled their operation to 200 cows in 1990, Spanish-speaking foreigners were already knocking on their door asking for work. The Zirbels soon realized they needed help keeping up with the larger herd, so they decided to give immigrant labor a try.

The farm, which has been in the family for nearly a century, formerly had fewer than 80 cows, milked by family members and local workers, including neighbors and teenagers.

The Zirbels built a “double 12″ milking parlor, in which workers connect milking equipment to a group 24 cows.

Twenty years later, they employ six immigrant workers to help milk their herd of 630.

With its increased capacity, through a second expansion completed in 2008, the farm provides employment to additional family members — Jordan, the couple’s oldest son, who wanted to farm after he graduated from high school; their daughter, Chelsea, who graduated from college with a degree in dairy science; and her husband, Kris, who also holds a dairy science degree.

“Now we’ve got three energetic young adults that want to work the family farm,” Sandi Zirbel said.

Motivations differ, but expansion is often the answer

While most Wisconsin dairy owners first hired immigrants after expanding their farms, their reasons for expanding differ.

In Jefferson County, located between Milwaukee and Madison, Waterloo dairy farmer Charles Crave turned to hired labor because his family was tired of a lifestyle that revolved entirely around work.

“As the family changed, the need for the labor force changed also,” Crave said. “My wife was no longer willing to tolerate working six and a half days a week, 14 hours every day, and neither was I.”

So, 15 years ago, the Crave Brothers farm hired the first of many Hispanic immigrants.

“After we saw their dependability, we never looked back,” said Crave, whose work force of 30 now includes about 15 Hispanic immigrants. Crave said he expects that his dairy business — and his immigrant workforce — will continue to grow.

Winn, the Lafayette County farmer, recalled that after expanding his dairy farm, he initially hired only local workers.

But there were problems.

“I’d get a phone call every Saturday and Sunday morning that somebody wasn’t gonna hit the five o’clock shift,” Winn said. “So I gotta scramble to try to find somebody to cover for them, or 95 percent of the time I’m the one that covered for them.”

On the western edge of the state in Buffalo County, Waumandee farmer John Rosenow saw expanding his dairy as an entrepreneur’s way to move up in the world.

“What always bothered me is that I did just as well as my sisters in school, and they went on to a medical profession, and they made more money than I was farming,” Rosenow said. “I didn’t think I had to accept that because I was a farmer, I had to accept a lower standard of living.”

After a 1989 barn fire decimated his dairy, Rosenow decided to rebuild at a level that would achieve the lifestyle he dreamed about.

“After a considerable amount of research, we decided that if we’re going to have the standard of living that we want, we’re going to have to milk more cows,” he said.

Rosenow increased his herd from 100 to 300 cows. In 1997 he entered into a partnership with his neighbor, Loren Wolfe, whose 100-cow dairy needed new equipment. The two farmers joined their dairies, increasing their combined herd size to its current 550 cows.

John Rosenow began employing immigrant workers on his dairy after expanding his farm in 1997. Robert Gutsche Jr./WCIJ

Like other farmers, Rosenow sought to hire local residents to help run the bigger farm. But local labor was hard to come by. So Rosenow made a phone call to an agricultural employment agency. Two days later, Manuel Perez arrived in Waumandee.

“Out of desperation, and unwillingly, we hired our first Mexican and found an incredible work ethic, incredible reliability, no problem getting people to come and work,” Rosenow said. “As more local people quit, we would replace them with Mexican labor.”

Rosenow estimates that since 2003, he’s continuously employed eight Mexicans to milk his herd and perform other tasks on the farm. Rosenow says his expansion, made possible by the help of immigrant laborers, allowed him to achieve prosperity.

Said Rosenow: “I make more money than my sisters, I’m doing what I love to do. I have spare time.”

The moves toward bigger farms are sometimes controversial.

One of the state’s largest dairies, the Rosendale Dairy in Fond Du Lac County, is about to double its operation from 4,000 cows to 8,000. The expansion comes after the state Department of Natural Resources approved a water protection permit in January — a decision that critics say may lead to environmental hazards associated with manure runoff from the farm.

For many, getting bigger is the only way

Some experts say there are alternatives to expansion to keep Wisconsin’s dairy farms profitable. UW Extension agricultural agent Paul Dyk said that too often, dairy owners buy into to the notion that getting bigger is the only way.

Dyk and Irv Possin, executive director of a state program that gives farmers financial incentives to expand, agree that viable alternatives to expansion exist, such as finding a niche market within the industry — going organic, becoming a seedstock producer or entering the compost business.

Rosenow is composting manure at his farm — and he said his compost business now has a greater profit margin than his milk production.

Another popular alternative to expansion can reduce technology and machinery on the farm, and prevent farm owners from entering into significant debt required by most expansions. Managed grazing takes cows out of their stall barns and back into pastures to graze for a portion of their food. A small UW-Madison study of 31 dairy farms found grazing operations earned twice as much income per cow as similar confinement farms.

Despite higher income, grazing operations are limited by the large amount of land they require.

The bottom line for many farmers is that alternatives to expansion, such as grazing, simply do not offer as much total income potential as a larger farm, according to Barham, the dairy researcher with the UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies.

“If you’re only at a certain scale you’re only at a certain income level. It’s not the rate of return, but just the amount of income,” Barham said. “Small farmers are not changing because production is inefficient— it’s just seeking a larger scale to reach an income that they want.”

Expect even more large farms – and more immigrants

Hector Mendez found a job on the Cottonwood Dairy farm near Darlington shortly after owner James Winn expanded his operation-- and hired more employees in the process. Jacob Kushner/WCIJ

It should come as no surprise that in Wisconsin, the dairy industry means business. In 2007, dairy accounted for $4.6 billion of Wisconsin’s $9 billion in agricultural sales – or just over half, according to the 2007 Census of Agriculture.

The rapid arrival of immigrants to work in Wisconsin’s dairy industry is changing more than just the dairy workforce — it’s also transforming the makeup of many rural Wisconsin communities. Ten years ago, for example, Lafayette County was home to 92 Hispanics, according to the 2000 census. The estimate rose to 226 — an increase of 146 percent — by 2008, and some residents think the actual number is much higher.

“In the last five, six years, this area has grown by leaps and bounds as far as welcoming the Hispanic community,” Winn said.

“There’s grocery stores in Darlington, there’s restaurants in Darlington — Mexican — and we didn’t have those before. They’ve been a huge boost to our economy.”

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with its partners — Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television and the UW-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication — and other news media.

This story has been corrected. The first names of two dairy farmers were incorrect. Their correct names are Charles Crave, not Chris, and Jordan Zirbel, not Jason.

Immigration “is an issue that has always tapped into great passions,” says Craig Regelbrugge, a lobbyist and co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform. He lobbies for dairy operators who say they need immigrant workers to stay afloat even in a recession. Photo by Staci E. McKee

This report is the fourth part of Dairyland Diversity, an investigation of Wisconsin dairy farms’ growing reliance upon immigrant workers. This report was produced in collaboration with Capitol News Connection. Earlier stories available here.

By Manuel Quinones
For the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

WASHINGTON — A newspaper cartoon above lobbyist Craig Regelbrugge’s desk shows farm workers harvesting lettuce. Two guys wearing American flags on their shirts shout, “Hey, Pedro! Go back to Mexico! But first, can you cut my yard and clean my swimming pool?”
Regelbrugge has spent much of the last decade pushing for an overhaul of America’s immigration laws. The cartoon illustrates the contradictory and often angry rhetoric he’s up against.

“This is an issue that has always tapped into great passions,” Regelbrugge said in his Washington, D.C., office, which has a view of K Street, the artery synonymous with inside-the-Beltway lobbying.

LISTEN: Click to download report broadcast by our partner, Wisconsin Public Radio, on March 12, 2010. Report produced by Manuel Quinones of Capitol News Connection for Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

As co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, Regelbrugge is a champion for dairy operators who say they need immigrant workers to stay afloat even in a recession. He recently spoke in Madison to a group of Wisconsin farmers, who told him they want action from their Washington representatives.

“The level of anxiety in the industry there and elsewhere is as high as I have seen it in my years working on this issue,” said Regelbrugge, vice president for governmental affairs for the American Nursery and Landscape Association.

Dairy farmers say they want access to workers without getting into legal trouble. Many say they would go out of business without immigrant labor, and consumers would likely end up paying more for milk.

But many lawmakers on Capitol Hill are running away from the issue. They worry tackling immigration could hurt them at the ballot box this November, and they appear to lack the legislative bandwidth to focus on much besides the ailing economy, joblessness and health care reform.

A cow on the Wisconsin dairy farm of John Rosenow, who relies heavily upon immigrants to keep the cows milked and fed. Photo by Robert Gutsche Jr.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin dairy producers John Rosenow and Loren Wolfe said they’ve had trouble finding enough locals willing to get dirty and work the long hours it takes to run their operation.

“We need (immigrants) to milk cows or we’d barely be in business,” Wolfe said of the Hispanics who work for the farm near Cochrane.

Immigrants now make up about 40 percent of the state’s dairy labor force, up from 5 percent a decade ago, according to a 2009 study by the UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies. Many of the workers  are in the United States illegally.

Regelbrugge said the status quo creates economic instability and the risk that employers will exploit immigrant workers. He said it’s also putting dairy farmers in jeopardy.

“Frankly it poses a challenge to farmers who wonder whether they can pass their business to the next generation,” he said.

Bush tried, failed to change immigration

The last time Congress passed major immigration reform legislation was in 1986. It was supposed to fix the nation’s illegal immigration problem by granting amnesty to millions of people and beefing up enforcement. But the effort failed to properly control the future flow of immigrants and the demand for immigrant workers.

President George W. Bush gave it another try during his second term in office. It ended in a crushing defeat in the Senate in 2007.

Bush’s plan included a path to legalization and measures to strengthen border security and create a temporary guest worker program. Opponents called it an unacceptable amnesty. Many also doubted the government’s ability to fulfill the lofty promise of finally fixing the illegal immigration problem.

U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls, was one of the Republicans blasting Bush for his immigration proposal. For years, Sensenbrenner has been a thorn in the side of advocates of so-called comprehensive immigration reform.

“The American public is opposed to granting amnesty to illegal immigrants,” Sensenbrenner said.  “And no matter how they try to spin it by calling it comprehensive immigration reform, earned legalization, whatever, the public gets what it really is.”

Sensenbrenner said he hasn’t forgotten the concerns of dairy farmers. He said he may be willing to support some sort of temporary guest worker program. Yet his top priority is stopping illegal border crossings and the hiring of undocumented workers.

“And that means vigorously enforcing employer sanctions, fining those who break the law by hiring illegal immigrants,” he said.

Another Wisconsin Republican, U.S. Rep. Thomas Petri of Fond du Lac, considers himself a champion of the industry. But he cringed when asked about immigration reform and its impact on Wisconsin dairy producers. Petri didn’t want to go into detail but said he supports making sure producers have the workers they need while being tough on illegal immigration.

“We really need to make sure we get a handle on people coming into the United States illegally, both in fairness to those who come here legally and to give people confidence that there is just not going to be another wave of uncontrolled immigration,” Petri said.

U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, whose district relies heavily on the dairy industry, worries that too much of a strong hand from Washington may hurt farmers.

“They told me that if Congress were to do something too Draconian it would put them out of business,” Kind said.

Wisconsin dairy farmer John Rosenow says immigrant workers are an important part of his farm's operations. Photo by Robert Gutsche Jr.

U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen, D-Appleton, who sits on the House Agriculture Committee, didn’t comment for this story despite attempts to reach him through his office and in person. Kagen recently signed on to a resolution calling for tough enforcement against illegal immigrants.

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, said, “I don’t want to talk about that,” when approached just outside the House floor. He walked away.

U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., told this reporter, “You’re a good man,” when pressed about immigrants in the dairy industry. He then jumped into an elevator. In response to questions submitted to his office, Kohl said he supports reform.

“I understand there can be some apprehension about foreign workers and guest worker programs, especially as we face job losses and high unemployment figures in the United States,” Kohl wrote. “But it is important to balance the need to provide farmers with access to the workers they need, with the need to protect American jobs.”

U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., sits with Kohl on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over immigration issues. He called congressional inaction on the issue “irresponsible.”

Dairy producers say Congress can help by at least passing the so-called AgJobs bill. The legislation would overhaul the agricultural foreign worker program and create a path to legalization for certain farm workers.

Jaime Castaneda with the National Milk Producers Federation said dairy farmers currently are worse off than other agricultural producers because they can’t take advantage of the existing guest worker program, which only covers temporary and seasonal workers. Milk production requires a year-round workforce.

“Dairy farmers cannot have access to any visa system to bring foreign labor,” Castaneda said.  “Dairy farmers have access to nothing.”

Several Wisconsin lawmakers have signed on to the AgJobs legislation in the House and Senate, including Kohl, Feingold, Kagen, Petri, Ryan and Kind. But progress on the measure has stalled.

“Democratic leaders are weighing how many votes they win by doing immigration reform and how many votes they lose by doing immigration reform,” said Marc Rosenblum, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

Congress dodges, immigrants flow in

In the years since lawmakers last passed significant reform legislation, the number of illegal immigrants has grown dramatically, now estimated at about 12 million.

Rosenblum said lawmakers and government officials helped exacerbate the immigration problem through lax enforcement policies going back decades and tacit support for the growth of immigrant labor.

A study issued in December by Rosenblum’s group concluded that “policy inaction is a result not only of a partisan divide in Washington, but also of the underlying economic reality that despite its faults, illegal immigration has been hugely beneficial to many U.S. employers, often providing benefits that the current legal immigration system does not.”

In a November speech, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said immigration reform should be a “three-legged stool” including “serious and effective enforcement, improved legal flows for families and workers, and a firm but fair way to deal with those who are already here.”

While Congress fails to address the last two legs, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has continued to pursue enforcement against illegal workers and employers. Last year, federal agents started going through tens of thousands of employment documents from businesses around the country, including dairy farms, as part of a new compliance campaign. ICE officials won’t release details but say businesses in Wisconsin are part of the investigation.

In a separate enforcement action in February, 49 foreign nationals were arrested in 11 central and western Wisconsin counties in a fugitive roundup. Some were charged with non-immigration-related crimes, and others had been ordered deported for violating immigration laws, ICE spokeswoman Gail Montenegro said.

While some celebrate the tough stance taken against illegal immigrants, dairy producers see it as a major threat to their business.

Said Regelbrugge: “People came here, we needed their labor, and we didn’t provide the legal means to do it.”

Strange bedfellows

The immigration reform debate is unlike any other in Congress. Members of both parties support fixing U.S. immigration laws. And the issue creates unusual alliances: Some labor unions have united with social conservatives in opposing generous immigration policies while the business community and political liberals have come together to call for more relaxed rules, Rosenblum said.

U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have been working together to fashion a compromise expected to be introduced this year. U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, said she’s hopeful Congress will act.

“The partisanship that has stalled other reforms may not come into play in the same way with immigration reform, so I think we have some prospects,” she said.

But just because immigration reform has bipartisan support doesn’t mean Congress will resolve or even take up the issue in the coming weeks or months. Members from both parties killed immigration reform the last time around. And the wounds of failure are still too tender for many lawmakers.

“My colleagues recall the last unsuccessful attempt and feel a little burned by that,” Baldwin said. Kind said the issue “has become such a political football, unfortunately.”

In December, several dozen Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, introduced a so-called comprehensive immigration reform legislation package. The proposal includes a path to legalization for many illegal immigrants and the provisions for immigrant workers contained in the AgJobs legislation. Some Republicans have labeled the bill dead on arrival.

While Congress debates, Wisconsin dairy farmers wait — stuck between following the rules and staying in business.

“We sat down at a partner meeting looking at the threats to our livelihood, and the No. 1 threat that we could envision was to lose our employees,” Rosenow said. “There is no way we can manage that. There is just no way.”

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) developed this report in collaboration with the nonprofit Capitol News Connection in Washington, D.C.  Manuel Quinones, who produced this report, is a reporter for Capitol News Connection. WCIJ collaborates with its partners — Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio and the UW-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication — and other news media.

Victoria, an undocumented immigrant, works at a dairy farm east of La Crosse -- and gets there by driving, although she lacks a license. WCIJ/Robert Gutsche Jr.

By Andy Szal and Jacob Kushner

Drivers beware: There’s a woman driving a stretch of Interstate 90 between Sparta and Tomah — without a license or any training about Wisconsin’s traffic laws.

Her name is Victoria. She’s a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico who works on a Tomah dairy farm with other undocumented immigrants whom  she says “all understand our boss through signals” because of language barriers.

Victoria, who arrived in Wisconsin 13 months ago, hasn’t taken any drivers’ training in the United States because Wisconsin law prohibits her from obtaining a license. She says she hasn’t had any run-ins with police, but requested that her last name be withheld out of fear she might be pursued as an illegal immigrant.

She is among a growing number of illegal immigrants who are finding work on Wisconsin dairy farms, located in rural areas where the only way to get to work is by car.

Immigrants now account for about 40 percent of the state’s dairy labor force, up from just 5 percent a decade ago, according to a 2009 study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies.

These 5,000 immigrants have become a critical part of the state’s signature industry at the same time that some are calling for a greater crackdown on undocumented immigrants. While there are no estimates on how many of Wisconsin’s immigrant dairy workers are here illegally, federal surveys have estimated that half of all immigrant crop workers nationwide lack immigration papers.

The debate over undocumented immigrants spilled into the state budget this summer as lawmakers debated a proposal that would have allowed them to get licensed.

The measure, backed by some dairy farmers and law-enforcement officers, would have reversed part of a 2005 state law passed to comply with the federal Real ID Act, which required applicants for a driver’s license to submit proof of citizenship or legal resident status.

Opponents argue Wisconsin shouldn’t be in the business of ignoring state and federal immigration laws, regardless of the limitations on state agriculture and driving enforcement.

“There’s a tendency to sometimes accept the fact that we have people here breaking the law,” said state Rep. Robin Vos, R-Caledonia.

Still, the measure’s failure came as a blow to immigrant advocacy groups, which have long petitioned for the right of undocumented immigrants to drive legally in the state.

“It shows that neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party in Wisconsin or nationally have the intention to fix the problems that are most urgent to our people,” said Alex Gillis, co-founder of the Madison immigration rights group Immigrant Workers’ Union.

No one knows how many undocumented immigrants are driving without licenses in Wisconsin. But state Department of Transportation data show that after the law requiring applicants to submit proof of legal residence took effect in 2007, the number of people taking the Spanish-language version of the road skills knowledge test plummeted 91 percent — from 42,500 in 2006 to fewer than 4,000 in 2008. The number of applicants taking the English version of the test also declined during the period, but by just 23 percent.

Patrick Fernan, the agency’s operations manager, acknowledged the possibility that the decrease represents a drop in the number of undocumented Hispanic immigrants applying for licenses, but cautioned it’s impossible to say for sure.

Driving a necessity for many immigrant agricultural workers

According to a 2008 study by Paul Dyk, a livestock agent at University of Wisconsin-Extension in Fond du Lac County, 78 percent of Hispanic workers at Eastern Wisconsin dairy farms arrive at work in their own car, but only 44 percent of Hispanic dairy workers have a driver’s license.

Mario Garcia, youth coordinator at the Madison-based nonprofit agency Centro Hispano, says driving legally in Wisconsin has become impossible for many of the state’s agricultural immigrant workers since the federal government passed the Real ID Act. The 2005 federal law was crafted to shore up the security of the state driver’s licenses, although deadlines for compliance have been pushed back amid complaints from states about its requirements and costs.

Garcia said the inability of immigrant workers to drive legally makes Wisconsin roads dangerous for all.

That was one reason a number of law enforcement officials came out in support of the license provision this summer during the budget debate. Police chiefs in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Appleton and Beloit each backed the provision, along with support from chiefs of smaller departments such as Whitewater, Shorewood and Dorchester. The Wisconsin State Troopers Association was also on board.

“Regardless (of whether) these cards are issued or not, undocumented individuals are going to be driving motor vehicles throughout the state,” Whitewater Police Chief James Coan said this summer. “Our traffic safety efforts will be enhanced by providing them with an opportunity to obtain a limited driver’s license.”

Tom Hochstatter, a Milwaukee attorney who practices immigration law, says giving immigrants driver’s licenses would increase safety and reduce the burden on law-enforcement officials to act as de facto immigration enforcement agents.

The potential downside is just that if you’re showing a law enforcement officer your document, then they know that it’s really a second-class driver’s license,” Hochstatter said. “If you have an agenda about immigration, you could end up pursuing your questioning … to a point where you find they are undocumented.”

The budget proposal would have required the limited-use licenses to appear “distinctive” from standard driver’s licenses and would also have required language on the new licenses to stipulate they could be used for driving only. Cardholders could not have used their cards for other identification verification purposes, such as cashing a check or boarding a commercial flight.

The measure also would have stipulated that law enforcement may not press cardholders on their immigration status if the limited-use license was presented for its intended purpose.

Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s office indicated he would be opposed to the bill’s provision on checking immigration status “to the extent these proposals limit the ability of law enforcement to work together at the federal, state and local levels.”

Debate in the state budget

The governor did not include the provision on driver’s licenses in the original budget for the 2009-11 biennium that he proposed in February. But state Rep. Pedro Colón of Milwaukee persuaded fellow Democrats on the Joint Finance Committee to add the measure during its deliberations on the budget.

The Assembly then approved the measure in its version of the budget.

Under Colón’s proposal, drivers unable to prove their legal residence could obtain a limited license provided that some key conditions were met, including establishing Wisconsin residency, providing proof of identity, being ineligible for a Social Security number and passing all relevant driving tests.

Colón said undocumented immigrants “were just in a panic. … They couldn’t go to work, they couldn’t go to the store,” and the issue was critical to his constituents.

At a December meeting of the Dairy Business Association, a group of large dairy farm owners, Colón told farm owners that the right to a driver’s license represents “the most basic of what we call the American dream, this basic attainment of what we call happiness.”

“Happiness to people in my district,” he said in a Madison speech, “is going to take grandma to the doctor and not being stopped by a police officer for four hours while they determine your identity because there is no way for you to get a driver’s license.”

Vos, a fellow member of the Joint Finance Committee, introduced a motion to eliminate the license provision during debate over the Department of Transportation budget.

“The entire idea … flies in the face of what common sense should be,” Vos said of the proposal, arguing that both dairy farm employers and potentially undocumented employees should be facing stiff state and federal penalties rather than being allotted a loophole in the state’s driving laws.

With Democrats in the majority in both houses, Republican opposition wasn’t enough to derail Colón’s proposal. Once the budget moved onto the Senate, however, some Democrats expressed concern about the measure, citing their constituents’ opposition.

Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee, told a constituent in an e-mail that he was “able to convince” his caucus to drop the driver’s license provision. He represents a sizable Latino population and became the subject of intense scrutiny from the immigration advocacy group Voces de la Frontera.

But Carpenter was not swayed by the effort from law enforcement, labor groups and religious organizations, noting this summer that 90 percent of his constituents who had contacted his office were opposed to the measure.

Carpenter was also unhappy the provision was stuck into the budget during late-night deliberations and without a public hearing.
“I wasn’t the only one who had concerns,” Carpenter said of his discussions with fellow Democrats in the state Senate.

Colón said federal legislation left room for states to address the problem of undocumented drivers in the Real ID Act, and his staff analyzed two states that have implemented similar laws — Utah and Tennessee.

Tennessee, however, suspended its two-tier license program after the state found undocumented immigrants from neighboring states were attempting to acquire the licenses. Before the suspension of the program, the National Immigration Law Center estimated that Tennessee issued some 51,000 driving certificates to citizens who could not authenticate their legal status.

Vos said that while the public generally is not comfortable condoning what is seen as illegal activity, the economic issues surrounding the state and the country could also color voters’ views on immigration issues.

If the unemployment rate stays at current levels heading into the 2010 election season, Vos asked, “Will they be angry that you’re giving benefits to people here illegally?”

State fix likely to depend on Washington

Lawmakers on both sides of the driver’s license issue are united in one aspect: The Wisconsin Legislature shouldn’t be in the position of dictating immigration policy.

For now, Colón says he has no plans to reintroduce the plan as a stand-alone bill. In addition to the already difficult path it faces in the Legislature, Colón believes federal lawmakers are ready to make the state’s job easier by reforming how the nation deals with illegal immigrants.

“As a legislator in Wisconsin, I don’t want to be messing in immigration law,” Colón said, adding that federal lawmakers forced his hand with the mandates in the Real ID Act.

Vos acknowledged that he doesn’t have a say in the ultimate answer on immigration because, “I’m not in Congress.”

Andy Szal is a reporter for WisPolitics.com. Jacob Kushner is a reporter for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org). The two organizations collaborated on this report for Dairyland Diversity, an ongoing project with The Country Today newspaper examining how immigration is reshaping Wisconsin’s dairy industry.

]]> http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2009/12/16/while-wisconsins-immigration-politics-remain-stalled-undocumented-immigrants-drive-without-licenses/feed/ 0 http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2009/11/11/a-delicate-existence-undocumented-and-living-on-a-wisconsin-dairy-farm/ http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2009/11/11/a-delicate-existence-undocumented-and-living-on-a-wisconsin-dairy-farm/#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:01:53 +0000 WisconsinWatch http://wisconsinwatch.org/?p=2105

José is one of an estimated 5,000 immigrant dairy workers in Wisconsin. WCIJ/ROBERT GUTSCHE JR.

Immigrants cope with isolation, grueling hours.

But there’s room for family life, too.

By Jacob Kushner
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Yawning, the man pulls on his grimy work pants, then boots, then sweatshirt, releasing smells of animal waste and hay into the air.  The October morning is cold enough he’d see his breath if the farm wasn’t consumed by darkness, the moon hidden behind heavy clouds.

The woman calls out in broken English as she walks up and down the aisles of the barn: “Come on, let’s go. Come on, come on.” The cows glare at her before, one by one, they begin their familiar stroll toward the milking parlor.

The daily routine is not unlike the one experienced by generations of Wisconsin farm families. But unlike those farmers, this young Mexican couple, José and Victoria, said goodbye to their families and traveled 1,720 miles to work long hours on a dairy farm in Western Wisconsin among people who do not speak their language and in a place where their presence is illegal.

José says most Americans don’t like immigrants. “They think that we are here invading their territory. But we aren’t left with any other option because the situation in Mexico is very, very difficult.”

Despite the ever-present threat of deportation, José and his wife have a sort of job security they never found in Mexico: Their employment is all but ensured by the need for cheap labor at larger dairy farms that are increasingly common across Wisconsin’s rolling pasture lands.

The couple’s story is representative of roughly 5,000 immigrants who have become the labor backbone of Wisconsin’s signature industry. Immigrants now account for about 40 percent of the state’s dairy labor force, up from just 5 percent 10 years earlier, according to a 2009 study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies. While that study didn’t explore immigration status, earlier federal surveys have estimated half of all immigrant crop workers nationwide are working illegally.

José and Victoria requested their real names be withheld out of fear they might be identified by law enforcement and pursued as illegal immigrants. Though interviewed in Spanish, José and Victoria have learned enough English to understand directions on the farm and to function daily in Western Wisconsin while raising two bilingual children.

The work

To say José and Victoria work from sunrise to sunset would be inaccurate – their day starts in darkness before the sun rises, and ends in darkness, well after the final rays have been blocked by the hills to the west.

José drives his pickup truck to and from work, even though he’s ineligible to obtain a driver’s license. WCIJ/JACOB KUSHNER

With empty stomachs, save for a large mug of fresh milk from the cows, mixed with instant coffee and honey, Victoria and José climb into their pickup truck and drive the five-minute stretch of highway to the dairy farm.

While Victoria begins herding the cows into the milking parlor, José prepares the milking equipment.

The work is not altogether unskilled. In addition to directing animals using shouts, whistles and movements, immigrants also learn tasks such as operating farm machinery and monitoring the milk pumping system.

“Sometimes I come tired and there’s something I forget to do,” says José, recalling one morning a few months ago when milk began spewing on the floor from an overhead pipe because he forgot to correctly prepare the pump. “There’s a lot to remember.”

Once the cows walk into the parlor, José sanitizes their teats before attaching suction cups. The mooing crescendos as remaining cows grow impatient. Ten at a time, the cows are milked and led back to the barn.

By the time the cows return, Victoria has cleaned the barn and filled the stalls with feed. When finished, Victoria comes to the parlor to help her husband finish milking.

The couple talks sparingly as they focus on work, an old radio crackling out Mexican Maríachi and ranchera songs to the background noise of industrial-sized fans. By the time the sun rises, the work has become mechanical, routine.

Ask Victoria if it’s boring, and she laughs: “I don’t have time to be bored.”

Four hours after the morning milking began, the last cows head back to the barn, and José and Victoria clean the parlor.

At 11, the couple returns home to cook lunch – already six hours into the workday. Victoria, who works about 40 hours a week, usually spends the rest of the day doing chores or running errands. José averages 70 hours a week.

A couple of days a week, José will not return to work until it is time for the second milking from 5 to 9 p.m. José calls those his “easy days.” But on full days he works the entire afternoon, harvesting and transporting crops from the fields or feeding milk to calves out of oversized baby bottles.

“On a farm there is little rest,” José says. “It’s nothing but work and more work.”

Each autumn, José harvests the green peppers, jalapenos, tomatoes, corn, onions, potatoes and cilantro he grows in his garden outside their house. “Just think how much we save by not buying vegetables for three months,” he says. WCIJ/JACOB KUSHNER

For their labor, José earns $11 per hour and Victoria earns $8 per hour, and their combined take-home pay is about $1,900 every two weeks. Little remains after their employer deducts taxes (including Social Security, which they are ineligible to receive) and they cover their rent, truck payments, gas, utilities and groceries — plus the $200 per month they send to help support families back home in Mexico.

The family life

The work at the farm finally over, José and Victoria return to their modest but comfortable home, an old  two-bedroom farmhouse they rent from their boss for $330 a month. Awaiting them are their 13-year-old daughter María and 8-year-old son Antonio. The children have already finished their homework for the following day (there’s no TV until it’s all done).

It’s dinner time. Antonio and María run around the large kitchen, excited as mom prepares their favorite dish: Italian spaghetti, pasta cooked in a rich tomato-cream sauce with a Mexican twist (corn and jalapeños). The meal is indicative of the family’s lifestyle, a mix of Mexican traditions and rural Wisconsin comfort.

The children speak fluent Spanish and English, and their conversations switch almost randomly between the two. They always speak Spanish to their parents, who understand English well but are still uncomfortable speaking it.

After dinner, the children watch impatiently as dad navigates the Dish Latino channels. They want to watch “The Hulk,” but he prefers a Spanish-language soap opera. At a suspenseful moment in the show, José and the children watch with worried looks on their faces. Meanwhile, Victoria is curled up in a blanket, lying on the sofa – exhausted from the day’s work.

It’s a home life not unlike that of other families in rural Wisconsin. But the difference is, their home life is almost all they’ve got.

The family doesn’t usually go out to dinner, movies or bowling like other local families.

Twice a month, when they get their paycheck, they drive into town for a Domino’s pizza – Hawaiian with jalapeños. But as soon as it’s ready, they jump back in their pickup truck and drive out of town to eat their meal back at home.

Anticipating a twice-monthly treat, immigrant dairy worker José and his children await their takeout order at a Domino's Pizza. The family's discomfort among locals keeps them from venturing far from the farm where they work and live. WCIJ/JACOB KUSHNER

Sometimes they all drive into town to go shopping, but out of hesitation to communicate with store employees, their trip differs from that of most families. “Sometimes we eat out together, or go to the mall – only to look, nothing else,” José says.

It is less a fear of leaving the house than a sense of discomfort among a population that does not speak their language and, according to José, sees them as outsiders.

Coming to America

José, Victoria, María and Antonio each hold distinct memories of their life in Mozomboa, Mexico, their hometown of 3,000 located near the Gulf of Mexico, 175 miles east of Mexico City. While José took whatever daily jobs he could find on a local farm, the children sold snacks and water to locals as street vendors.

They all agree the hardest part was when José and eventually Victoria went to work in the United States, leaving their children behind.

“We couldn’t see them growing,” says Victoria, who tears up as she recalls leaving to create a new life for her children in America. After two years of separation, she returned to Mexico in 2007 to bring her children across the border.

José and Victoria don’t like talking about their journey into America – that episode in their life is over. But the kids can’t keep from recounting the story, and the memory of the blisters on their feet walking north through the desert with their mother.

Ask José why he came here, and he will say he wanted a job with a wage that could support his family. He entered the U.S. legally with a work visa, but decided not to return after it expired.

Ask him why he stayed, and the undocumented Mexican sounds more like a patriot than an alien.

“I love this country because there are many opportunities, many jobs — not like in Mexico,” José says. “And it’s more beautiful. Wherever one goes, one sees beautiful pastures.”

A traditional Mexican Sunday brunch is one reminder of the family's life before they moved to Wisconsin. A UW-Madison study estimates that 90 percent of the immigrant dairy workers are from Mexico. WCIJ/JACOB KUSHNER

But opportunity is not the same as security. That’s because a couple of state-issued photo IDs and Social Security numbers they purchased illegally for $400 each is all the documentation they have. Neither can get a driver’s license. Neither can get subsidized public health insurance in Wisconsin.

The cost of medical treatment is a problem José and Victoria know all too well: Three months ago, Victoria was rushed to a hospital for appendicitis. A $20,000 hospital bill on their kitchen table is a reminder of the challenge of being without insurance.

As María listens to her mom retell the story of the late-night hospital trip, a worried look creeps across her face. She knows her parents don’t have the money to pay the bill, and she’s scared about her future.

But, in her usual manner of making a lesson out of their challenges, Victoria turns to María, wipes away her own tears, and smiles: “If I were dead, how could I pay the bill then? Life is more important.”

A future through their children

José and Victoria seldom miss an opportunity to encourage their children to become educated and create a better future for themselves.

“Nothing is difficult, and nothing is impossible,” José says to María, telling her that not money, but dedication is the only real obstacle to overcome toward receiving a university education. He hopes the meager savings he hides away after each paycheck prove him right.

María is sometimes discouraged. At middle school, she sits alone at lunch because other children tease her and call her ugly. They hurl their insults just out of the earshot of the teacher, whom María says is oblivious to it all.

“Americans don’t like me,” she says. “It’s really hard to make a best friend.”

José and Victoria treat their kids like adults — they talk in goofy, ‘kid’ voices to the dog and cats around the farmhouse, but never to their children. They tell jokes and stories, challenging Antonio and María with trivia and word tricks.

“What weighs more, a kilo of cotton or a kilo of stone?” Victoria asks.

“Stone,” Antonio responds. “Cotton,” María says.

José strums a guitar as the family sings along to their favorite Mexican artists. They spend their evenings together in the living room, also watching television and playing games. WCIJ/JACOB KUSHNER

With such a close family life, it is easy to forget José and Victoria spend almost as many hours working as they do otherwise. They spend long hours milking cows not because they enjoy it, but because it’s their way of creating a better future for their children.

Ask José what his aspirations are, and the undocumented foreigner from Mexico describes a vision with a distinctly familiar tune. He hopes, against the odds, he and his family can become legal citizens. Some might recognize it as the American Dream.

“That my children continue with school and learn English well. That they become somebody in life, that they be important people here in the United States. Imagine, [Barack] Obama is an African American and he is president of the United States. It would be best for my children if next a [Latino/a] could be president, or secretary of state. One cannot lose hope.”

Editor’s note: This is the second part of Dairyland Diversity, a special report on Wisconsin’s growing reliance upon immigrant dairy workers. The stories are a joint project of several media organizations, including The Country Today, a weekly newspaper focusing upon agricultural and rural issues, and the nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org). The Center collaborates with its partners — Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television and the UW-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication — and other news media.

To see earlier Dairyland Diversity coverage, click here.

Dairy farmer John Rosenow says immigrant workers are "so much more capable than what we could find before" with local workers. WCIJ/ROBERT GUTSCHE JR.

By Jacob Kushner
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Like many Wisconsin dairy farmers, Tim Servais needed help and he reluctantly faced the facts.

After he expanded his farm operation outside La Crosse in 1995, Servais relied on local adults, teenagers and farm kids to do what work he couldn’t handle himself.

“I’ve always tried to hire people who were local so I had some background on them,” Servais said.

About three years back, Servais found the locals had stopped coming to his barn door. “I just couldn’t find people to do the work,” Servais said.

But he found Spanish-speaking foreigners eager to take their place. “I tried not to go that way because I didn’t know how it was going to work out,” he recalled.

Now immigrants do much of the field work and almost all of the milking for his 240-cow dairy herd.

“It worked out really well,” Servais said.

Servais is one of a growing number of Wisconsin dairy farmers relying on immigrants to milk their cows and keep their farms running smoothly.

Just 10 years ago, 5 percent of workers on Wisconsin dairy farms were immigrants — but by 2008, that number jumped to 40 percent, or more than 5,000 workers, according to a 2009 study by the UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies. Those immigrants are changing the face of the state’s signature industry, while bringing increasing diversity and social challenges to the state’s rural areas.

As Wisconsin dairy farmers hire more immigrants, they face mounting pressure to ensure their workforce is competent, skilled, and above all, legal. Experts say farmers are often caught in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” web of federal employment regulations, with a strong incentive to know as little as possible about the legal status of their workers. The UW-Madison study didn’t inquire about immigration status, but earlier federal surveys have estimated that half of all immigrant crop workers are working in the United States illegally.

An immigrant worker milks cows in the parlor at John Rosenow's dairy farm in Buffalo County. Rosenow employs eight Mexican immigrants. WCIJ/ROBERT GUTSCHE JR.

Goodbye farm kids, hello immigrants

Servais remembers a time when the children of dairy farmers used to work on the farm, learning the ropes with the goal of one day inheriting it as their own.

Those days are disappearing for many families. Servais said farmers today simply have fewer children, and the remaining children don’t always share the traditional vision of taking on the family business.

It’s not hard to understand why children are choosing to go to college or pursue other industries over farm work.

“It’s labor intense,” Servais said. “When you’re (on) a dairy farm you’re on call 24-seven, 365, no matter if you’re on vacation or you’re down at the local store or what.”

Unsure of the aspirations of his own three children and in need of more workers after expanding his farm a few years back, Servais turned to local high school students, but found them generally unreliable in a business that requires timely and skillful milking at unusual hours.

“There are all kinds of people that want to come around and work, but it’s to their convenience,” Servais said. “It’d be Friday evening and they call at 5 o’clock and they’re supposed to be there at 5 o’clock – ‘I’m not going to make it tonight, something came up.’ Well you know what came up, something more fun than working.”

Servais said local teenagers come by his farm wanting work for the summer, but after spending a day in the parlor and seeing how messy and physically grueling the work is, most soon quit.

In need of a workforce he could depend on and afford, Servais turned to immigrants, and he now employs three of them.

“They don’t get paid a lot now, but that’s one thing I’m working on is paying them more because I really appreciate the fact that they’re helping me out, and they’re very good,” Servais said.

Servais is just one of many dairy farm owners increasingly relying on immigrants to keep operations running smoothly.

“We need them to milk cows or we’d barely be in business,” Loren Wolfe, co-owner of a 575-cow dairy farm near Cochrane, said of the Hispanic immigrants he employs.

The need for immigrant workers is exacerbated by low milk prices, as farmers depend upon cheap labor to remain profitable. Wolfe’s business partner, John Rosenow, estimated the pair would have to pay native workers twice the rate his Hispanic immigrants are willing to work for – $7.25 an hour, according to one of their immigrant employees.

Rosenow, who employs eight Hispanic workers, said even if he could find local workers who were dedicated to farm life, the increased salary costs would bankrupt his business.

Plus, Rosenow said, farmers hire immigrants because they are “excellent,” hard workers. In fact, they are “so much more capable than what we could find before” with local workers.

The hiring process

While locals are hard to find, immigrant applicants are numerous.

Sandi Zirbel, co-owner of a 635-cow dairy cooperative outside of Green Bay, said the influx of immigrants is evident in her company’s staff.

Zirbel said immigrants frequently come looking for work, and as many as 19 out of 20 applicants are immigrants. Two-thirds of those applications get tossed.

“Some of them simply just don’t fit into the system, either because of how much they’re asking per hour or what their experience is,” Zirbel said. All workers start at $7.50 per hour — but usually receive a raise to $8.50 after six months and are eligible for yearly raises thereafter.

Despite the number of applicants who are rejected, it’s easy to find enough qualified workers to fill the need at Zirbel Dairy Farms: Seven of the current nine farmhands are immigrants.

“They’re more likely to seek this type of work,” Zirbel said. “Why somebody would want to leave Mexico and come to Wisconsin to milk in the middle of winter, I don’t know … but there’s a lot of them up here.”

Tim Servais used to employ locals to milk cows on his mid-sized dairy farm in Vernon County near Stoddard. Now he hires immigrants to fill the spots, because locals no longer come around looking for work. WCIJ/ROBERT GUTSCHE JR.

The rules

Although dairy farm owners go through the same legal hiring process as all employers, many say the process is complicated by the assumption many Hispanics are undocumented, meaning they don’t have the proper work visas or have come to the United States illegally.

“In my opinion there is a high percentage of undocumented labor that is being used in dairy farms,” said Erich Straub, a Milwaukee attorney who specializes in deportation defense. Straub said because of contradictory immigration laws, it is in the best interest of farmers not to know if their workers are illegal.

“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. I don’t think they want to know,” Straub said. “I think they’re in a very difficult position where they have a need for labor, they have a declining labor pool in their community … it’s a very challenging environment for farmers to run a business.”

While most farmers will tell you they follow the rules, Straub said the larger problem is employment law is vague enough to allow some undocumented workers to slip through the cracks.

Employers must require all job applicants to fill out a federal I-9 employment eligibility form and show multiple forms of identification to prove they are authorized to work. Employers send the applicant’s Social Security number to the Social Security Administration for tax purposes. Unless they receive a “no-match” letter stating the Social Security number does not match a known worker, applicants are cleared for employment.

Undocumented immigrants often evade the issue by guessing at a valid number, or by paying someone to provide them with a Social Security number of an eligible worker, immigrants and experts said.

Employers must examine a worker’s identification documents and make a good faith decision as to their validity. The confusion arises with the notion of “constructive knowledge,” which states that employers who have an indication an employee may not be eligible must take further steps to ensure their eligibility or terminate the employee. This constructive knowledge could arise from a document that looks false, a “no-match” letter, or even overhearing the worker say a visa expired.

But Tom Hochstatter, a Milwaukee attorney who specializes in immigration law, said the constructive knowledge provision creates unique problems for dairy farmers.

“Dairy farmers,” he said, “are freaked out because their situation is such that, while they might not know that any particular person is legal or illegal, they know statistically that if they have 15 dairy workers … statistically the chances are that some don’t have genuine documents. There’s this fear.”

Rosenow, the Cochrane farmer, said the constructive knowledge provision gives farmers an incentive to know as little about the legal status of their workers as possible.

“If a reasonable person could look at the documents and would make the assumption that they’re legit, then you accept them,” Rosenow said.

A sign on the office door at John Rosenow's Cochrane Dairy farm reads "Don't enter with boots" in Spanish. WCIJ/ROBERT GUTSCHE JR.

E-Verify and the future of hiring

While dairy farmers admit it is possible undocumented workers slip through, they maintain they do everything within their power to ensure their own employees are documented. Not everyone is so sure.

For example, Zirbel’s cooperative outside Green Bay is one of only three Wisconsin dairy farms registered with E-Verify, a voluntary federal Web-based system allowing employers to instantaneously validate Social Security numbers of job applicants. Farmers acknowledge that applicants whose numbers don’t match often leave without providing another.

U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., is sponsoring a bill to require employers to use E-Verify before hiring.

But many say E-Verify is inconvenient, unreliable and will only make hiring workers more difficult. “I don’t see the downside of the system we’re using now,” Rosenow said.

“I know that there are accuracy problems with the database,” Straub said. “Sometimes those problems are exaggerated by some people who don’t want E-Verify. On the other side of the coin, I think E-Verify is promoted as some magic bullet that’s going to fix the immigration problem in the United States. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.”

While she’s one of the few using E-Verify, Zirbel disagreed with the assumption farmers are trying to manipulate the hiring process to benefit from cheap and illegal labor.

“I would like to assure anybody who doesn’t know anything about dairy farming that we’re doing everything possible to legally hire (immigrant workers),” Zirbel said.

“It’s peace of mind,” Zirbel continued. “We do our job to make sure we have all the right documentation. Whether or not they give us the right information, that’s really out of our hands.”

Coming Nov. 11: A delicate existence: A look into the life an undocumented Mexican family, working and living on a Wisconsin dairy farm.

Editor’s note: This special report on Wisconsin’s growing reliance upon immigrant dairy workers is a joint project of several media organizations, including The Country Today, a weekly newspaper focusing upon agricultural and rural issues, and the nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org). The Center collaborates with its partners — Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television and the UW-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication — and other news media.

At a glance:

Wisconsin’s immigrant workforce

• In 2008, immigrants represented 40 percent of the estimated 12,551 hired workers on Wisconsin dairy farms. Of the immigrants, 89 percent are from Mexico.
• In total, Wisconsin is home to an estimated 85,000 undocumented immigrants.  Federal estimates have said that 50 percent of immigrant agricultural crop workers nationwide are not authorized to work in the United States.
• Immigrant laborers on dairy farms worked an average of 57 hours per week and took off about 4.8 days per month.
• 91 percent of dairy workers surveyed said they want to advance and learn new skills like animal health care or machinery operation.
• 68 percent of dairy workers surveyed have children. Of those, 74 percent live with their children in the United States, and 83 percent of these children attend school.
• 80 percent of dairy workers surveyed said they felt accepted as part of their community here.
• Some Mexican-born persons seeking permanent resident status may wait up to 18 years for their cases to be approved.

Sources: UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies, based in part on survey of 267 immigrant workers on Wisconsin dairy farms; U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey; Pew Hispanic Center, U.S. Department of State.

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