"Cuanto?" asks a young man pointing to four bottles of car polish at a recent garage sale in an east Phoenix neighborhood.
The question, Spanish for "How much?" sends Minerva Ruiz and Claudia Suriano scrambling and calling out to their friend, Silvia Arias, who's selling the polish. "Silvia!"
Arias is out of earshot, so Suriano improvises.
"Cinco dolares," she says. "Five dollars." And another sale is made.
As the women await their next customer in the rising heat of an Arizona morning, they talk quietly about food and clothes, about their children and husbands. They are best friends, all mothers who are viewed as pillars of parental support at the neighborhood elementary school.
All three are illegal immigrants from Mexico.
They're holding the garage sale to raise money to leave Arizona, along with many others, and to escape the state's tough new law that cracks down on people just like them.
The law's stated intention is unambiguous: It seeks to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and to discourage them from coming here.
There is no official data tracking how many are leaving because of the new law. "It's something that's really tough to get a handle on numerically," said Bill Schooling, Arizona's state demographer. "It's not just the immigration bill. It's also employer sanctions and the economy. How do you separate out the motivating factors?"
But anecdotal evidence provided by schools and businesses in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods and by healthcare clinics suggest that sizable numbers are departing. Ignacio Rodriguez, associate director for the Phoenix Roman Catholic diocese's Office of Hispanic Ministries, said churches in the area are also seeing families leave.
Priests are "seeing some people approach them and ask for a blessing because they're leaving the state to go back to their country of origin or another state," he said. "Unless they approach and ask for a sending-off blessing, we wouldn't have any idea they're leaving or why."
Ruiz and Suriano and their families plan to move this month. Arias and her family are considering leaving, but are waiting to see if the law will go into effect as scheduled July 29, and, if so, how it will be enforced.
The law requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they're in the country illegally. It also makes being in Arizona illegally a misdemeanor, and it prohibits seeking day-labor work along the state's streets.
Ruiz, Suriano and Arias are representative of many families facing what they consider a cruel dilemma. To leave, they must pull their children from school, uproot their lives and look for new jobs and homes elsewhere. But to stay is to be under the scrutiny of the nation's most stringent immigration laws and the potentially greater threat of being caught, arrested and deported. They also perceive a growing hostility toward Hispanics, in general.
On the quarter-mile stretch of Phoenix's Belleview Street where both Ruiz and Suriano live, more than half the apartments and single-family homes have "for rent" signs out front.
Alan Langston, president of the Arizona Rental Property Owners & Landlords Association, said his group doesn't track vacancy rates but that his members believe they will be affected by people leaving because of the new law.
The friends say most of the vacancy signs went up after the new law was signed in late April.
"Everyone's afraid," Arias says.
The three friends are key members of a parents' support group at their children's school down the street, said Rosemarie Garcia, parent liaison for the Balsz Elementary School District.
"They are the paper and glue and the scissors of the whole thing," Garcia said. "I can run to them for anything."
With two of the women leaving and the other thinking about it, Garcia is concerned about the school's future.
"It'll be like a desert here," she said. "It's a gap we'll have all over the neighborhood, the community, our school."
Ruiz, Suriano and Arias met three years ago at cafecitos, or coffee talks, held at the school. Now their families hold barbecues together and their children have sleepovers.
Arias, 49, and her day laborer husband paid a coyote to come to Arizona 15 years ago from Tepic, Nayarit on Mexico's central-western coast. Their children, ages 9, 11 and 13, are U.S. citizens.
"I don't want to leave but we don't know what's going to happen," she says.
Ruiz, 38, and her husband, who builds furniture, came to the U.S. from Los Mochis in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa about six years ago on tourist visas, which expired long ago. Two of their kids, ages 9 and 13, are here illegally, while their 1-year-old was born here. The family is moving to Clovis, N.M., where they have family. "It's calmer there," Ruiz says.
Suriano, 28, and her husband crossed the desert six years ago with their then-toddler. The boy is now 9, and the couple has a 4-year-old who was born here. They're moving to Albuquerque, where they don't know anyone but already have lined up an apartment and a carpentry job for him.
"I don't want to go," Suriano says, wiping away tears. "We're leaving everything behind. But I'm scared the police will catch me and send me back to Mexico."
Some people in the neighborhood are not sympathetic.
"Bye-bye, see you later," says 28-year-old Sarah Williams, who lives two blocks south of Ruiz and Suriano with her 5- and 7-year-old children and her aunt. "They're taking opportunities from Americans and legal citizens."
However, Williams, says she doesn't support Arizona's new law because she believes it will lead to racial profiling.
The law still faces several pending legal challenges. The U.S. Justice Department also is reviewing the statute for possible civil rights violations, with an eye toward a possible court challenge.
The law's backers say Congress isn't doing anything meaningful about illegal immigration, and so it's the state's duty to step up. They deplore the social costs and violence they say are associated with illegal immigration.
The law's critics say it will lead to racial profiling and discrimination against Hispanics, and damage ties between police and minority communities.
As the debate plays out, dozens of healthcare clinics in central and southern Arizona say many of their Hispanic clients aren't showing up for scheduled appointments. They say they're either afraid to leave the house or they're moving away, said Tara McCollum Plese, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Association of Community Health Centers, which oversees 132 facilities.
"Some are actually calling the clinics and asking if it's safe to come, if they need papers," since the new law passed, she said.
Sick people avoiding treatment can become a public health problem, she said. "We're actually worried about communicable diseases."
If enough people stop going to the clinics, she said, some services could be cut, and some clinics, especially in rural areas, could be forced to close.
Schools may face laying off teachers and cutting programs because of fewer students, educators say.
Parents pulled 39 children out of Balsz Elementary, which has a 75 percent Hispanic student body, since April 23, the day the law was signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer. In the small, five-school district, parents have pulled out 111 children, said district Superintendent Jeffrey Smith, who cites the new law as the leading factor.
Smith said each student represents roughly $5,000 in annual funding to the district, so a drop of 111 students would represent roughly a $555,000 funding cut.
Many schools across Arizona have seen a steady decline in Hispanic students in recent years, although some district superintendents say the current drop is more dramatic. Schools attribute the declining numbers to the recession and to the state's employer-sanctions law, which passed in 2007 and carries license suspensions and revocations for those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Area businesses also say they're seeing the effects of people leaving the state.
Steve Salvato, manager at the family-owned World Class Car Wash, just around the corner from Belleview Street, said business is down 30 percent. Salvato said the car wash relies mostly on Hispanic customers and points to the new law for the recent decline in business.
"A lot of people have just packed up and moved," he said, adding that a strip mall across the street used to be bustling on weekends. "Now it's like a ghost town."
A nearby Food City grocery store reports a 20 percent to 30 percent drop in business.
Back at the garage sale, the three friends have a row of tables strewn with Barbie dolls, bicycle helmets, old movies and a Jane Fonda workout video. A laundry basket is overflowing with children's toys, and a shopping cart is filled with clothes.
They are selling off pieces of their lives.
Their easy banter, mostly in Spanish, quickly turns to tears when they're asked about their impending separation. Ruiz and Suriano have pleaded with Arias to follow them to New Mexico.
"They're my companions," Suriano says of the other two women. "We do everything hand-in-hand."
VivaSB1070 posted at 8:11 pm on Tue, Jun 22, 2010.
These women blatantly endangered their children by dragging them across the desert to illegally trespass into our country and now the reporter wants us to believe that they are all mothers of the year?
It is an outrage that these criminals are held in such high esteem by the media, I am thoroughly disgusted by these invaders and feel absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for any of them.
If schools and clincs close because of illegal aliens are leaving the area then that simply proves that they were not needed to begin with, and only exsist to cater to these invaders. These criminals have been sucking at the taxpayer's teet for far too long. It is entirely probable that they are also lining their pockets with thousands of dollars of public service funds which should be reserved for our own citizens.
Adios and don't come back.
Slabside posted at 8:40 pm on Tue, Jun 22, 2010.
First off, these are not immigrant families but illegal invaders. Secondly, "Everyone's afraid," Arias says." .Yes and the Americans that have had loved ones killed, kidnapped, identities stolen, homes invaded, had loved ones raped by illegals are afraid and enraged. All illegals MUST leave.
DrunkenMonkey posted at 5:13 am on Wed, Jun 23, 2010.
Blame it on "the new law"... must be a good one. It's working already and hasn't even become effective yet.
I DO have sympathy for these women, but I'm assuming all they have to do is apply for a legal status. So, boo-freaking-who...
OR... maybe they can apply to their own government, who has recently shown sympathy for their CITIZENS ABROAD, by filing briefs on their behalf. It would seem a government as sympathetic for it's CITIZENS ABROAD would be only too happy to assist their own CITIZENS ABROAD
AZMomma posted at 5:17 am on Wed, Jun 23, 2010.
Figure this..the Trib bans the Spanish words for Crazy Life!
Well, the vermin are getting ready to head elsewhere? Our loss is NM's (or where ever's gain). Let some other Sanctuary City welcome them. Put up red white and green bunting and hold a Block Party. Maybe you can be the first to start a new third-world barrio.
Balsz (and Davy Crockett) Elementary Schools have long been a magnet for illegals going back to at least the early 1960's. Kids came..kids went. Mostly kids of migrant workers in the early years.
When you pick a life that consigns you to the shadow-world of a criminal, please don't whine when someone puts some heat on your Crazy Life[wink]
DrunkenMonkey posted at 5:37 am on Wed, Jun 23, 2010.
Another plus is now we can close down the unneeded schools, clinics, and cutting back a lot of the programs catering to illegals. It may cost short term, but the long term benefits will be well worth it. Government money going to it's own citizens... What a great concept!!!
mobique posted at 7:08 am on Wed, Jun 23, 2010.
Along with all the free services we have given to the illegal's does anyone realize what it costs us in tax dollars? The mexicans on the corners get paid 50.00 to70.00 a day for their labor so if there are just 1000 working on any given day that is between 50 and 70 thousand dollars a day that we realize no taxes from them and I know there are more than 1000 of them out there
Masterrogue666 posted at 7:50 am on Wed, Jun 23, 2010.
To Amanda Lee Myers: You shouldn't use the word "immigrant". Here's a good definition:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/immigrant
"a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence" -- Coming into the country ILLEGALLY isn't going to yield permanent residence. I suggest calling them "FOREIGN INVADER" or "ILLEGAL ALIEN". Either term is much more accurate.
As for "cruel dilemma", THEY made to choice to come to the USA illegally. They are responsible for their own actions.
To MCSO: Since they admitt they are ILLEGAL ALIENS, go get them....
DrunkenMonkey posted at 10:54 am on Wed, Jun 23, 2010.
Guess someone didn't like my Avatar...lol
It went away.... guess what???
It's back... I've got dozens and can do this 24/7 if needed.
and when they kick me, I'll just come back as some other pissed off SOB
samkat posted at 4:32 pm on Wed, Jun 23, 2010.
Did anyone happen to notice that after all the years they have been residing in our country, they still only speak Spanish? That demonstrates how little regard they have for our country.
Slabside posted at 7:34 pm on Wed, Jun 23, 2010.
Good point samkat.
KaptainRandom posted at 8:18 pm on Wed, Jun 23, 2010.
Like so many others, I agree these ILLEGAL ALIENS are in the US ILLEGALLY and direspect every LEGAL IMMIGRANT of the US. These ILLEGAL ALIENS should be returned to their claimed land of heritage and legal citizenship, whether that be Mexico, Canada, Italy, Mars, Jupiter, or other NON-US territory. Let them then apply for LEGAL US citizenship/residency like ALL LEGAL IMMIGRANTS have done. As for the children, sadly, these children have no one to blame but their parents who brought them here illegally, or created them here while continuing in illegal residency. I welcome those children born here to chose to stay here with legal relatives or exit with their ILLEGAL parents and return at adult age bearing the birth-right citizenship.
SunWorshiper posted at 2:48 pm on Thu, Jun 24, 2010.
I agree with KaptainRandom on illegals' underage US citizen kids leaving with them and...groan...arriving back on our doorsteps when legal age (with legitimate birth certificate in hand). If they decide to leave them in the U.S., it should be with the underswtanding it's NOT at taxpayer expense!! AND...I also think these crying-moms featured KNOW that is the way it should be done. But if they disrespected our laws when they first showed up there is little hope of them exiting "legally."
By the way, when SB1070 was first signed into law, there were "plenty of "what now?"" columns for illegals. One of the probably more "desirable" illegals said she was going to the Mexican Consulate(?) in Phx to get her US-born kids recognized as dual US/Mexican... just in case they went back to Mexico. If THAT"S the way it should be done, why isn't the U.S. issuing dual-citizen birth certificates to these kids of illegals to begin with?? Just wonderin....