“He told me he loved me,” Lesli recalled. “He would see me in a couple of days, and that we just had to trust God. He said he was desperate to see me and to get home.”

Four months have passed, and Lesli has not heard from her husband or been able to find him—or a body in the desert matching his description.

A Kmart love story

Lesli, a 42-year-old psychologist from Princeton, W.V., said she never thought she would end up with an undocumented immigrant. One October day in 2004, she noticed two men at her local Kmart trying to figure out her ethnicity. Lesli has ancestors who are African-American, White, Native American and Spanish.

Fabio, a native of Honduras who is seven years older than Lesli, did not speak English. But Leslie speaks Spanish. They became friends, and Leslie taught him English. Then they fell in love.

After four years together, Fabio, who worked as a heavy equipment operator clearing coal mine sites, bought matching rings from Kmart. The couple married on Jan. 28, 2008. When Lesli talks about her husband, she is a woman still in love.

“He’s definitely my soul mate. A wonderful man. His smile would light up the room. He was never a judgmental person. He would help anyone.”

Lesli, who had three children before she met Fabio, said that he “raised my kids as his own. My kids loved him.”

Crossing the border for the family’s sake

Fabio also loved his own eight children back in Honduras. He arrived in the United States in 1994 in order to send enough money back home for his family to have a better quality of life. Because of the financial support, three of Fabio’s daughters were able to finish college in Honduras.

It was family that pulled Fabio back across the border. He missed his children, and his brother was dying of AIDS. He took an airplane back to Honduras in November 2010. By March, he started trying to get back to West Virginia and his new family. After some bureaucratic investigation, he discovered it would take years for him to follow the legal process to reenter the United States.

Fabio was determined to once again be the provider for his family and especially for his brother who needed AIDS medication. He spent $5,000 hiring coyotes, or guides, to take him through Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and the Texas border.

Final phone calls

When he reached a safe house in Reynosa, he called Lesli and had her send enough money to feed all 15 people in the group. They had not eaten for days. The couple spoke a few more times before Lesli had her final conversation with her husband.

A week later, she received a call from a stranger. The man asked her if she had heard from her husband. When she said no, he told her that Fabio had been left behind because he was sick. The man promised to call later, but never did.

Later, she received a call from a man who had met her husband while attempting to cross the border. This man had heard from someone else that Fabio had indeed been left in the desert.

Lesli was unable to reach anyone else in the group for information. “It’s like they’ve all just disappeared. No numbers. No nothing,” she said. “They’re afraid. That’s why they’re not coming out.”

Worrying and searching

Since then, she has contacted the U.S. Honduran consulate and embassy, police stations in McAllen, Tex., TV stations, Border Patrol, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), morgues, hospitals, and miscellaneous groups and organizations.

The response is often unsympathetic. “They don’t take it seriously when they hear that he’s not legal,” she said. “Like he’s not important.”

On three or four occasions, Lesli has listened over the phone as morgue employees describe the latest body found in the desert. She said during these conversations she would have panic attacks and a big knot in her stomach.

“I would hold my breath, cry, pray throughout the process, breathe a sigh of relief when they did not describe my husband, then start back at square one after running into another brick wall.”

Lesli is waiting for a phone call from another Texas morgue that recently picked up some human remains in the desert. “I dread the call. I want closure, but once I hear that, all hope is gone. I’ve got to know something. I can’t live like this in limbo. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever gone through in my life.”

Fabio’s family in Honduras continues to call and ask if she has heard anything. “It’s all on my shoulders,” Lesli said. “I’m not going to give up until I find him. He deserves a proper burial.”

“There’s got to be a better way.”

In the mean time, Lesli, her children and the rest of their family in both the United States and Honduras, have been in a constant state of worry over what she calls a “senseless loss.”

“Our entire family is devastated because this doesn’t have to keep happening,” Lesli said. “We’re hurt, bitter and frustrated. The immigration system has been broken for far too long. I don’t think we should let everyone in. There’s got to be a better way.”

Lesli, who said that for years, she limited her social life and lived “in the shadows,” due to her husband’s undocumented status, says she would like to become an immigrants’ rights advocate.

She is in the process of forming Victims of the Border, a group that will offer support to those who have lost loved ones crossing the desert.

“I’m the voice for so many people who can’t speak out because they’re not legal,” she said. “I want to meet other people like me and let them know they’re not alone. Our suffering can’t be in vain. Something good has to come from such tragedy and devastation.”

Click here to listen to a podcast of the entire interview with Roberto Reveles.When I met immigrant rights activist Roberto Reveles on a blazing hot summer day in downtown Phoenix for an interview, he was wearing a shirt that said, “Do I look illegal?” And I thought to myself yes, you do. But as I would soon find out, there is much more to this American son of Mexican immigrants than his sense of humor.

Reveles endured segregation growing up in a small Arizona mining town, graduated from Georgetown University, spent 24 years as a congressional staffer and later became an executive at a mining company. In 2005, after returning home to Arizona where he sensed an anti-immigrant climate, Reveles became an activist. I suspect that fighting for the rights of immigrants is his favorite job so far.

Actively Involved

Currently the board president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, he teaches citizenship classes, has been involved with the Arizona Hispanic Community Forum and was the founding president of Somos America, a coalition of community groups against anti-immigrant legislation.

When local sheriff’s deputies raid Phoenix-area neighborhoods to arrest undocumented immigrants, Reveles joins fellow volunteers in following the officers around with cameras and legal pads.

“We hope that our presence lends a certain hesitancy for them to abuse the people they are stopping,” Reveles said, adding that he has not noted any physical violence.

The parents may not come home…

“Much of this is psychological damage,” he said. “Women are pulled over with children in their car. The woman is arrested and a call goes out to relatives to come pick up the children before Child Protective Services comes and takes custody of the children. The children are crying and can’t understand why their mother is being arrested. The damage that it does to the family unit is just horrific. These are living nightmares that children are experiencing.”

Reveles advises immigrant families to post on the refrigerator door the names and phone numbers of individuals and organizations children can call in case their parents don’t come home.

On the day the Arizona governor signed Senate Bill 1070, which allows local law enforcement to arrest those they suspect to be undocumented, Reveles was supervising a group of middle school students protesting the legislation. While the group was resting at a park, he noticed another group of six white elementary school girls encircling a Hispanic girl. The Hispanic girl was crying, and the other girls were hugging and consoling her.

When Reveles asked what was wrong, the girls responded that their friend was afraid her parents would be taken away because of what the governor was signing that day. Reveles found the girls’ chaperones and told them they needed to comfort the distressed little girl.

As he walked way, one of the non-Hispanic girls called out to him saying, “Señor, señor. Muchas gracias!”

As he recounted the story, emotion crept into his voice. “When you see a child being comforted by her classmates, it was at the same time a sad, but beautiful scene. No child should have to experience that kind of threat to their livelihood.”

Pain of the Past

Reveles said that his life experience has taught him to be sensitive to the needs of others. Born in Miami, Arizona to Mexican immigrant parents, Reveles knows what it’s like to be a minority. Although his parents came into the United States legally in 1920 during the Mexican Revolution, the family was still vulnerable to U.S. government repatriation activities in the 1930s.

“When I was a toddler, when a white Anglo male would walk into the neighborhood, we knew that we would all run home, close the door, lock it and pull the shades,” Reveles said. “If somebody knocked, you would not answer.”

As a child, Reveles attended a school designated for students of Mexican and Apache Indian backgrounds. At the movie theater and his church, he was ushered to the balcony or aisle where Hispanics were allowed to sit. The only time the YMCA would let him swim was the day before the dirty pool water would be drained.

His parents adapted, respected authority and “did not rock the boat.” But they were not the only influence on his life.

Mexican-Americans began returning from World War II and “deciding that no, they would no longer go to the balcony. No, they would no longer sit on the Mexican side.”

“They had gone abroad as Americans, had fought on the side of our country, and yes, they would become candidates for election to the local town council,” Reveles said. “That taught me that there’s no need to be taking a backseat to anybody.”

Through his activism, Reveles has challenged county jail conditions, racial profiling on an interstate highway and laws that would criminalize offering almost any form of assistance to undocumented immigrants. He calls the immigrant youth who would benefit from the DREAM Act “innocents.”

Policy Opinions

According to Reveles, the controversial Arizona Senate Bill 1070 has the mission of making life so miserable for immigrants that they will self deport. “I find that to be a horrible expression of public policy in the United States. Where are people’s values in terms of being humane to each other? That goes contrary to almost every faith I’m familiar with.”

Through his volunteer work with Humane Borders and other organizations, Reveles has spoken with people before, during and after they have completed an illegal border crossing. “They all say the same thing: ‘I prefer not to put my life at risk. I prefer to walk through the legal port of entry. But that is in practical terms impossible when the waiting period is from 8, to 12, to 14 years for a visa to enter the country.”

What Reveles would like to see happen with immigration policy is a delicate balance. In his view, immigration should be managed in an orderly way, but open to welcoming guest workers with all the same privileges and rights as American workers. He wants to eliminate exploitation of immigrant workers while also avoiding any negative impacts on the number of jobs available to U.S. citizens.

Reveles would like to see policies that delineate between human trafficking and drug trafficking. “They’re not the same,” he said, adding that “we need to come down hard on the criminal activity both north and south of the border.”

Reveles had a strong response about recent calls to alter the Constitution’s 14th Amendment so that babies born to undocumented parents would no longer have automatic citizenship. He called it “nonsensical, irrational, immoral and hysteria against a community of workers.” He also considers the use of the term “anchor baby” dehumanizing and against family values.

Despite what he perceives as an attack on a vulnerable immigrant community, Reveles said he also sees people standing up for what they believe, registering to vote and becoming activists. Even U.S.-born Hispanics have started caring more about immigration issues because they feel more at risk for racial profiling, Reveles said.

“People are energized as I’ve never seen them energized before,” he said. “We need to continue what has historically been a welcoming environment for people who have been seeking to better their lives.”

The immigration debate has recently provided an upsurge in the popularity of an old and politically incorrect term—the anchor baby. It refers to the notion that foreign family members can gain citizenship through U.S.-born children.

Of course, the baby must turn 18 or 21, earn a certain amount of money and wait about 10 more years before putting a relative (who has to be living outside the United States) on the path to citizenship. And let’s not forget about the 88,000 parents of U.S. citizen children who have been deported in the last decade. But what critics call “chain migration” still scares people.

On Wednesday, both federal and state lawmakers introduced legislation to end automatic citizenship for children born to undocumented parents in the United States.

Federal Foes of Jus Soli

Rep. Steve King insisted the bill he introduced is a more accurate interpretation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which addresses birthright citizenship: “The current practice of extending U.S. citizenship to hundreds of thousands of anchor babies every year arises from the misapplication of the Constitution’s citizenship clause and creates an incentive for illegal aliens to cross our border.”

Rep. Gary Miller, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, referred to automatic birthright citizenship of undocumented immigrants as a “loophole” that “undermines the intention of the 14th Amendment, rewards those that have recklessly broken our nation’s immigration laws and costs American taxpayers billions annually.”

State Supporters of Strict Citizenship Standards

The model legislation introduced by the five state lawmakers proposed defining state citizenship based on having at least one U.S. citizen parent. Another measure would require cooperating states to provide distinctive birth certificates for babies born to two undocumented parents.

Daryl Metcalfe, a Pennsylvania state representative who participated in unveiling the legislation, said the measures would protect Americans rather than “foreign invaders.”

“Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are crossing U.S. borders to give birth and exploit their child as an anchor baby, as a means to obtain residency, access taxpayer-funded benefits and steal American jobs for themselves and for their families,” Metcalfe said.

Terms of Enragement

Arizona American Civil Liberties Union Board President and immigration activist Roberto Reveles called the idea of changing the Constitution “nonsensical, irrational and immoral.” He also rejects the use of the term “anchor babies,” which he considers dehumanizing.

“It’s abhorrent to me that respected members of the United States Congress are taking up this terminology,” he said. “It’s very frightening to see because this is the way you can justify to yourself that whatever you do to these people, after all, they’re less than human beings.”

To hear an excerpt from an interview about birthright citizenship with Roberto Reveles, please click here.

You can also hear the full version of the interview, in which Reveles discusses immigration raids in Arizona, SB 1070, racial profiling and his experience as the son of Mexican immigrants.

Risking exposure and possible deportation, he tells his immigration story to spread awareness of the plight of undocumented youth in the United States and to encourage the passage of the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform.

Watch the video below as Jose explains why he chose to enter the United States illegally. Also, Jose shares his views on Arizona’s controversial immigration law SB 1070.

Check out the following video, which documents my travels with Humane Borders, a group that sends weekly volunteers to the Sonoran Desert to refill water jugs. Their mission is to prevent deaths in the desert. You can also see photos of the trip.

On the summer evening before Lida Vatanpour headed for an organic chemistry make-up exam at the University of Texas at Dallas, the 29-year-old Iranian with reddish-highlighted black hair, dark eyes and a pretty smile called her father.

As usual, the attentive husband and father of two sons and two daughters picked up the phone. It was a quick call—just to let her dad know she would be taking an exam and would call him afterward. That July 2 call at 7:20 p.m. was the last time Lida would hear her father’s voice.

Hooshang Vatanpour, 56, had picked up two young men near a Dallas bus station. Noah Robert Whitehead, 23, and William “Billy” Kirk Stephens, 22, who lived in the Dallas area, asked the driver to take them to Wichita Falls, which was at least 2.5 hours away. Hooshang’s last check-in to his cab company was at 7:45 p.m.

Normally, Hooshang would use his limited English to engage his clients in friendly conversation. Having fled from Iran in 2003 due to religious persecution because of his membership in the Baha’i Faith, he would often give out cards with Baha’i principles or show passengers a book with photos of Baha’i temples from around the world.

But according to Lida, her father had picked up two men bent on stealing money to pay for drugs.

A Violent Taxi Ride

Stephens and Whitehead forced Hooshang to stop at a convenience store so that Stephens could purchase some beer, according to Lida. Surveillance cameras captured Stephens’s face and the blue taxi van in the parking lot.

Back on the road, Hooshang slowed the van at a stop sign. It isn’t clear who did what, but a Denton County sheriff’s affidavit states that a 32-ounce beer bottle was shattered over Hooshang’s head.

“One of them pushed him over and started driving,” said Sherriff’s Investigator Larry Kish in a Denton Record-Chronicle article.

As the three were driving through a remote area of Denton County, Hooshang was stabbed in the chest and his throat was cut. Blood spilled on the front and back seats. The van veered off the road and stopped at an oil well site.

Hooshang’s credit cards and cash were taken, and his body dragged from the van and dumped on the ground. Whitehead called Mariesha Ohlfs, a 32-year-old who had recently moved to Texas from Wisconsin. She brought a shovel and some gasoline.

Hooshang’s body was set on fire. Then the perpetrators drove the taxi van about a mile away. The van plowed through a fence, its front license plate stuck to a collapsed gate. Leaving all of the van’s doors open, the trio sped away from the scene in the car Ohlfs had arrived in.

Around 9 p.m., firefighters from the city of Justin were putting out a brush fire when they discovered Hooshang’s body.

A Family’s Worry

At the same time the firefighters made their discovery, Lida had finished her exam and saw she had many missed calls from her younger brother. Her dad had not been answering his phone, and he was worried.

“I called my dad maybe 50 times,” Lida said. “He knows I get worried real quick. I was freaking out. I was afraid he had gotten into an accident.”

Lida and her brothers, ages 17 and 24 at the time, were the only ones at home that night. Her mother was out of the country, and her 30-year-old sister was a college student in Ohio.

“I was playing the mom role,” Lida said about the responsibility she started to feel that night.

The siblings decided to call the Dallas Police Department, which didn’t have any information for them. At 11:30 p.m., police told Lida that her father’s van had been located in Denton County, but that she couldn’t go to that location because it would contaminate the crime scene. She was also told that police were searching for her father.

“I was almost sure he had been robbed,” Lida said, adding it was then when she and her brothers, two uncles and a cousin decided to wait at the Denton Police Station.

Bad News

At 2 a.m., a detective approached Hooshang’s anxious family and asked which of them was a family member.

“Everybody was in shock so they couldn’t speak,” Lida said. “Finally, I made myself say, ‘I’m his daughter.’”

When the detective told her it was homicide, Lida “lost it.”

After receiving the news, Lida started to make the phone calls to her mother, sister, uncles and her father’s friends. She bought a casket and worked with local Baha’is to plan a funeral service for the following Monday.

“I had to deal with the situation right then and there,” she said. “ I had to be strong for everyone. I had to take care of all of these people.”

Before the night her dad was killed, Lida said she would never have imagined being able to function while sustaining such pain.

Diligent Detectives

While Lida and her family were waiting and receiving the bad news, local police departments were cooperating to figure out who had robbed and killed Hooshang. In recent days before that night’s incident, taxicab drivers in Ft. Worth and Dallas had been robbed, but unharmed. Police reviewed surveillance tape of a man who had used one of those cabdrivers’ stolen credit cards at a convenience store.

Tracing the broken beer bottle left in the taxi van to a different convenience store nearest that night’s crime scene, police found surveillance footage of the same man—Billy Stephens. A bloodhound followed a scent to Stephens’s nearby neighborhood.

Police found Stephens at someone else’s home and interviewed him. According to a sheriff’s affidavit, he confessed to participating in the crime. During that same July 4 weekend, Ohlfs and Whitehead were taken into custody.

Stephens and Whitehead were charged with capital murder, and Ohlfs was charged with aggravated assault.

Firm in His Faith

By Monday, July 6, Lida was doing her best to host the more than 500 people and TV news crews at her father’s funeral.

It was an ironic and tragic ending to a life that had been beset for so many years by religious persecution. Harrassment and lack of opportunities due to their membership in the Baha’i Faith were the reasons Hooshang and his family had migrated to the United States from Iran between 2002 and 2003.

According to its U.S. Web site, the Baha’i Faith is an independent world religion that views humanity as one single race and aims to unite humanity into one global society. Baha’u’llah (1817-1892), the founder, is recognized as the most recent in a line of divine messengers that includes Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad. There are 300,000 Baha’is in Iran; 170,000 in the United States; and more than 5 million worldwide.

Before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, Hooshang had been an Iranian Airforce helicopter pilot. But afterward, he came to a spiritual crossroads.

“He had a choice to convert to be a Muslim or lose his job,” Lida said of the Iranian government’s requirement to register one’s religion. “He was forced to quit his job.”

The Iranian constitution only recognizes Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Anyone filling out official paperwork has to declare himself or herself as a member of one of these religions or is not permitted to hold a government job.

Hooshang’s friends were surprised he would leave his job because he had a wife and two young children to support.

“He was a pilot,” Lida said. “That was all he knew. He would say, ‘You just keep your faith and everything will fall into place.’”

To make ends meet, Hooshang did a variety of jobs and had his own business making aluminum windows and doors.

“As much as I think I’m a good Baha’i, I don’t know if I would make the same decision as he did,” Lida said. “It was a hard test. They took his money. They took his retirement account. It happened many times he would start over. But he would make it. It’s stunning when I think about it now. His faith was something he would not give a second thought.”

Memories of Her Father

Before that disastrous summer night, before his 12-to-14-hour days as a Dallas taxicab driver, Hooshang would organize 7-hour road trips to the beach for 20 of his friends and relatives. Four-car caravans would drive from the Iranian capital city of Tehran to the Caspian Sea.

During those car rides along bumpy roads, Hooshang would make plans for a barbecue, talk, crack jokes, sing, and play games with his family.

“He always had a crazy way of making other people laugh,” Lida said. “You know how some people are just fun? He had had his own way of connecting with [his children] even during those teenager times.”

‘I really owe my education to my dad.’

Lida and her father also bonded during the 45 minutes it took for him to drive from their home in the suburbs to Tehran where her college classes were. Because Baha’is are not allowed to attend university in Iran, Lida attended the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education.

Not only does the Iranian government deny Baha’i Institute graduates government jobs and admission to graduate school, it also creates oppressive conditions in the classroom.

According to the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education Web site, its faculty and students “have been forced to operate under the radar in discreet locations, have been subject to numerous arrests, periodic raids, mass confiscation of school equipment (photocopiers, faxes, computers and other materials) and general harassment.”

Lida recalls the hopelessness and lack of motivation she felt when raids resulted in instructors and books being taken while she took her exams. She would ask her father what the point of attending a Baha’i university was when nobody would recognize her diploma.

“Education is for your own good,” was her father’s response. “Life is bigger than just having a job. You never quit.”

“That’s what stuck with me,” said Lida, who was 18 course hours short of a psychology degree when she left Iran. “I really owe my education to my dad.”

When she arrived in Allen, Tex., in 2002, she was unable to find a local university that accepted her past college coursework, so she had to start over on her degree. In December 2009, she graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience. Currently a certified optician, Lida has tentative plans to train as a physician’s assistant.

Touching Others’ Lives

In the days following Hooshang’s death, his family’s home was “covered in plants and flowers upstairs and downstairs.” For a month, 30 to 60 people would gather regularly in the home to say prayers. People who heard the story on the news sent cards, flowers and good wishes. Lida sent 150 thank-you notes to people she had never met.

“My dad touched many individuals’ hearts,” Lida said. “Not that it makes the pain go away, but it gives you comfort that there are some good people out there.”

One of the most meaningful results of her father’s well-publicized death is that more people have learned about the Baha’i Faith, Lida said. Teaching people about his religion was a dream Hooshang had, but he felt limited due to his lack of English language skills.

“The best car, house, job would not measure up to the things he has fulfilled the way he died,” Lida said. “My dad’s life served its purpose. I think my dad is happy that he was able to teach the [Baha’i Faith], not by him, but by his story. I should be happy for that.”

Consequences for the Perpetrators

However much Lida reflects on the beauty of the life of a man she says had a heart so big, it could “fit everyone in the world,” she also has her sight set on justice.

Noting that in her native Iran, the trio involved in her dad’s death would have already gotten a swift, harsh punishment, Lida laments the judicial delay and penalties the suspects face.

If convicted of capital murder, Stephens and Whitehead may be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. The Denton County District Attorney’s Office will not pursue the death penalty and will not provide an explanation because the reasons encompass facts that can’t be discussed before the trials end. A spokesperson from the office said that the district attorney met with Hooshang’s family and discussed the death penalty with them.

“The reason I want the death penalty is we need to draw a line as a society,” Lida said, adding that her religion has no official position on the death penalty.

“It’s not about revenge. It’s about the right thing to do. We are too cautious. We apply everything under the flag of freedom. We are protective of the people we’re not supposed to be protective of. There have to be some boundaries. If it was an accident, that’s a different story.”

Lida claims what happened to her father is “more than a robbery that went bad” because Stephens and Whitehead had the “guts” to cut Hooshang’s throat, stab him multiple times and set his body on fire. A dentist had to identify Hooshang’s body.

If she could speak to the men who killed her father, she would say, “How could you do such a thing to another person? If you needed the money so bad, you could just take the money and go.”

Although the district attorney’s office is not classifying the murder as a hate crime, Lida has not ruled out the possibility. “They probably thought he was a terrorist,” she said, adding that she faces daily discrimination based on her complexion and accent.

“If my dad was American, it would be a whole different ball game. If my dad could speak better English, it would have made a difference at the crime scene.”

Attorneys for Stephens and Whitehead declined to comment for this story because the cases are still pending. Ohlfs’ attorney did not respond to a phone call.

Criminals’ History

What also would have made a difference at the crime scene was if a judge hadn’t decided to release Whitehead from jail a month prior to Hooshang’s death, said Lida. Whitehead was sentenced to 90 days in jail and eight years of probation. His criminal records show he was convicted of assaulting three police officers in 2008.

“Given his criminal history at that time and the nature of the case, assaults [and] the severity, the outcome wasn’t unusual at all,” said Jamie Beck, first assistant criminal district attorney for Denton County, speaking of Whitehead’s release from jail.

“If this person was in jail, this would not have happened to my family,” Lida said. Stephens also had a criminal history that included theft, assault and burglary of a vehicle.

Whitehead’s trial is the earliest, currently scheduled for November 15. Lida predicts she will have to wait three years for a verdict. “How is that supposed to help a family heal?” she asked.

Land of Opportunity

Lida has mixed feelings about living as an immigrant in the United States.

“I’m not going to disregard everything that’s been offered to me. I like that I can go to school. I can talk about my religion.”

“It’s supposed to be the Land of Opportunity. I came here with so much hope that it would be better. Everything is just shattered. Opportunities are not there anymore.”

Lida wishes she had the opportunity to travel with her father or just spend time with him. “I cannot hug him anymore,” she said, admitting she still has his number in her phonebook and occasionally dials it. “But he is still here. I feel him present in our family gatherings.”

Every Sunday, even if it’s raining or if it’s so late the facilities are locked, Lida visits her father’s cemetery. She brings fresh flowers tied in a blue ribbon because blue was Hooshang’s favorite color. “That’s my time with dad,” she said.

Feeling his presence gives her strength and makes her feel supported. “He is my guardian angel. I could not ask for more except for the fact I miss him so much.”

Colbert emphasized how tough it was when he spent a day picking beans and packing corn through the Take Our Jobs program, which was designed to offer farm worker jobs to U.S. citizens. After Colbert’s testimony, Arturo Gonzalez, president of United Farm Workers of America, stated that despite a large number of visitor to their Web site, only seven people have been employed through the program.

“Russell, this is really going to make you mad, but Sean was shot by an illegal alien.”

The words of an Arizona state senator’s wife in December 2004, as quoted in a Reuters article, could be credited with inspiring the legislation behind Arizona’s newest and very controversial immigration law SB 1070, which was partially blocked by a federal judge on Wednesday.

Already a fierce opponent of illegal immigration, Senator Russell Pearce, Sean’s father, began firing off one legislative proposal after another to curb illegal immigrants’ access to employment, voting, bail and public benefits.

Then came SB 1070, which has gotten the most widespread attention of his initiatives. This legislation was jointly crafted by Pearce, the anti-immigration organization the Federation for American Immigration Reform, former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law professor Kris Kobach.

“Government has blood on their hands when they ignore the damage to this country and the killings and the maimings, while they defend lawbreakers and refuse to enforce the law,” Pearce said in the Reuters article.

Granted Pearce is talking specifically about illegal immigrants, but it made me wonder if there is a link between immigration and crime.

More immigrants, less crime

According to a University of Colorado at Boulder study that came out in May, more immigrants actually mean less crime. The research “suggests that, controlling for a variety of other factors, growth in the new immigrant population was responsible, on average, for 9.3 percent of the decline in homicide rates, and that growth in total immigration was, on average, responsible for 22.2 percent of the decrease in robbery rates.”

Articles in The Wall Street Journal and The Arizona Republic report that Arizona crime rates, including those of major cities and border towns, have fallen since the 1990s.

The author of the Colorado study proposed that immigration lowered crime because “immigrant communities are often characterized by extended family networks, lower levels of divorce, and cultural and religious beliefs that facilitate community integration.”

I agree with Pearce that more immigration enforcement could have prevented his son (who survived) from getting shot. But after a bit of research, I would have to say that inculcating values in young people would create a bigger impact on lowering crime than stricter immigration laws.

The woman whose car had hit hers stopped to see if the receptionist, in her totaled car, was OK. The woman mentioned that she had a suspended license. When she saw the police arriving, the woman got back into her car and drove off. The police were unable to catch up with her.

This new law in Arizona requires law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect is an illegal immigrant. Not having the correct paperwork could mean jail time, a misdemeanor charge and possible deportation.

If legal and illegal immigrants are nervous about the police checking them for immigration paperwork, what will happen if they cause a car accident? In 2003, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reported that hit-and-run drivers killed 1,550 people. Causes for fleeing car accidents can be attributed to lack of insurance, drunkenness, immaturity, previous crimes and plain old selfishness.

A 2005 Arizona Daily Star article states that “[t]he seven states with the highest rates of fatal hit-and-run crashes are also the seven states that have the most illegal immigrants, according to two think tanks.”

Arizona is in the top five of these states estimated to have the most undocumented immigrants, but is second after California in terms of the highest percentage of fatal hit-and-run crashes.

Is there a connection between hit-and-run drivers and illegal immigration? We can’t know for sure, but if it is the case, it’s just another sign that the system of legal immigration should be repaired so that we won’t have to battle the undesirable symptoms of illegal immigration.