Louis and Chicago. San Antonio alone harbored 331,000. The roundup seemed so successful that the Immigration and Naturalization Service stated optimistically in its 1955 report that it had ended the wetback problem. The boast proved premature.

The Border Patrol and the Investigation Section of the INS are diligent, outnumbered and outmaneuvered. The comparatively few illegal entrants who attempt to cross the natural, and for the most part barren, frontier on foot are easily spotted by the continual overhead observation of Border Patrol spotter planes: they are then picked up by ground patrols which run along exfoliated drag strips. Some few aliens risk their lives in airless car trunks and campers, or precariously flattened on a ledge beneath passenger cars. Such trips cost from $100 to $300. One recently ended in death by asphyxiation.

But for 70 to 80 percent of the illegal entrants access is neither hazardous nor romantic. More than a million Mexican aliens carry visitors' permits. These salmon-colored cards, issued by the Mexican Government at a cost of about $80, authorize visits of seventy-two hours in an area not more than 25 miles from the border.

But the aliens, most of them, are not looking forward to a visit. The typical wetback meets an agent in Mexico who provides him with a routing or a contact. Once across the border, he is transported to a city, often Los Angeles, and there referred to a job. In some instances, the agents provide transportation by selling a group of wetbacks an automobile, in which they can better elude detection. Those who lack the cash are offered a "go now, pay later" plan under which the price of the car is deducted from future wages.

Once inside, the alien easily merges into urban or rural Chicano barrios. Anyone can get a Social Security card by filing an application; proof of legitimate entry or birth certificate is not required. Employers record the Social Security number and couldn't care less about the worker's status. It is a felony to induce an alien to enter the United States, to transport him or to harbor him from detection; but conservative legislators from farm districts have managed to exempt the employer of an illegal entrant from that chain of complicity, even when the employee is known to be a wetback.

Agriculture absorbs the bulk of the illegal entrants. During fiscal 1968, 38.950 of those apprehended were doing farm work. Wetbacks are preferred by most farmers because they are thought to work harder than Americans and to complain less about conditions. The minimum wage for farm work in California is $1.65 an hour; wetbacks in labor camps are lucky to earn $1.35, not enough to live on in Calfornia but four times the Mexican minimum wage. The rich regions of California are dotted with the grim labor camps which formerly housed braceros. Wetbacks now live in many of them, hidden well off public roads on land posted against trespassing.

While most wetbacks seek farm work during the busy seasons, substantial numbers are kept on the year around, or find off-season jobs during the very periods when domestic farm workers, residents of the area, are unemployed and dependent on public assistance. Winter unemployment in farm regions runs as high as 16 percent of the domestic labor force; in California alone idle farm workers require $15 million in public assistance. Ten thousand wetbacks were caught in the five states that make up the Southwest in February 1969. From this figure one can assume that from 10,000 to 40,000 low-income families were displaced from jobs by wetbacks during the winter months, at a cost in taxes and loss of domestic wages amounting to tens of millions.

Surveys show that the prevalence of wetbacks also depresses wage levels, and encourages employers to ignore the laws governing wages and working conditions. Union leaders find it difficult to organize in areas saturated with wetbacks. A nationally reported example is the stubborn resistance Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers Organizing Committee has encountered in its efforts to sign contracts with the California table grape growers. Strikes are not a compelling argument with employers who can rely on Mexican nationals, and the union has been forced to organize a nation-wide consumer boycott of table grapes to achieve its purpose.

Displacement of local workers by wetbacks is no longer a predominantly rural problem, since illegal entrants increasingly gravitate to more permanent jobs in the cities. From 1,500 to 3.000 of them are caught each month in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Recently, the Boarder Patrol uncovered a smuggling operation which specialized in supplying wetbacks for industrial jobs in Chicago. Despite the seemingly impressive figures on apprehensions, the wetback problem is not being brought under control. The program is hampered from the

start by a shortage of manpower and equipment. As one patrolman in the Stockton, Calif., area put it: "We stake out Route 99 and the smugglers hear of it and take another road. There aren't enough of us to cover all the main highways all the time." On any given day, approximately 300 officers are on duty in the five Southwestern states.

A more basic problem than the size of the Border Patrol is the ease of entry afforded by the visitor's card and the absence of administrative controls on its use. The zone of travel permitted by these cards (with no record kept of entry and departure) was recently reduced from 150 to 25 miles from the border and that is making it easier to tag violators en route to the big cities. Since the reduction, systematic road checks on approaches to Los Angeles have turned up hundreds of aliens with no residency documents.

However, Border Patrol officials complain privately of the Justice Department's failure to require fingerprints as part of the permit procedure. Lacking that identification, it is almost impossible to spot previous violators when they reappear at the border, and wetbacks who have been returned to Mexico re-enter again and again, visitor's permit in hand. Also, since no record is kept as to when a seventy-two-hour visit begins, a Mexican who has eluded detection for weeks or months can depart unquestioned.

The very volume of violations has dictated an informal handling of those caught, and this also fails to discourage the increasing traffic. Illegal entry is a crime for which the violator may be prosecuted in the federal courts and formally deported by the INS. Re-entry after such a deportation is a felony. But resort to these remedies is infrequent. The present policy is to allow the illegal entrant to leave voluntarily within three days of apprehension. Often he is permitted to get to the border on his own. Or he may be taken to a detention center in El Paso, Tex., or El Centro, Calif., to await bus transportation to the interior of Mexico at U.S. Government expense. Not only does the wetback get a free trip home but back wages are collected for him by Border Patrolmen. Voluntary return is likened by an INS administrator to a “game warden who discovers ? hunter without a license and helps him carry the deer he's killed out of the park." Multiple returnees are seldom prosecuted and are formally deported only after the fourth, fifth or sixth entry, unless they are caught assisting other wetbacks to cross the border. A formal deportation procedure taken no more than fifteen minutes, and does not require the services of an attorney, but the INS claims that there are insufficient hearing officers to handle all the possible cases and that in any case deportation wouldn't stop the alien from trying again. Authorities do not even officially notify a grower when illegal entrants are found on his land.

United States attorneys and judges regard illegal entry as an economic crime of low priority and most Americans sympathize with the wetback, who is after all a very poor man trying to get ahead. Few jurists or juries appreciate the relationship between illegal entry and the plight of the domestic poor. Federal prosecutors have little time even for wetback smugglers, accepting only aggravated cases for prosecution. Despite the high apprehension rate in Northern California-3,500 in August 1968-there has been almost no prosecution of smugglers or transporters. Officials suggest that strict enforcement, involving due process for each alien, would choke court dockets, overburden U.S. attorneys tie up patrolmen as witnesses. The more pessimistic add that extensive prosecution would ultimately fill the prisons to capacity-a line of reasoning not applied to marijuana cases. INS investigators are hampered by the taciturnity of wetbacks, who refuse to say how they entered the country or who helped them to do so. Aware that failure to cooperate will not land him jail, the alien has no inducement to reveal what he knows of the smuggling operation.

Recent lawsuits brought in California by domestic farm workers against growers using wetbacks allege that such employment is an unfair business practice calculated to lower their wages, diminish their employment opportunity and force them to seek public assistance at the taxpayers' expense. While employment of illegal entrants is exempt from the legal sanctions against harboring wetbacks, farm workers charge that growers are nevertheless criminally implicated, since offering wetbacks employment and shelter from detection is aiding and abetting in the crime of illegal entry. This resort to self-help law enforce ment by the poor is a reflection on the failure of the Justice Department to perform its duties.

The ambivalence of the INS in the area of illegal entry is striking. The search for violators is persistent but ineffectual, and it seems clear that more could be done. The service operates on a budget of $86,450,000, more than half of which

is committed to the four states bordering Mexico. Detention and transportation of apprehended illegal entrants alone costs $1.6 million, yet no funds can be found to hire more hearing officers and increase the number of formal deportations. Nor is there money to increase the Border Patrol and investigation staff, despite increased illegal entry and the much heavier work load demonstrated by the higher apprehension rates.

An obvious need is the fingerprint identification of seven-two-hour permit holders. INS officials argue that it would be impractical to match the fingerprints of apprehended wetbacks against those of 1 million cardholders. Yet the need to check at most 500 fingerprints a day, the ostensible average number of wetbacks caught in the peak months, is small compared to the FBI's work load of 32,000 identifications a day from a file of 15 million sets of prints.

The replacement of cards at four-month intervals would make it easier to revoke the cards of violators. A requirement that holders of the unlimited entry permit post a bond to secure observance of the terms of entry, a device authorized in related immigration laws, could be an effective deterrent. Other steps could be taken to provide more effective enforcement. A recent act which authorizes a federal magistrate to handle petty crimes could undoubtedly speed the prosecution of numerous smuggling offenses as misdemeanors. Formal deport:tion following the second illegal entry within two years, the power to assess administrative fines in lieu of prosecution (thereby attaching a portion of the wages earned), and even the right to confiscate the vehicle used in the transportation of illegal aliens, as is done in narcotics smuggling, would also discourage the border hoppers.

Important remedial legislation is before House and Senate. A bill to prohibit the intentional employment of a person illegally in the United States was introduced on March 26, 1969 by Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Michael Feighan. The measure is co-sponsored by nine Senators and twenty-three Representatives. But even if passed, it will not result in many prosecutions, since the present difficulties of proving smuggling will be compounded when the federal attorney must submit his case to a jury. However, the abrogation of the employment exemption, combined with occasional well-publicized prosecutions and stiff fines, should cure many employers of hiring wetbacks at bargain rates. Similarly, a bill introduced by Senator Mondale would amend the National Labor Relations Act to make it an unfair labor practice to employ aliens unlawfully present in the country, or to hire nonresident commuter aliens during a labor dispute. Any of these measures, applied for several years, would provide increasingly effective deterrence to illegal entry.

Even so, the problem of the wetback will remain as long as the MexicanAmerican border is open, the border economies remain interdependent, and American earnings are five to ten times the Mexican wage. But in our increasingly technological society, with its chronic unemployment among low-income unskilled and semi-skilled workers, it is a problem which cannot be ignored. The continued use of nonresident Mexican labor in border areas, a concession to the artificiality of the border, should be coupled with affirmative enforcement of wage standards and labor laws to provide domestic workers with earnings commensurate with living costs, at least equal access to jobs, and the freedom to bargain collectively.

Moreover, urban and rural areas distant from the border have no interdependence with the Mexican population and economy. Lack of enforcement in such places, except for the futile apprehension-return cycle, is really a subsidy to certain industries and subverts the Administration's policy to "move people off the welfare roles and onto the payrolls."

Despite the good record of the Border Patrol, administrative deficiencies in coping with the inflow of illegal entrants cannot be explained entirely by a lack of imagination or a lack of funds. It is not pure fantasy to conclude that the policy of the Justice Department on illegal entry is to do just enough to avoid wholesale criticism, without arousing the serious anger of anti-union employers who favor an abundance of cheap labor.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Can you supply us with an estimate of the amount of money spent by State and Federal Governments to aid those residents of the United States (both citizens and permanent resident aliens) who have become unemployed because of the presence of Mexican Nationals in the border labor markets?

Mr. NORTH. Unfortunately data is simply not kept in this way. In the first place, although it is relatively easy to show that a substantial number of U.S. residents have lost jobs, or have lost time at work, or are working at lower wages than they would have been without the commuters, it is awfully difficult to cite a hard number for the people involved, or the amount of governmental assistance which has resulted.

Second, throughout most of the border-that part east of San Diego-Federal and State assistance programs are usually administered by local officials in the most miserly way imaginable. And the very structure of these programs are loaded against the working poor on our side of the border. In Arizona, unless things have changed recently, one had to have lived in the State for more than 25 years in order to receive assistance for the aging; in Texas, one had to be a citizen in order to receive welfare; in none of the border States are farmworkers eligible for unemployment insurance; in many areas, farmworkers rarely benefit from the social security system, and so it

goes.

The additional costs to the Nation, because of the daily influx of the commuters, can be best visualized in terms of human misery, rather than in terms of additional State and Federal sums spent to correct that misery.

Mr. FEIGHAN. On behalf of the Subcommittee, Mr. North, I want to express our appreciation for your very helpful testimony and contribution to our hearings.

Mr. NORTH. Thank you for having me, sir.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Our next witness will be Father Joseph A. Cogo, executive secretary of the American Committee for Italian Migration. We are all familiar with Father Cogo's great interest in immigration problems and the organization which he represents, and on behalf of the subcommittee, Father Cogo, I want to extend to you a very warm and cordial welcome.

STATEMENT OF REV. JOSEPH A. COGO, C.S., EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ITALIAN MIGRATION

Father Coco. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. RODINO. Mr. Chairman, may I state at this time I am pleased to see Father Cogo here. We have discussed on many occasions with Father Cogo his intense interest and the interest of the organization that he is part of, their concern for immigration, and since it is a quarter of 12, I am hopeful that the chairman will reschedule Father Cogo so that he may come here and make his presentation, and we may have the opportunity to question him as well.

Mr. FEIGHAN. We will begin now, and then see how we get along. We certainly all want to have the benefit of Father Cogo's vast knowledge and experience in this field of immigration.

Father Coco. It is my privilege to appear before you in behalf of the American Committee on Italian Migration-which is a nonprofit, voluntary agency whose primary purpose is the implementation of a fair immigration policy with a specific interest in the resettlement of and assistance to Italian immigrants both prior to and after their arrival in the United States.

The passage of the Immigration Reform Act of October 3, 1965, marked a milestone in the history of our immigration legislation. It abolished the discriminatory national origins quota system and established a fair and equitable immigration policy. The present law reaffirmed and sanctioned our traditions in favoring family reunion; but provided as well for the admission of professionals and skilled workers in the interests of the national economy, and set aside a permanent number of visas to be used for the relief of refugee problems.

We believe these criteria are sound, humane, and fair. It is obvious there is a definite preference shown for the categories of immigrants who come to join their families here. Such preference is more than justified as it seeks to fulfill a basic human interest and need. Furthermore, it is a recognized fact that family patterned immigration tends to minimize the difficulties of resettlement and facilitates a prompt assimilation of newcomers into the American way of life.

The experience of our agency confirms this contention. Italian immigration to this country has been, and is, based mostly on family relationships. As far as resettlement is concerned, no problem has been experienced, and even in these last 4 years when Italian immigrants are reaching our shores in numbers of about 24,000 yearly, their resettlement has been a smooth one. Their relatives here take care of preparing lodging and assuring jobs even prior to the immigrants' arrival. It is for this reason that Italian immigrants are rarely found on welfare lists. Furthermore, sociologists have demonstrated that, of the various ethnic immigrant groups, Italians are among the fastest to be assimilated into the American lifestream.

It is our considered opinion, therefore, that the present U.S. immigration policy which favors the admission of relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent aliens is sound and should be continued. In line with this thinking, we suggest a further amendment to the present law to include in the preferences for relatives also the parents of permanent resident aliens. The relationship of parent and son or daughter is not diminished by lack of citizenship of the alien resident. It appears unnecessarily harsh to postpone for several years the reunion of an alien's closest family members.

Among the immigration bills being considered are proposals calling for an overhaul of the preference system which in our opinion would give less emphasis to the reunion of family members and more to "new seed" immigrants. Some, in fact, would completely eliminate married brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens from the preferences. The rationale for such a change is that the present system would undoubtedly perpetuate a situation of continuing backlogs, because it is argued, the demand for fifth preference visas far exceeds the supply available. Statistics would seem to contradict such an argument. The only countries with a notable problem in the family preference categories at the present time-barely 21⁄2 years since the law became fully effective-are Italy and the Philippines.

In the case of Italy, the existing backlog in the fifth preference is not created by a continuing heavy annual demand for visas, but was accumulated during the years of the 1952 act. It will be recalled that under that law, Italy was granted the quota of 5,666 which was amply preempted by the higher preferences, leaving no numbers available for brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens.