Now is not a good time to be an illegal immigrant.

The demand for unskilled labor has shrunk along with the rest of the U.S. economy, and as jobs disappear across the board, undocumented workers are said to be increasingly viewed with suspicion and animosity.

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Illegal immigrants in Longview say they know they aren't always welcome. But they are here, and they say they aren't leaving.

Social services providers arranged for the News-Journal to interview a handful of undocumented workers in Longview. In exchange for candid comments about why they are here and other issues, the News-Journal agreed not to use their real names and conducted interviews away from their homes and jobs.

Before his young wife had even gone away, Arturo Belano was plotting to bring her back.

He sat with her at a kitchen table on a rainy morning in northern Longview. Lupe Belano bounced their daughter, Angelica, on her lap. She wasn't sure when she would see her dark-eyed girl again, but certainly not before her second birthday.

Lupe Belano, 20, was to be deported the following morning, and American-born Angelica was the reason her mother was leaving. It had been agreed the toddler would stay behind in the care of a family friend.

"She has more opportunity here, and she will learn the language here," said Arturo Belano, 23, who spoke to the News-Journal through a translator.

He said he has been working in Texas illegally since he was 16 years old, and he does not fear deportation.

"Probably they don't even know I exist, unless I do something really bad and the police report me," he said. "I stay here a long time, and I think I like it more here."

On that morning, Lupe Belano wore a tracksuit and had pulled her hair into a tight ponytail. Her husband wore a polo shirt and stylishly frayed jeans. They rent a house in Longview, and he works for a timber operation in the area.

"I'm pretty good on the work," he said. "I don't think Americans want to do it."

Though many jobs in the oilfield and construction industries have dried up in the past year, he said he knows of no one who has given up on finding work and returned to Mexico. He believes the sagging economy and tighter security along the border are discouraging new illegal immigration.

It's no secret some businesses pay lower wages for undocumented workers, he added.

"They know they can because they know you don't want to go to the police. You don't want to start trouble," he said.

He said some people have taken advantage of his illegal status, telling him, " 'Hey, give me money. I will call the police if you don't give me money. I will say you're selling drugs or something.' "

Still, he has no plans to return to Mexico.

The last time he was there, four years ago, he was visiting his hometown of Monterrey when he met Lupe. She was 16.

The U.S. government granted Lupe a 10-year visa, to be renewed annually. She violated the terms of her visa when she gave birth to Angelica.

She hadn't known it till a border patrol agent stopped her in Laredo. Lupe had been on her way home to Longview after spending Christmas with her mother.

"I wanted my mom to see the baby," she said through an interpreter. "I have a visa. I thought I can go and come."

She was wrong. Arturo Belano paid $4,000 to a coyote to smuggle her back into the United States, while family friends brought Angelica.

In the middle of the night, an American drove Lupe across the border to a house in Laredo where she says men carried guns and another woman was raped.

A different American man loaded Lupe and several others into a car. He ordered one of the immigrants, a teenage boy, to drive. They headed north, stopping before each U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint.

"He let us walk around the checkpoints," she said.

When law-enforcement officials pulled over the car, she said the American fled and the immigrants were arrested. Lupe Belano spent five weeks in a detention facility before a friend who is a U.S. citizen signed for her release.

She rejoined her husband and daughter in Longview. Eight months later, federal officials called.

She was to report to an immigration office in Laredo, where she'd be taken by bus across the border and left in Nuevo Laredo. From there, she hoped to ride another bus three hours to Monterrey.

Arturo Belano said he will not risk a visit to his wife in Mexico.

As soon as he can pull together the cash, he will pay another coyote thousands of dollars to smuggle his wife into the country and bring her back to Longview.

"I can't do anything about it," he shrugs. "I will pay again."

'You've got a lot of ghosts'

Juan Garcia Madero and his wife Laura don't look like the American perception of illegal immigrants.

They're fair-skinned. He has reddish hair; hers has blond highlights.

"When I start to speak, they notice I'm not from here, and oh, they don't want it," said Juan Garcia, who learned English as a child in Monterrey, Mexico.

Two years ago, Juan Garcia had been working in a jeans factory in Mexico when he landed a job in Texas. The couple and their children moved to Longview.

"We came legally, with passports and visas — work six months and go back," he said. "I came here for the American dream, make a couple of money and go back to my country.

"But the problem, Mexico had a lot of violence. We were waiting just a while, but I choose to stay here."

The family found a rental house in Longview, he said, and the children adapted quickly to school. Laura Garcia found an indoor job with other immigrants, and Juan Garcia said he held a dirty, dangerous position in the East Texas Oil Patch.

"Everybody was Mexican, because nobody wants that job," he said.

Juan Garcia was among the many workers who have been laid off during the ongoing oilfield downturn. When the jobs dried up, a friend of his returned to Mexico, but Garcia decided not to go back, though he and his family were homesick for their friends and relatives.

He went from business to business till he found work as a mechanic.

"He pays me poquito [very little]," Garcia said. "When I start to work, a white guy started the same day. It's a lot of heat, and he quit. He went to lunch and never came back."

Garcia doesn't have a driver's license. When he broke his wrist, he had to inform his doctor that he didn't have medical insurance.

"Don't worry, you can pay me," he recalls the Longview physician saying.

"I still make payments — $20 a month," he said. "They trusted me, and I don't want to fail, so I go there every month and pay."

He said he doesn't worry about deportation.

"I came here as a legal person. I'm still here. I know it's bad, but I don't do anything bad. They accept my taxes. When I go to Walmart, they accept my money," he said. "I'm not afraid. I don't steal from nobody, I don't kill nobody. I just work. I learn your culture and compare it to mine."

U.S. politicians use the specter of illegal immigration to scare the American people, he said.

"Maybe they're afraid of us because we're a lot of people that want to work here," he said. "They got afraid, and the politicians use this (as a) kind of weapon, because they want to win.

"Sometimes I feel sad about this problem, because I don't know what they want."

Garcia said he has not been the victim of personal animosity because of his status as an illegal immigrant. He wished the plan to grant amnesty to undocumented workers had succeeded.

Until they are legalized, he said, he and other illegal immigrants will continue to live outside of view of the U.S. government.

They might be invisible, but they are not going away.

"You've got a lot of ghosts," he said, "and it's like a cancer because it's growing and growing and growing."

* * *

More poverty, less education for illegal immigrants

- Adult unauthorized immigrants are more likely to be poorly educated. Among unauthorized immigrants ages 25 to 64, 47 percent have less than a high school education. By contrast, only 8 percent of U.S.-born residents ages 25 to 64 have not graduated from high school.

- Among unauthorized immigrants ages 18 to 24 who have graduated from high school, half (49 percent) are in college or have attended college. The comparable figure for U.S.-born residents is 71 percent.

- The 2007 median household income of unauthorized immigrants was $36,000, well below the $50,000 median household income for U.S.-born residents. In contrast to other immigrants, undocumented immigrants do not attain markedly higher incomes the longer they live in the United States.

- A third of the children of unauthorized immigrants and a fifth of adult unauthorized immigrants live in poverty. This is nearly double the poverty rate for children of U.S.-born parents (18 percent) or for U.S.-born adults (10 percent).

- More than half of adult unauthorized immigrants (59 percent) had no health insurance during all of 2007. Among their children, nearly half of those who are unauthorized immigrants (45 percent) were uninsured and 25 percent of those who were born in the U.S. were uninsured.

Source: "A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States," released April 2009 by the Pew Hispanic Center

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Trends in illegal immigration

Amanda K. Baumle is the interim director of the University of Houston Center for Immigration Research and an assistant professor of sociology at the university. She answers e-mailed questions about undocumented immigrants.

How has the state of the economy affected the population of undocumented immigrants?

I think this remains to be seen, but Hispanic individuals in the United States have a very high labor force participation rate — about 92 percent or so of Hispanic men are in the labor force. The undocumented portions of the Hispanic population are people who are motivated to come to the U.S. to look for work, so the poor economic outlook will potentially have a dampening effect, but the degree of that effect remains to be seen.

What is fueling many Americans' frustration with illegal immigration?

Frustration with undocumented immigration is primarily grounded in the notion that these immigrants are co-opting resources — like jobs or social services — of citizens or legal immigrants. The type of reception undocumented immigrants receive in the United States is always affected by economic conditions. During times of economic growth, immigrants have been more welcome, but when we have economic recession we see the development of more restrictive immigration policies and more anti-immigrant sentiment.

Are fewer people entering the country illegally because of border crackdowns?

In terms of border crackdowns, I am unaware of recent data on the manner in which tightening of border controls has or has not affected current immigration. Nestor Rodriguez, who is at the University of Texas, has examined this issue within the past 10 years and found that when border controls are tightened, this does not necessarily stem the flow of migration. Instead, migrants find a new location to cross into the United States and, typically, these crossings are in more dangerous areas. As a result, we often see an increase in deaths of Mexican immigrants due to increased border control.

Does illegal immigration have an impact on immigrants who are here legally?

Past research has suggested that illegal immigration does not seem to have a notable impact on the wages and employment of native-born workers or legal immigrants. When undocumented immigration increases, however, the earnings and job opportunities of other undocumented immigrants do tend to be affected. In other words, oversupply of individuals of similar background, seeking similar types of employment, will affect the employment and wages of that group. Given that legal immigrants tend to differ from undocumented immigrants in terms of education, occupation, and other socioeconomic characteristics, there is less of an effect on these workers.

* * *

Illegal immigrants in workforce

Unauthorized immigrant workers in U.S. civilian labor force:

States with largest share of unauthorized immigrants in the labor force:

Occupations with high shares of unauthorized immigrants:

Source: "A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States," released in April by the Pew Hispanic Center

* * *

Undocumented population

States with largest unauthorized immigrant populations:

Source: April report by Pew Hispanic Center