Immigrant truck drivers seek for opportunities in US

Marcos is a Mexican driver. He has a wife and three little children. He has worked for transportation companies in his country, but the economic situation is difficult, and he can not find a job. Some friends have told him about great opportunities in the United States as a truck driver in New Jersey.

The last year Marcos packed up his things and went to New Jersey. He left his family with the promise of better times. But the dream soon became a nightmare. Being an illegal immigrant worker is a tough situation. Marcos had to sleep in very poor conditions, and he had to almost hide to work. For this reason he didn't have insurances or guarantees. However, he could send money to his family.

But someone discovered the secret of Marcos' job and reported him to he authorities. Now, Marcos is in jail and his family cannot help him or come visit him.

This story is very common these days. Millions of immigrants (especially Latin-Americans) work as domestic servants, construction workers, some others are in the factories, the fruits and vegetables fields, and the truck sector is not the exception.

Last year 560,000 illegal immigrants from Mexico crossed the border with the state of Arizona. These people accept a job under any condition and any salary. This is very tempting for the companies to hire cheap labor with no benefits.

With this landscape, there appears the fear of losing jobs to an immigrant who will work for less. Some people blame the NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement) as the cause of this situation. But this treaty signed in 1993, opened to the industry 412,000 new jobs for the Americans.

The truth is that the economic immigration is the most frequent product of the unequal development of the nations. In the trucking business, the companies and the truck drivers have their own concerns about this topic.

The report of the Teamster Port Division says that immigration could be seen in the ports. According to the Teamster, in Oakland, California, most of the immigrants are East Indian, in Los Angeles, drivers are mostly from Central America and Mexico, and in Miami, Florida, most of the foreign drivers tend to be Cuban.

Immigrant drivers choose this kind of job, because of the few requirements such as the CDL and $4,000 to $10,000 to buy a truck. Also, the difficult conditions of working at the port make it a non-desirable job: there are no health insurance, no pension and no holidays or paid vacation.

Union workers have manifested its opposition to the competition with Mexican trucking companies (President Bush has expressed the need to give more facilities in order to strength the NAFTA). But their position about the immigrant drivers is not clear.

Some states have taken specific policies. This is the case of Tennessee where it has been decided not to give the drivers' licenses to some types of legal immigrants, said the Tennessean newspaper. The new law does not allow that certain legal immigrants get the license. The law obviously closes the opportunity to all the illegal immigrants.

The US law allows for just temporary work for an immigrant, such as international company driver who must cross the border to load on US ground. But the companies are not allowed to hire an undocumented driver; "purely domestic service or solicitation, in competition with the United States operators, is not permitted" says the 8 CFR 214.2 bill.  That is the crude reality that Marcos and others hopeful immigrant face with.