New York Times
May 30, 2005

A Battle Against Illegal Workers, With an Unlikely Driving Force By TIMOTHY EGAN

CALDWELL, Idaho - To hear people who call into Idaho's leading conservative talk radio station, Robert Vasquez is a hero: one of the few politicians to tell it straight.

Mr. Vasquez, 55, a Republican county commissioner and Mexican-American in a region where Latinos are ascendant, has been on a crusade against illegal immigration, what he calls "an imminent invasion" from south of the border.

Mr. Vasquez has tried to have Canyon County declared a disaster area because of the strain from illegal immigrants. He has also sent a bill to the Mexican government for more than $2 million; that is the cost, he said, of Mexicans who are in the county illegally.

Mr. Vasquez says the newcomers overwhelm public services, bring gang violence and drugs, spread diseases like tuberculosis and insist on rights that should not be granted to noncitizens.

His latest salvo, a plan to sue employers who hire illegal immigrants, has angered the solidly Republican business community and many of the senior political leaders in this heavily Republican state. The plan would make Canyon County the only local government in the country to use federal racketeering statutes against people who employ illegal immigrants, said Howard Foster, a Chicago lawyer advising the county.

As a result, Mr. Vasquez has forced a sharp fight on an issue that poses difficulties for Republicans, pitting people and business owners who rely on illegal immigrants for labor against people who see them as a threat to jobs and security.

The struggle here is contained to Canyon County, west of Boise with a population of 151,000. But it is part of a broader clash taking place across the country in the Republican Party; President Bush is pushing a guest worker program for illegal immigrants, while other Republicans are supporting private efforts to patrol the border and calling for additional muscle to seal it off.

Mr. Vasquez says it is a fight the party needs to have. "Some people say I'm a racist, that I'm a traitor to my heritage," he said. "There is nothing racial about this. The only color involved is green - for money."

Such talk has brought many people to the commissioner's side. "We talk a lot about Mr. Vasquez on the air, and most of our listeners are on his side," said Paul Schneider, a morning host of KBOI News Talk, Idaho's leading talk radio station. "But he's a real thorn in the side of the mainstream business Republicans."

With both parties trying to court Hispanic voters, politicians who have jumped into the immigration debate, like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, have found the issue to be perilous. Mr. Schwarzenegger was criticized by many Latinos after he praised a group of citizens patrolling the border.

Many farmers and construction contractors here say they could not survive without the pool of workers from Mexico. They have lined up behind a proposal by the state's senior senator, Larry E. Craig, a Republican, to allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country under certain conditions, a variation of a similar plan offered by President Bush.

While promoting his bill this year, Mr. Craig said that 72 percent to 78 percent of the agricultural work force was here illegally and that without these workers "we could literally collapse American agriculture."

Farmers and contractors also accuse Mr. Vasquez of painting an overly harsh picture of Mexican workers.

"If he wasn't a Mexican-American himself, he would be labeled a racist and no one would listen to him," said Keith Esplin, executive director of the Potato Growers of Idaho. "He's attacking good people, good workers. You've got to have that population, because they're doing the jobs that no one else wants."

In response, Mr. Vasquez says the wing of the Republican Party represented by Mr. Craig has sold out on the immigration issue to business interests. Mr. Vasquez is exploring a run for governor or Congress next year, with this issue as his central theme.

Whether Mr. Vasquez can make headway in a statewide election is an open question. Many of the agricultural interests are big Republican donors, and Mr. Vasquez said he was likely to have trouble raising money from them. He is also likely to face stiff resistance from the Latino community, which is small but fast growing.

In Canyon County, for example, nearly one in five residents is Hispanic, census figures show. Statewide, Latinos make up 8 percent of the population, but they represented only about 4 percent of the voters in last year's election.

Leaders in both parties have generally shied away from calling for strong measures against illegal immigrants, fearing a backlash. Whether the political dynamic would change with a Latino leading the way would be one of the things that a statewide run for office by Mr. Vasquez would test.

"Mr. Vasquez does have populist support," said Garry Lough, executive director of the Idaho Republican Party. "But I have to believe that this issue is going to go against him among Hispanics."

To stroll around Canyon County, which grew by 45 percent from 1990 to 2000, is to see the transformation that is taking place throughout the West. The business district in Caldwell has been revitalized by bakeries, clothing stores and restaurants owned by relatively recent arrivals from Mexico.

But Mr. Vasquez points to figures that he says show how much of a drain those arrivals can be on public services; for example, according to crime statistics for April, about one in eight people arrested in the county was from Mexico.

"If I were governor, I would close the borders of Idaho and mobilize the National Guard to secure checkpoints against all illegal aliens," he said in an interview.

Latinos dominate the crews putting up drywall in big new houses; they mow, weed and water the half-acre lawns; they work the fields and dairy farms; and they staff many fast food outlets.

"We know we can't get workers any other way," said Ann Bates, executive director of the Idaho Nursery and Landscape Association.

Last year, Mr. Vasquez persuaded Idaho counties to pass a state resolution requiring people to be citizens of the United States before applying for indigent medical care.

At the same time, Mr. Vasquez has attacked Senator Craig, accusing him of "conspiring through legislation with the enemy" with his bill that would grant conditional amnesty to Latino workers.

Dan Whiting, a spokesman for Senator Craig, said: "The question is what does Mr. Vasquez want to do with the 10 to 12 million people who are here illegally now? What we're trying to do is offer a workable solution."

In March, at Mr. Vasquez's request, Canyon County asked Mr. Foster, who specializes in civil racketeering cases, if it would be possible to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to sue businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

Mr. Foster has sued companies like Tyson Foods, accusing them of hiring illegal immigrants as part of a plan to depress wages.

"I think it's imperative that we go after employers," Mr. Vasquez said. "If you removed the illegal aliens, these industries wouldn't collapse, but their profit margins would probably be reduced."

Opinions in Canyon County are mixed on what would happen if the illegal labor pool were cut.

A longtime drywall installer, Lonnie Apperson, 67, said he had not lost any work to competition from illegal immigrants.

"There's a lot of work everywhere right now with this housing market," said Mr. Apperson, who lives in the Caldwell area. "A good drywall man can find work anywhere, anytime."

Mr. Apperson said the going rate for drywall subcontracting has held steady, but he feared that if illegal immigration increased too much, it could start to drive wages down.

"My relatives in Arkansas said the Mexicans down there have pretty much driven everyone else out of business," Mr. Apperson said.

A roofer, Ken Parise, said he moved from Portland, Ore., to Idaho because there was so much work here. He said illegal workers had not hurt his business.

"I just don't think it's that big of a problem," Mr. Parise said.

But Mr. Vasquez has made it his top issue since becoming in 2003 one of three commissioners who govern this county, after spending years working on behalf of veterans rights groups.

Born in El Paso as the grandson of a Mexican immigrant, Mr. Vasquez joined the Army at 17, he said, and was wounded during a tour of duty in Vietnam. He earned two Purple Hearts and became active among groups for disabled veterans. He has lived in Caldwell for 27 years.

"The people I speak for are the working people," he said.

But others here say Mr. Vasquez speaks for no one but himself.

"He's an opportunist," said Corrine Tafoya-Fisher, the leader of a group that took out newspaper advertisements, with community leaders, opposing Mr. Vasquez.

"What he's done is cause a lot of divisions within this community," she said. "If you're brown, you're targeted. But the Latino community is united against him."

Mr. Vasquez bristles at criticism from other Mexican-Americans. But as an old soldier, he said he feared only the hits that he could not see coming.

"With incoming fire, the one that gets you is the one you never hear," he said.