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Article: NEW LAW GIVES HOPE TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS SOME COULD BECOME LEGAL WITHOUT LEAVING.(LOCAL)
- Article from:
- The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA)
- Article date:
- March 25, 2001
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 The Virginian Pilot-Ledger Star. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the Dialog Corporation by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: MATTHEW ROY THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
SUFFOLK -- At 16, he said goodbye to his struggling family in Mexico and to the factory where he sometimes labored from dawn to dusk for the equivalent of $25 a week.
He walked across the desert for nine hours in the dead of night, guided around the U.S. Border Patrol by ``coyotes,'' the smugglers he had paid.
For the next seven years, mostly in Hampton Roads communities such as Virginia Beach and Suffolk, he washed dishes, waited tables and tended grounds as a landscaper. He eventually married a U.S. citizen whose parents were from his hometown.
Now 23, he's still looking over his shoulder for ...