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April 10, 2006 issue - Irma Palacios carries a faint remnant of her days as an undocumented fruit picker: a scar on her right wrist left by the acidic secretion of citrus trees. It serves as a reminder of how far she's come, from a frightened, forlorn little girl who crossed the border from Mexico nearly 20 years ago to a college-educated, hard-charging political organizer. As the Miami-based national field director for Mi Familia Vota—a Hispanic civic-engagement program of People for the American Way—she jets around the country, from Phoenix to Philadelphia, setting up grass-roots operations to register and empower Latino voters. She often jokes that she traded one kind of field work for another. Now she's working on a new project: an April 10 rally in Miami that will be part of a National Day of Action to protest seemingly rising anti-immigrant sentiment and to call for comprehensive immigration reform. "This is a historic moment," says Palacios, 29, "a time to mobilize an entire nation."

Among the people whose cause she's championing: her undocumented brother-in-law Raymundo, who requested that his last name be withheld to avoid problems with authorities. While the immigration issue has galvanized Palacios, it has driven Raymundo deeper into hiding. He's more worried than ever about being deported—so much so that the skin under his chin sometimes breaks out in hives. When rumors circulate of immigration raids in Homestead, Fla., where he lives, he refuses to leave the house. At his handyman job in the Florida Keys, he monitors the radio constantly for reports of Cuban refugees washing up onshore, knowing the highways will soon be crawling with law enforcement. He's panicked about what to do when his driver's license expires; new rules require that he show proof of legal residency to renew it. "I try not to think about it all," says Raymundo, 28. But the feeling of vulnerability gnaws at him.

Raymundo's fear and Palacios's defiance show how diverse the immigrant experience can be—even within one family. The immigration debate is usually framed as though there were a clear demarcation between legal residents and illegal aliens who live "in the shadows." But reality is far messier. Palacios's clan—six siblings and their spouses and kids—includes Americans by birth, naturalized citizens, permanent residents and undocumented immigrants. Such "mixed status" families are no aberration. According to a recent Pew Hispanic Center study, 64 percent of the children of illegals are U.S.-born. Factor in those who hold one of countless temporary work visas, and the shades of gray multiply even more.

All that mixture under one roof may help explain the fury over immigration reform that has spilled into the streets in recent days. Many Hispanics who long ago became legal—or who always were—still identify with the undocumented and feel intimately connected to them. Even those who don't share such sympathies—like the 28 percent of U.S.-born Latinos who consider illegals a burden on the country, according to the Pew Hispanic Center—are likely to become protective if they believe that immigrants are being demonized. So when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in December that would make illegals subject to criminal prosecution, it ignited a firestorm that has been steadily spreading.

In the past two weeks, Latino marches protesting the House bill have drawn 500,000 people in Los Angeles, 300,000 in Chicago and tens of thousands more in cities like Phoenix and Denver. Students joined the action as well, staging walkouts and waving signs declaring, WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS. In San Diego County, administrators canceled classes last week after hundreds of Hispanic kids at one high school confronted police wearing riot gear. A backlash has been brewing as well. When a Houston high-school principal hoisted a Mexican flag on campus to show support for his largely Latino student body, some city residents fumed until it was removed. On right-wing radio, rants against illegal aliens have included calls to use the New Orleans Superdome to house millions of Hispanics before shipping them back to where they came from.

With that tempest churning at home, President George W. Bush flew to Cancún last week to discuss immigration with Mexican President Vicente Fox. It seemed like a prime opportunity for Bush to inject himself into the debate and to promote his signature guest-worker plan, which would allow illegal laborers to fill certain jobs for up to six years. But given his abysmal approval ratings, he doesn't have much political capital to spend. He acted more like a carefree vacationer in Cancún, sightseeing at Mayan ruins and joshing with journalists. In private talks with Fox, Bush confided that he was little more than a bystander to the maneuvering in Congress, according to a senior administration official who requested anonymity citing White House policy. Since urging lawmakers to engage in a "civil" debate two weeks ago, Bush has mostly lain low, telling reporters only that he was "optimistic" about a "comprehensive bill." Administration officials say the president is saving his firepower for when the House and Senate try to negotiate a compromise.

This week the Senate will consider two competing measures. One, which was passed by the Judiciary Committee and is praised by immigrant-advocacy groups, is based on a bill authored by Sen. John McCain and Sen. Ted Kennedy. It would legalize the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, open the way for 400,000 temporary "essential" workers per year and beef up border security. Critics brand the legalization provision "amnesty"—a policy that legalized more than 3 million undocumented people in 1986, and is believed to have triggered a fresh surge of Latin American immigration to the United States. Supporters counter that illegals would have to pass through numerous hoops: pay $2,000 fines, learn English, undergo a background check, wait six years to apply for a green card and then head to the back of the citizenship line. "That's earned status, not amnesty," says Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. A competing measure, offered by Sen. Bill Frist, focuses on border security, along the lines of the House bill.

The immigration debate has divided the GOP. While the business wing of the party clamors for a guest-worker program that will provide a steady supply of labor, social conservatives demand a crackdown on lawbreaking immigrants. The public appears just as split. According to a Pew poll, 53 percent of respondents say that people in the country illegally should be sent home, while 40 percent believe they should be granted some form of legal status. Another issue troubling Republicans: if they end up passing a law that alienates Hispanics, they risk squandering hard-fought gains among a constituency that's key to the party's future viability. But as political analyst Norm Ornstein reads the Republicans' thinking, concerns about "long-term dominance in presidential politics" may take a back seat—for now at least—to "short-term worry about alienating the populist, conservative, nativist base."

It would not be the first time in American history that nativist sentiment prevailed. When waves of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe arrived at the turn of the 20th century, doomsayers argued that the foreigners would never assimilate into Anglo culture. The result: a 1924 law establishing a quota system that sought to limit entry. More recently, the massive immigrant influx of the 1990s provoked a backlash personified by California Gov. Pete Wilson, who tried to deny education and health services to illegal aliens. Though that wave of both legal and illegal immigration has tapered a bit, the proportion of the undocumented has ballooned. According to studies by the Pew Hispanic Center, the illegal population living in the United States has grown from 5 million in 1996 to as many as 12 million today. Of the total, 78 percent came from Mexico and the rest of Latin America—the vast majority of whom were fleeing poverty.

That was certainly true of Irma Palacios's mother, María Hernández. Abandoned by her husband and left to raise six kids on her own in Reynosa, Mexico, Hernández struggled to make ends meet. So she set off alone one day in 1986 and illegally crossed the Rio Grande into Texas. The kids stayed behind, with the eldest caring for the little ones. When Hernández arrived in Homestead, Fla., where she had friends, she immediately got to work, picking tomatoes, squash and limes. After settling down and scraping together some savings, she began an arduous two-year process of bringing each of her children across the border. She secured false birth certificates for some, and arranged "coyotes"—guides who help migrants cross over—for others. Palacios made it across easily—fast asleep in the back seat of a car. Her brother Jorge, though, suffered a harrowing journey in which he nearly drowned, and was then caught and deported once he arrived in Texas (he succeeded on a second try). Eventually, all the kids joined their mother.

Soon thereafter, Hernández took advantage of the 1986 amnesty law. That allowed her to adjust the status of the three oldest siblings. But because of a paperwork error, Palacios and two of her sisters remained illegal. The results were heartbreaking for the family. Opportunities available to some of the kids were forbidden to others. Palacios vividly recalls one day when she and her sister Luz were preparing for work. Luz, who had a green card and could take legal jobs, slipped into a business suit to head to an air-conditioned office where she worked as a receptionist. Palacios, on the other hand, donned her flannel shirt and jeans to go toil in a sweltering vegetable-packing plant. Another sister, Sandra, who was also illegal, recalls with frustration how she couldn't qualify for financial aid at a community college. "I felt like I was handicapped," she says. "I had a lot of potential to be whatever I wanted to be, and I just couldn't."

In 1995, though, the younger sisters became legal with the help of an immigration attorney. Palacios remembers the giddiness at discovering her newfound freedom. That December, she told her mother that she needed to earn money to buy Christmas presents. When her mother suggested calling up the packing plant, Palacios agreed—then instantly caught herself. "Wait a minute," she said. "I have my papers. I can go work at Publix [supermarket]!" She put her legal status to good use, leveraging her 4.2 high-school GPA (11th out of a class of 500) into admission to Florida State University, where she got a bachelor's degree in Spanish in 1999. For her part, Sandra, now 32, has worked two jobs, 70 hours per week, over the last nine years to finance her education at Florida International University, where she'll earn her degree in public administration in December. Both are now applying for citizenship.

So, too, is the youngest sister, Isela, 26, who's married to Raymundo, the illegal immigrant. She's hoping that as a citizen, she'll be able to legalize his status. But the process is by no means automatic, and it's often arduous. Meanwhile, the family agonizes over his status. "He's going to get stopped sooner or later," says Isela, who shudders at the thought of his being wrested away from their daughter, Adriana. Over dinner one night last week, Palacios pointed to Raymundo's shaved head. "You look like a gang member," she said, concerned that he'd be a target of stepped-up gang sweeps by authorities. "Don't worry," he replied, assuring her that he wears his work cap whenever he goes out. Such is the wariness—bordering on paranoia—that illegal status breeds. The climate of fear "kills you psychologically," said Jorge, 37, the older brother, who recalls the feeling well.

Not all Latinos feel his pain. Past Pew Hispanic Center studies have shown that sizable minorities of Hispanics believe illegal immigrants hurt the economy by driving down wages and that migrant flows should either remain the same or be reduced. In states like Arizona, significant numbers of Latinos have backed measures that curbed illegals' access to social services. But now, some of the more ambivalent Latinos may be rallying behind the undocumented in the face of what they consider excessive—and possibly racist—immigrant-bashing. A more recent poll of legal immigrants by Bendixen & Associates found that 76 percent of Latin American respondents believed that anti-immigrant sentiment was growing and 62 percent said it affected them and their families.

That noxious atmosphere has galvanized many Latinos. Until recently, the Cervantes family in Los Angeles had no time to follow national politics. But news reports on Spanish-language media about the House bill caught their attention a few weeks ago. "I had no idea about any of this," says Edwin, 16, who was born in the United States but whose Mexican father is still undocumented. Edwin learned the specifics of the proposed legislation while sitting in history class one day. With the school on lockdown because of the threat of a student walkout, the teacher turned on the news. What Edwin heard terrified him. "If [the law] passes and we got caught, then my mom could get arrested, too," he says. "Then we'd all have to move with them to Mexico." Edwin and his friends began text-messaging peers in other classes, proposing a walkout. At noon, he joined hundreds of students to march in the streets.

Palacios's family has been energized as well. Isela, Raymundo's wife, plans to join the April 10 demonstration that Palacios is planning. And Sandra, the Florida International University student, is plotting her own immigration rally and teach-in on campus. "Our family taught us to fight—luchar—for those who can't," says Palacios. She thinks her mother, who died four years ago, would be proud of what she and her siblings have accomplished: not just owning homes and developing careers, but offering succor to those striving illegal immigrants who have arrived in their wake. "I still see myself in that group," says Sandra. "I know how they're feeling—the desperation, the anguish." The strivers' best hope may well lie in what Sandra's planning: a campaign to remind America that it has always grown stronger, not weaker, when it opens its arms.

With Holly Bailey, Daren Briscoe, Eleanor Clift, Jennifer Ordoñez, Catharine Skipp and Jamie Reno