Too broke to buy a ticket home, Valley's immigrant day laborers just hang on (LA Daily News)

[struggle4progress]

By Tony Castro, Staff Writer
Updated: 01/24/2009 10:04:40 PM PST

... They are the discouraged and disillusioned Central American and Mexican day laborers who, in a sign of how hard times are in this economy, find themselves so broke they can't send much, if any, money back to loved ones they haven't seen for years.

"We have lost our reason for being here," laments Jose Perez, 42, a Guatemalan living in the San Fernando Valley who vows he will be back home by next Christmas - and wishes he could leave sooner.

"I would leave today, with just the clothes on my back, if I had the money. It wasn't that long ago that I used to put money aside to send home. Now I'm saving it in hopes that I can go back home."

Perez, who hasn't seen his wife and family in five years, is among the hundreds of day laborers who gather each morning at the same corners in various parts of the Valley, hoping to find work cleaning yards, hauling furniture, painting houses or doing light construction ...

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_11547727

[glowing]

1. There's a mass migration backwards now.

[newfie11]

2. Hey there maybe some Americans going with them.

Looking for work in Mexico and points south.

[Demeter]

3. INS Will Repatriate You