Savings Plans Called Safe Bet for Migrants : Crime: A legal assistance group is urging workers to trust their money to banks rather than lose it to robbers.

Vicente Morales died angry. A bullet pierced his chest less than two weeks ago during an armed robbery of six North County migrant laborers.

Detectives say a man and woman surprised the group inside a darkened barn in rural Valley Center. As two fellow workers nervously emptied their pockets, the 35-year-old Mexican native got mad. He took one small, fateful step toward the robbers.

The man opened fire. Morales died almost instantly as the thieves sped off into the night with their take: $90.

Less than 35 miles away in a small Oceanside office, Claudia Smith has grown weary of such violence--the robberies, stabbings and the deaths--that authorities say are on the increase in isolated migrant camps across the North County.

And she knows why the crimes are happening.

An attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance, or CRLA, a migrants rights group, Smith and her small staff have visited countless local laborer camps. She’s seen the way many workers spirit away their hard-earned pay--stashed in mattresses, sewn into the lining of clothes or buried in spider holes.

On Saturday, Smith escorted a handful of workers on a mission she hopes others will follow, one that might spread the word to would-be thieves that migrant camps aren’t going to be such lucrative territory from now on:

They opened savings accounts.

With the cooperation of two local banks, Smith has embarked on a program to persuade the county’s estimated 12,000 migrant laborers that there are much safer ways to keep their cash than stuffed in their pants pockets.

“A lot of our clients have told us about being robbed, ambushed by people who seem to know when they get paid,” Smith said. “And there were all those people who lost their savings when their camp burned to the ground last year in Rancho Penasquitos. We figured something had to be done.”

The banking campaign is being waged on two fronts, Smith said. She wants to clear up the confusion many laborers have about how banks operate--as well as persuade North County bank branches that migrants are loyal customers whose business is worth recruiting.

“Most of these workers don’t trust banks because they’ve never dealt with them,” she said. “Many are from deep in the heart of Mexico, from little villages where people pay cash, where they have their money in hand.”

CRLA community worker Gloria Soto added: “And many smaller banks in North County don’t have bilingual tellers. Many haven’t felt that the migrant dollar was worth the effort. That’s the attitude we’re trying to change.”

With the help of a $15,000 grant from the Bank of America Consumer Education Fund, CRLA workers have distributed 3,000 comic books throughout Oceanside, Carlsbad and Encinitas, using humorous cartoon characters such as Chucho the thinking dog to spread their banking message: “It’s preferable to prevent than to lament.”

Public service announcements also have been broadcast on two Spanish-language North County radio stations. And a local theater group has performed skits before several migrant audiences to drive the point home.

In each case, in the lively slang used by most migrants, the characters tell how robberies have stripped them of the necessary cash to return home to see their families or send them gifts.

The spots also stress the requirements most banks have for opening accounts--such as valid identification and, often, a post office box or permanent address.

Smith said North County’s migrant population is unique because most live in isolated encampments--and are considered homeless by most bankers--instead of living in apartments like workers in other parts of the state.

CRLA workers have gone to camps to answer the questions laborers have about placing their savings into the hands of others. The hope, Smith says, is that respected migrant leaders will take the initiative and that, in time, the rest will follow suit.

But, for many workers, questions remain. Although most are amused by Chucho the talking dog’s remarks in the comic book, they nonetheless have concerns over how they could reach their savings on nights or weekends. And just who gets their money if they’re ever killed?

“A few were afraid that they were going to be sent off to war and that the bank would keep their money,” Smith said.

“So, before we talked about banking, we had to convince them that a whole battalion of North County migrant workers wasn’t going to be sent off to Iraq as a secret weapon against Saddam Hussein.”

Smith’s campaign has gone beyond migrant campfires--to the board rooms of area banks as well.

CRLA has sent letters to eight North County bank branches near large migrant encampments to explain the need for providing Spanish-speaking employees who can communicate with the functionally illiterate.

So far, three local branches of Union Bank and Bank of America have agreed to take part in the program to encourage migrant customers by such methods as providing passbooks and reducing the initial deposit needed to open an account from $100 to $25. They also have agreed to accept post-office boxes as an address.

Smith hopes other banks will show compassion for workers who might want to use their services but don’t understand how they work.

“Not surprisingly,” her letter says, “opening a new account is the most daunting barrier our clients encounter.”

In the past, she said, several local bank branches have refused to cash migrants’ checks--sometimes even those drawn on the bank itself.

“A big problem was communication,” Smith said. “Or the worker didn’t have a street address. Or the teller wasn’t familiar with the resident alien card the worker was using for identification.

“She may look at him and say ‘How did this man get this much money?’ I had to put some workers in the car and take them down there to work it out. Sometimes, I had to give the bank my address to get the check cashed.”

Jim Bliesner, reinvestment director for a city-county task force that recently examined area banking practices, said many banks have simply chosen to ignore the migrant customer.

“They haven’t provided a service to that segment of the population in the same way they have to others,” he said. “The banks have been inadequate. But migrants also need some education about the services available. It’s a two-way street.”

Michael Petermann, a district administrator for Bank of America, said local branch managers have always been aware of the unique circumstances of the migrant customer.

“But there hasn’t been attention focused on the issue from high-level management,” he said. “Some people in the industry probably have concluded that the migrant dollar wasn’t worth the effort.

“But our banks are doing what they can to serve their areas, even if it is a small market niche. The way we look at it, it’s not only the moral thing to do, it’s good business.”

Support for the banking program has come from law enforcement as well.

While statistics are hard to come by, authorities say that violent crimes against migrant workers are on the rise in the county. Opportunists have often raided isolated migrant camps after paydays and made off with huge hauls.

Savings accounts for migrants might discourage such crimes, authorities say.

“They’re the perfect victims,” Lt. Bill Flores, commander of the San Diego County Sheriff Department’s Fallbrook substation, said of the migrant workers. “They set up camps in the middle of nowhere with no access to telephones. They’re in areas where it’s hard for patrol cars to reach.

“Many robbers know when they get paid. They raid the camps--it’s just been too easy for them. But we don’t hear about most of these crimes because the workers don’t report them due to the language barrier and concern over their immigration status.

“I’m in support of any program that would take the attention away from these people as easy marks.”

For Smith and her staff, however, the going has not been easy. They have been forced to return several times to some encampments to reason with skittish workers.

Many workers are more concerned with trips home for the holidays than opening accounts. But Smith hopes that many will return with a new plan for protecting their savings.

“We’re not kidding ourselves,” she said. “It’s a long-term project to change the way people think--and to wait for the message to spread by word of mouth. We just never dreamed we’d have to make so many visits to the camps.

“But we’re getting the workers to mull it over. And that’s a first step.”

In time, Smith hopes that banks countywide will take part in her program. “We want to make the point with them that these people are worth their time. They’re very loyal customers. I see it as a real opportunity for the banks.”

And possibly someday, she says, North County migrant workers will be served by their own credit union.

“For now it’s only whimsy, but we’d like to have things like bus transportation to credit union offices. And maybe loans for small businesses migrant workers might decide to launch and money we could offer if emergencies occur back home.

“It’d be a way for these workers to feel that they, too, had a piece of the rock.”