Ventura County Becoming Home for Many New Legal Immigrants : Influx: Advocates say many of the residents are caught in a backlash of sentiment against the foreign-born.

Pushed by poverty and joblessness, Javier Reyes fled his native Michoacan seven years ago in pursuit of cold hard cash.

It was an act of desperation, an illegal exodus across a porous border separating his impoverished Mexican homeland from the land of opportunity. It was the gamble of a lifetime and it paid off.

Reyes earns $7.50 an hour working for an Oxnard flower grower. Through his employer, he became a legal resident under an immigration program that has legalized more than 1 million agricultural workers nationwide.

Reyes’ wife, Oralia, and his brothers have joined him in the United States. Pooling their earnings, nine family members can afford to rent a home in Oxnard’s Lemonwood neighborhood.

“We come here for a better life, to earn more money,” said the 25-year-old laborer who came from a rural village where the workers were many but the jobs few.

“This is now my home, my country, and I intend to stay.”

Ventura County is home to thousands of new, legal immigrants such as Reyes each year. A total of 3,549 new arrivals settled in the county during fiscal year 1992.

Ventura County’s draw for new immigrants is the same as for newcomers of all ethnic groups--low crime, good schools and more job opportunities.

An increasing number of Korean immigrants, for example, are relocating businesses to the county from inner-city Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Hundreds of foreign-born Chinese professionals have settled in east Ventura County.

Mexicans by far are the largest immigrant group in the county, followed by Filipinos.

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But more and more, in Ventura County and elsewhere, legal immigration is coming under fire. Immigrant advocates contend that newcomers are experiencing a backlash from a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment currently sweeping the state.

“The debate has become so vitriolic that we are all at risk,” said Claudia Smith, regional counsel for California Rural Legal Assistance, which provides free legal help to Ventura County farm workers. “Documented, undocumented or citizen, people aren’t making those distinctions anymore.”

A majority of Californians say the flow of legal immigrants to the United States should be slowed, according to a recent Los Angeles Times Poll.

And 43% say they are not bothered by the possibility that a crackdown on illegal immigration could result in a backlash against all immigrants, regardless of legal status.

While the illegal immigration debate continues to capture headlines, there has been a more subtle push in recent months to reduce the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country each year.

“I myself believe we are quickly becoming overpopulated,” said Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), whose district represents most of Thousand Oaks. Beilenson supports in concept legislation introduced earlier this year to lower the number of immigrants allowed into the country each year.

“It has to do with the numbers of people we can provide for adequately,” he said. “Immigration should be cut back to some manageable number.”

Historically, Ventura County has absorbed fewer legal immigrants than most counties throughout the state.

Just 17% of Ventura County residents are foreign-born, compared to the statewide figure of 22%, according to the 1990 Census. And only about one-quarter of the county’s 670,000 residents speak a language other than English in their homes, compared to a statewide figure of 32%.

But immigration to Ventura County has been on the rise in recent years.

In fact, of the state’s counties that received more than 1,000 new legal immigrants last year, only Orange County experienced a greater percentage increase from fiscal year 1991 to fiscal year 1992 than Ventura County.

Most of that change was due to immigrants coming from Mexico to Ventura County as part of the family reunification provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. That law has legalized more than 3 million immigrants nationwide.

There are immigrants from other nations as well. Asia contributed 1,154 new immigrants to Ventura County in fiscal year 1992, including 445 from the Philippines and 75 from China.

Thousand Oaks real estate agent Unis Yao first came to the United States from Hong Kong as a student in the early 1960s. She married, traveled and eventually moved to Thousand Oaks in 1975.

“At the time, it was so small nobody knew where it was,” Yao said.

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Yao was at the forefront of an influx of Chinese professionals who came to the United States as students. While early Chinese immigrants to Ventura County were primarily farmers and merchants, the newcomers are from industrial cities in China.

Yao said she chose to settle in east Ventura County for the same reason thousands of others do.

“I think most people move to the Conejo Valley because it is a very safe and nice area,” she said. “We are no different.”

Born in the Philippines, Camarillo resident Bea Gan came to the United States under a program that imported foreigners in response to a critical shortage of registered nurses.

Gan, who is one of at least 500 Filipino nurses working in Ventura County, heads the Filipino Nurses Assn. of Ventura County.

After graduating from the University of the Philippines school of nursing in 1967, a Philadelphia hospital arranged for Gan and her husband to emigrate. She became a naturalized citizen about six years ago.

“That was not a reflection that we are forgetting we are Filipinos,” said Gan, a nurse at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard. “We should enjoy what other American citizens are enjoying. That is just practical.”

Gan said she is concerned about the anti-immigrant mood that seems to be gripping the county and state.

“These new immigrants are the people who will be paying taxes and contributing to our Social Security,” Gan said. “Immigration is how this nation got started.”

Nevertheless, there has been a quiet push in recent months to overhaul U.S. immigration policy.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has written a bill--the Immigration Stabilization Act of 1993--which would reduce to 300,000 the number of permanent residents admitted into the country each year. Last year, more than 900,000 immigrants were granted permanent residency.

“No other country is as generous as this one when it comes to immigration policy,” Reid said in an interview. “We are not going to solve the problem unless we are honest with ourselves. We can’t afford to absorb 1 million new immigrants each year.”

But while Reid and others attempt to curb legal immigration, immigrant advocate Armando Garcia argued that the federal government should allocate more visas to reduce a backlog of immigrants petitioning for residency.

Alarmed by proposals to crack down on illegal immigrants, Garcia formed the Coalition for Immigrants’ Rights to help battle anti-immigrant sentiment and to help immigrants become legal residents.

“There is no need to stop immigration. Our immigration laws are quite all right,” said Garcia, who is himself a Mexican immigrant. “I think it is clear that the debate isn’t just about illegal immigration. It’s about immigration, period.”

On the issue of legal immigration, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) agrees.

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Gallegly, head of the Republican Task Force on Illegal Immigration, said he does not support efforts to curb legal immigration.

“It is because of my support for legal immigration that I oppose illegal immigration so vehemently,” Gallegly said. “I’ve always said that the greatest threat to closing the front door is to have the back door ajar. Our back door isn’t just ajar, it’s off its hinges.”

Gallegly, whose district includes most of Ventura County, has introduced a myriad of immigration-related bills and has proposed a constitutional amendment that would deny citizenship to children born to mothers who are in the United States illegally.

“I think it is very important that we keep legal immigration separated from illegal immigration,” Gallegly said. “I think it is important that we continue to support the very thing that has made this great nation and that is the reason that I continue to support legal immigration.”

Legal Immigration to Ventura County

A total of 3,549 legal immigrants came from foreign countries to Ventura County in fiscal year 1992, a 46% increase over 1991. Most of the immigrants came from Mexico as part of the family reunification provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

AREA OF BIRTH: Asia: 1,154 North America: 2,005 Europe: 241 South America: 76 Africa: 45 Oceania: 28

TOP COUNTIES OF ORIGIN: Mexico: 1,827 Philippines: 445 Vietnam: 167 India: 108 United Kingdom: 106 China: 75 El Salvador: 64

OCCUPATIONS OF NEW ARRIVALS TO VENTURA COUNTY Under the Legal Working Age: 1,367 Homemakers: 510 Factory Workers: 357 Executive, Managerial, Professional: 287 Technical, Sales, Administrative: 146 Farming, Forestry, Fishing: 123 Source: Immigration and Naturalization Service