IDs Sold To Illegal Immigrants

Bob Simon Reports On Illegal Immigrants Who Are Buying IDs To Work In America

(CBS)  His show is syndicated nationwide, and every Sunday night, the phone calls pour in from all corners of the country.

"Illegal immigration has been going on for a long time," says Simon. "Why is it such a hot topic now?"

"Because it’s gotten so much worse, so much faster," says Anderson.

And perhaps no state has been affected as much as Arizona. That’s because most illegal immigrants these days cross into America along the Arizona border.

The U.S. Border Patrol says that in 2004, it apprehended 235,000 people trying to cross the border illegally in Cochise County, Ariz. And it’s estimated that for every person who’s caught, four make it across the border. That means that in Cochise County alone, around a million illegal immigrants crossed into the United States last year.

Using high-tech equipment, the border patrol scans the ground day and night. But border patrol agents say they may be fighting a losing battle. The volume is simply overwhelming, and the fence separating Arizona and Mexico is underwhelming in the extreme. In some places, there is an actual wall. But for most of Arizona’s 350-mile border, there is nothing more than a tattered barbed wire fence, cut and clipped every night by people coming across.

"All you need is a pair of wire cutters and you can come through, come through at will," says Jack Ladd, a longtime rancher in Bisbee, Ariz. The border with Mexico runs for 10 miles on his property, and about 100 illegal immigrants cross his ranch every day. Just one step separates you from Mexico and the United States.

"We are the United States of America, free country, land of immigrants. And I don’t know that you wanna put up a wall or a fence around this country -- because that’s not really what we’re about," says John Torres, who works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the successor to the INS.

Torres says stopping poor Mexican workers from getting into America is by no means his biggest problem – especially after 9/11: "Do we wanna go out and arrest a kitchen worker, or do we wanna go out and arrest someone who is a visa overstay, who has a HAZMAT driver’s license -- who might actually have access to a nuclear power plant?"

"Does that mean that a Mexican who’s coming in here illegally to go work in a meatpacking plant now has an easier ride than he would have had before 9/11?" asks Simon.

"I wouldn’t say he has an easier ride," says Torres. "I’d say he’s lower on the priority scale."

Even when violators are caught at the border, there is limited room at detention centers, so many are simply set free. They are told they have to report to a court within six months, and given letters to that effect. But more than 90 percent never do.

Last summer, a 60 Minutes Wednesday camera caught two Guatemalans and two Hondurans leaving a detention center with those very letters. After a quick wave goodbye from a border patrol agent, the four proudly displayed their letters, and then proceeded to disappear. They would certainly start looking for work, and they would be most welcome in places like Schuyler.

"What would’ve happened to Schuyler if it had not been for this influx of 'illegal immigrants'?" asks Simon.

"Well, we could’ve been like a lot of other rural communities in Nebraska," says Reinecke. "We could’ve lost half our population, and who knows? We haven’t."

Many American towns have been kept alive by the wave of illegal immigrants. But this has given American businesses little incentive to raise wages on the low end of the scale. And many will tell you that illegal immigrants are only doing the jobs Americans don’t want.

"They are taking jobs that Americans will not take at that wage. Let me give you an example. Janitors in Century City and Beverly Hills, 10 years ago, were all making $11 an hour," says Anderson. "All of those companies got rid of the Americans, broke the union, brought in illegal aliens from Mexico and El Salvador. Paid them five bucks an hour. You gonna tell me those black janitors don’t still want those $11 jobs? Sure they do. They would probably be $15 jobs now. But guess what happened? They weren’t gonna take ‘em at $4 and $5 an hour."