STUDY: BORDER CROSSERS EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS REPORT EASILY FINDING WORK.

Byline: Rachel Uranga Staff Writer

Most Mexicans do not cross the border because they are destitute and penniless, but because they have family in the U.S. and want better-paying jobs, a study released Tuesday found.

The report by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Hispanic Center - believed to be one of the most extensive studies of undocumented Mexican immigrants - found that many recent immigrants had held steady jobs in their home country and were not simply unemployed or farm laborers who pursued life in the United States as their salvation.

``One would imagine before the facts, it would take unique circumstances for people to take risks before crossing the border ... but that does not seem to be the case,'' said Rakesh Kochhar, the study's author.

The study, which surveyed 4,836 immigrants in seven cities including Los Angeles, New York, Fresno and Atlanta, said newer immigrants have more schooling than those who arrived 15 or more years ago.

And 38 percent of those in the U.S. for less than six months were high school graduates or had some junior college or even university experience, compared with 27 percent of those arriving 15 years ago.

And once those immigrants have crossed the border - regardless of their immigration status or ability to speak English - they quickly snap up jobs in factories and fields, at construction sites and in retail stores.

``It's significant that the immigration status has little to do with the likelihood of employment in the United States,'' Kochhar said.

The report comes as the Bush administration pushes an immigration-reform package and Congress takes up guest-worker legislation.

Its authors say the report offers a snapshot of how undocumented Mexican workers - who arrive at a rate of about 300,000 a year - assimilate into the U.S. work force.

For many of these workers, who were surveyed as they applied for Mexican government identity cards at various consulates, family appeared to be one of the most important draws.

About 54 percent of those who answered the 12-page questionnaire currently lived with a relative and about 80 percent knew a relative here before arriving.

Ninety-five percent of immigrants who had been in the country only two years had been employees before they left Mexico. But here they sought higher-paying jobs, though often in the same industries they were employed in in Mexico, such as construction, hospitality or manufacturing.

About 45 percent found jobs by talking with friends or family. Poor English skills or the lack of U.S. government identification, such as a green card or a driver's license, had little influence over whether they found a job.

It took Mauricio, a 41-year-old painter who did not want to give his last name, less than a week to find his first job. He speaks little English and has no U.S.-issued identification other than an expired tourist visa.

``I just started telling friends that I was looking for a job. They introduced me to this guy who was a painter and I got a job,'' he said, his hands stained with canary-yellow paint.

In Mexico, Mauricio - who now lives in a two-bedroom Canoga Park apartment with his brother and sister-in-law - earned a $250-a-month pension as a retired Army captain.

With a college education, a house, a wife and two children, Mauricio's only prospect for a job in Mexico was working as a security guard for $500 a month. Now he earns about $1,300 a month as a painter and sends back about $780 to his family in Querataro, Mexico.

Immigrants surveyed were earning a median income of $300 a week, nearly twice what they would have made in Mexico. But it's still lower than the $384 median wage for all Mexican foreign workers based on government surveys. And women tended to earn even less, with 74 percent of those questioned earning below $300 a week.

``There's work, but the work that is available is so low-paying,'' Mauricio said in Spanish. ``One comes here because the pay is well for the same work you would do in Mexico. There you get paid less and the work is harder.''

The detailed data were praised by some and criticized by others.

Although most surveys include undocumented immigrants in their studies, separate information is not available about them because pollsters do not ask for their immigration status.

Researchers at Pew say they too did not ask the immigrant's status, but because more than half did not have U.S. government-issued identification, it appeared the majority were here illegally.

Gordon Hanson, an economist specializing in migration patterns at the University of California, San Diego, called into question the study's credibility. Unlike most academic studies, researchers did not use a random sample - they were all applying for ID cards at consulates.

``We have no indication that this is an unbiased portrait of the illegal immigrant population,'' he said.

Rachel Uranga, [phone]

rachel.uranga(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Mauricio, an undocumented immigrant who works as a painter, removes tape while working on a North Hills restaurant.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer