Tribune Opinion: Look into their faces

A shadow world exists in Weld County. We choose not to peer into the darkness, both here and elsewhere across the United States.

Occasionally, someone emerges from the shadows, but we try to chase him away. At age 12, Jesus Apodaca entered the shadow world when his parents brought him illegally into the country from Mexico. While his father worked the fields near Greeley, he excelled in Aurora schools, earning a high school diploma and a 3.93 grade-point average.

Then Jesus ran headlong into the hypocrisy of our immigration laws. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling requires public schools to educate immigrants regardless of their legal standing. But state law prohibits colleges from charging in-state tuition to the same people, effectively pricing a better life out of reach for the son of a ranch hand lucky to make $8,000 a year.<p>Other examples of this hypocrisy abound:<li> Federal law requires that drinking water, toilets and hand-washing facilities be available to farm workers. But enforcement rarely occurs.<li> Farm labor contractors must register with the U.S. Department of Labor. But unscrupulous contractors easily con laborers and worry little about being caught.<li> Employers must take steps to protect farm workers from toxic pesticide exposure. But Environmental Protection Agency inspectors found 91 percent of Colorado growers were in violation of pesticide safety laws.

The farmers aren't to blame. We are. We expect to have cheap food for our dinner tables. We don't want to know how that happens.

Our economy chugs along on the backs of cheap labor. But we don't know what to do with the people providing that labor. We want them to stay out of sight.

Jesus had the audacity to be seen. He went to the Mexican Consulate for help in attending college. He went public.

That was too much for U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Littleton and one of the nation's leading anti-immigration advocates. He asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport Jesus and his family, even though he knows the INS doesn't work like that.

Tancredo succeeded in chasing the Apodacas back into the shadows. They disconnected their phone and moved out of their Aurora apartment.

Then, just last week, Colorado's Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Republican with a different view on immigration, introduced legislation to allow permanent resident status for the family.

Clearly, the Apodacas are pawns in a much larger political game.

What will happen to the Apodacas? Will they be deported or become legal residents? Either way, what about the other 40,000 farm workers in Colorado?

This invisible work force is getting harder to ignore with each passing year. Our immigration laws are a national embarrassment. We must find the political will to change them, starting with the creation of a guest-worker program.

We can license and regulate the workers U.S. companies need.

To do that, though, we need to look honestly at the people we prefer not to see.