It's especially frustrating for Castaneda, a legal citizen, whose husband has been approved for legal papers, but is still on the waiting list to get them.

"Instead of being able to help these people through the system, (we) make it much more difficult," said Ignacio Garcia, professor of history at Brigham Young University who specializes in Mexican American Latino civil rights issues in history. "They're not moving to El Salvador ... (or) Cuba ... (or) Jamaica. Why? There are no jobs there. Every Latino will tell you they came to this country because somebody in their family whispered that there was a job to be gotten here. Our war against undocumented is like our war against drugs. As long as you have this great demand, then you're going to have people coming ... in their search for wanting to make a better life."

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Contributing: Deborah Bulkeley
E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com, astewart@desnews.com