PHOENIX - "Cinco dolares," Silvia Arias says when asked the price of car polish at a garage sale that she and two close friends, Minerva Ruiz and Claudia Suriano, are holding. "Five dollars." Another sale is made.
The three women planned the sale to raise money to leave Arizona. Though all are longtime residents, viewed as pillars of parental support at the neighborhood elementary school, they're also illegal immigrants from Mexico. And along with many others, they want to escape a tough new state law whose stated intention is unambiguous: To drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and discourage them from coming here.
There is no official data tracking how many are leaving as a result.
"It's something that's really tough to get a handle on numerically," said Bill Schooling, Arizona's state demographer. "It's not just the immigration bill. It's also employer sanctions and the economy. How do you separate out the motivating factors?"
Still, anecdotal evidence provided by schools and businesses in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods and by health clinics suggests that sizable numbers are departing. Ignacio Rodriguez, associate director for the Phoenix Roman Catholic Diocese's Office of Hispanic Ministries, said churches in the area are also seeing families leave.
Priests are "seeing some people approach them and ask for a blessing because they're leaving the state to go back to their country of origin or another state," he said. "Unless they approach and ask for a sending-off blessing, we wouldn't have any idea they're leaving or why."
Ruiz and Suriano and their families plan to move this month. Arias and her family are considering leaving, but are waiting to see if the law will go into effect as scheduled July 29, and, if so, how it will be enforced.
Some illegal immigrants pack bags as Ariz. crackdown nears
The three women planned the sale to raise money to leave Arizona. Though all are longtime residents, viewed as pillars of parental support at the neighborhood elementary school, they're also illegal immigrants from Mexico. And along with many others, they want to escape a tough new state law whose stated intention is unambiguous: To drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and discourage them from coming here.
There is no official data tracking how many are leaving as a result.
"It's something that's really tough to get a handle on numerically," said Bill Schooling, Arizona's state demographer. "It's not just the immigration bill. It's also employer sanctions and the economy. How do you separate out the motivating factors?"
Still, anecdotal evidence provided by schools and businesses in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods and by health clinics suggests that sizable numbers are departing. Ignacio Rodriguez, associate director for the Phoenix Roman Catholic Diocese's Office of Hispanic Ministries, said churches in the area are also seeing families leave.
Priests are "seeing some people approach them and ask for a blessing because they're leaving the state to go back to their country of origin or another state," he said. "Unless they approach and ask for a sending-off blessing, we wouldn't have any idea they're leaving or why."
Ruiz and Suriano and their families plan to move this month. Arias and her family are considering leaving, but are waiting to see if the law will go into effect as scheduled July 29, and, if so, how it will be enforced.
Some illegal immigrants pack bags as Ariz. crackdown nears