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INTRO: Mexican immigrants are flocking to one of the most dangerous and impoverished cities in America—Camden, New Jersey. Lauren Feeney takes us there to find out how this community is surviving and even thriving, despite the difficulties.
NARR: Camden, New Jersey feels lawless. Open air drug markets operate at all hours of the day. Drunks don't bother to hide their bottles in brown paper bags. The porches where old woman sit are encased in bars, like prison cells.
More than anything, the city feels neglected. On some streets, every last house has been boarded up.
But one neighborhood in this derelict city is slowly coming back to life.
Ambi: 24th and Federal
Federal Street in East Camden is lined with taquerias, money transfer shops, and Mexican grocers selling fresh chili peppers and prickly pear cactus. Strings of colorful pennants from recent grand opening celebrations hang over the sidewalk. Competing music shops pump out a cacophony of Mexican pop songs. (bring up music) Federal Street is coursing with life.
But it wasn't always like this.
FABIAN: Mostly that was all burnt down, crack houses, people just living in there, selling drugs out of there.
NARR: Fabian Muniz moved to Camden, New Jersey, from Puebla, Mexico when he was three years old. His family was part of the first wave of Mexican immigrants to arrive in Camden.
A year later, the Muniz family opened El Taco Loco. It was the first Mexican restaurant on the block. A few months after their grand opening, a man came in and demanded all their money. Then he pointed a gun at them.
FABIAN: and I remember my dad was telling my uncle 'give him the money, give him the money' but my uncle didn't want to give it to him cause he worked so hard for it, it's like a whole day of work making tacos, cutting up onions, you feel me, and he didn't want to. But my dad was like, that's just money. If you're a hard worker, you'll always get that money back.
NARR: Muniz's uncle turned over the money, and it wasn't the last time he had to do so. Muniz, now 21 years old, recalls at least a dozen muggings and burglaries throughout his childhood. At one point, Camden was ranked as the most dangerous city in the entire country based on FBI statistics. It was also one of the poorest.
In fact, it's this poverty and lawlessness that draws immigrants to Camden. Rent here is cheap, and the local authorities tend to ignore undocumented immigrants. Federal authorities generally handle immigration violations, and the level of local police cooperation varies from place to place.
Adam Solow is an immigration lawyer in the area. He says that in some ways, it's actually easier for immigrants to live in Camden than in safer, wealthier towns nearby.
ADAM: If you're living in Lakewood New Jersey and you're driving with a busted taillight or you run a red light, the police will possibly report you to immigration. In Camden they have a lot more problems than busting undocumented people.
NARR: Solow says that Camden's police are more worried about violent criminals than undocumented immigrants, who are mostly hard working and family oriented.
Captain Harry Leon agrees. Leon is the police captain in charge of the district that includes the Federal Street Mexican community. He says that this area is one of the most problematic in the city, but that the immigrants are not to blame.
CAPTAIN LEON: As far as the violent crime, they're more victims than anything. They're definitely not part of the problem.
NARR: Camden is no longer considered the most dangerous city in the country, but it's still among the top five. This persistent crime makes it difficult for the businesses along Federal Street. The shops are still robbed all the time. Employees are routinely mugged on their way home from work. Leon says that many of the new immigrants don't have bank accounts, so they carry a lot of cash, and the criminals have figured this out.
CAPTAIN LEON: they know that some of these folks come to cash their checks, have a pocket full of money, and they prey on them, they're easy targets.
NARR: Recently, leaders of the Mexican community went to the police and asked for help. Together, they came up with a new program. For about a month now, the police have been stopping by the stores on Federal Street several times a week to make sure the employees are safe.
Officer Robert Chew opens the door of a popular internet café.
Bring up door squeak ambi
Officer Chew: how you doing?
Lorena: Hello, good, how are you?
Officer Chew: What's your name again?
Lorena: Lorena.
Officer Chew: Hi, I'm Officer Chew
Mexican immigrants come here to email and video chat with relatives back home. Many of the regular customers are undocumented.
Even so, manager Lorena Grimaldo and Officer Chew have a relaxed and friendly exchange. Chew reminisces about what it used to be like here, back when the shop was a local watering hole.
Officer Chew: This is the place where we had 5 shootings and I locked up the guy right in front of your store. It's kind of weird that I'm in here again.
Lorena: Yeah, it was really trashy in here before. We're just worried about that window but I close it every night, the gate.
Officer Chew: Have you had any crimes in your store?
Lorena: No, everything's been calm.
NARR: Captain Leon says that the new program is working. Now that there are more cops on the street, Leon says that robberies in the neighborhood are down 40 percent from the same three month period last year. Still, this relationship between the Mexican community and the police is an uneasy one for some.
Undocumented immigrants working in the shops along Federal Street struggle with competing fears—they're scared of criminals, but they're also afraid of the police.
Carolina is an undocumented immigrant who works in a small Mexican grocery store.
Carolina through translator:
Sometimes I'm scared that someone will just walk in and rob us, ask us for our money. A lot of things go through my head. It does make me feel better when the police come through to ask if we're okay.
But then, especially lately you hear a lot of stuff about immigration and that's what makes us the MOST scared.
NARR: Carolina knows that her situation is precarious. Last summer, about an hour north of here in Newark New Jersey, three college students were killed by an illegal immigrant. This prompted a statewide crackdown. A few days later, the immigration authorities arrived in Camden.
Fabian Muniz, whose family has lived here for nearly 20 years, had had never seen anything like that.
FABIAN: It was crazy, they came here in like three vans, catching all these people, like let me see your papers and they didn't have nothing, so of course they took em.
NARR: Local authorities in nearby Riverside NJ, once home to a flourishing Brazillian community, had already begun to crackdown on illegal immigrants. The township committee passed an anti-immigrant ordinance, and many Brazilians fled, leaving behind them boarded up restaurants and beauty salons. A year later, with its economy in tatters, the township committee repealed the ordinance. But it was too late. Few Brazillians ever returned to Riverside.
Camden, on the other hand, has allowed it's immigrant community to thrive, and that's been part through neglect and part by design. There have been very few crackdowns in Camden. Instead, the authorities here have reached out to immigrants. Captain Harry Leon says local officials recognize that immigrants are an integral part of the economy, and that a better economy means safer, livelier city.
CAPTAIN LEON: We believe that if the business area is viable, then more people are gonna come to the city, and they're gonna feel good about it, and that's one of our goals, is to change the perception, to let people know that Camden is a safe place.
NARR: Locals estimate that nearly a hundred new immigrants arrive in Camden almost every week, and Muniz says that along Federal Street, new businesses keep opening to serve the growing community.
FABIAN: Every other day there's a new store popping up. We're like, what? Where'd that come from? It was just an abandoned building, now it's a Mexican store.
NARR: Most of Camden's new residents come from the small villages of Puebla, Mexico but recently, immigrants who were living in Arizona and Texas are coming here too. As other parts of the country become increasingly hostile to immigrants, they come to seek a better life Camden. It's one of the most dangerous cities in the country, but a comparative refuge for immigrants.
Lauren Feeney, Columbia Radio News
BACK ANNOUNCE: To see photos of Camden's Little Mexico, visit our website at www.uptownradio.org.