By Staff
Advocates legal paths to residency and jobs
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of occasional articles examining the Hispanic population of Beaufort and surrounding counties.
By DAN PARSONS
Staff Writer
On any given Sunday, the Rev. Cipriano Moreno delivers a sermon to about 150 Hispanic residents of Beaufort County.
Most of them have come to North Carolina from Mexico, Moreno said Wednesday during an interview at the Hispanic mission he operates on U.S. Highway 17 north of Washington. But in the 15 years of his Beaufort County ministry, he has seen emigrants from Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Honduras and San Salvador.
The majority of the Hispanic immigrants who Moreno comes in contact with come to the United States legally on work visas. Some do not. Many stay past the eight months allowed them under their work visas and either do not apply for extensions or are denied extensions. Then, they become illegal immigrants. Moreno estimates that as much as 60 percent of the Hispanic population in Beaufort County is in the United States illegally.
Moreno was born in Queretaro, Mexico, which is about two hours driving time north of Mexico City. He came to the United States in 1989 to attend the Baptist seminary in San Antonio, where he studied for four years. In 1993, he accepted a ministerial position with two churches, one in Wilson and the other in Rocky Mount. In 1995, he came to Washington and started a Hispanic mission from scratch through First Baptist Church in Washington. Today, his is the only Hispanic church in the area that has its own building and grounds, which Moreno purchased in 2000.
Though a legal immigrant, Moreno said it is not his purpose to judge his congregation’s members based on their immigration statuses. He routinely accompanies members of his church to the Mexican consulate in Raleigh and the Charlotte immigration office to help them maintain their legal statuses.
Most of his congregants don’t speak English when they arrive in the United States, Moreno said. But almost all of them have a thirst for learning the language of the land. To help them, Moreno offers English classes at his mission.
Jobs are what attract Hispanics to the United States and to rural North Carolina, he said. Though migrant workers do not stand to strike it rich working farm and construction jobs here, their wages far exceed those available in their native countries — where workers are paid about $10 dollars for an average day’s work, Moreno said.
Most migrant workers, legal or illegal, return to their families in their native countries after they have earned enough money to make their lives there more comfortable, he said. When winter rolls around and there are no more crops to be harvested and construction jobs become scarce, Moreno said, his church is often nearly empty on Sundays. He sees very few immigrants who repeat the journey.
In recent years, however, as more immigrants apply for and obtain permanent residency statuses, families are beginning to establish themselves and stay in the United States, Moreno said.