A New York Times correspondent "peeled back the layers" of the local and national U.S. immigration debate Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006, in the Wilkinson Student Center Varsity Theater.

"Almost everyone agrees that the current system isn't working, but whether or not we as a nation are going to come to some solution with how to fix that still remains unanswered," said Rachel Swarns, David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies guest lecturer.

Swarns acknowledged that immigration is the hottest domestic policy debate, with implications on both local and national levels.

"We are currently experiencing one of the biggest waves of immigration that this country has ever seen," Swarns said. "Now everyone knows that we're a nation of immigrants, and when you think of mass migration to the United States, we often think about the early 1900s and the ships pulling into New York City."

Currently, there are between 11 million and 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, Swarns said. Residents are migrating beyond the traditional immigrant states such as California, Florida and New York and moving toward the South and Midwest.

Swarns has taken a unique approach to analyzing the influx of foreign migration.

"I like peeling as much behind the layers as I can to get behind the story as much as I can," Swarns said. "At the very ground level, what happens to a community? How does a community change when you have this kind of rapid transformation?"

Swarns examined the social, economic and political situation in Atkinson County, Ga., as a framework to better understand the illegal immigration debate on all levels.

In Atkinson County, the Hispanic population has increased significantly in the past five years, from three percent to an estimated 30 to 35 percent.

During her three-week study in Atkinson County, Swarns discovered that the local grocery store, Harveys Supermarket, did not sell tortillas 10 years ago but now has three aisles dedicated to Hispanic specialty foods.

The used-car dealership, Guthries Auto Salvage, has a 60 percent Hispanic clientele and about one third of the local barbershop customers are also Hispanic.

"The business community ... has seen many of its clients, an increasingly larger number of its clients, are Hispanic and its workforces are increasingly Hispanic," Swarns said. "The business community is very, very much in favor of laws that will legalize illegal immigrants."

"On the other hand, there are folks who have been living in this community for a long time who are very, very upset. For some people, this kind of change has been too quick, too fast, changing their way of life in ways people are very uncomfortable with."

Swarns was hosted by the Kennedy center in a lecture partnership to encourage awareness of current issues. Swarns became a Washington correspondent for the The New York Times last March and was The New York Times' bureau chief in Johannesburg for four years.

Copyright Brigham Young University 22 Sep 2006