Camden, Immigrant Haven?

Cops in Camden are too busy to worry about illegal immigration — which is why Federal Street is thriving.

by Lauren Feeney

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Camden, N.J., may be a portrait of urban despair. But one neighborhood in this downtrodden city is slowly coming back to life.

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Federal Street in East Camden is lined with taquerias, money transfer shops, and grocers selling chili peppers and prickly pear cactus. Competing music stores pump out a cacophony of Mexican pop songs, and strings of pennants from recent grand openings form a canopy over the sidewalk. Locals have begun to call the area Little Mexico.

It wasn't always like this.

"Mostly that was all burnt down — crack houses, people just living in there, selling drugs," says Fabian Muniz, owner of Changarro Jr., an Internet café and electronics shop on Federal.

Muniz moved to Camden from Puebla, Mexico, when he was 3 years old. His family was part of the first wave of Mexican immigrants to arrive. In 1991, they opened El Taco Loco, the first Mexican restaurant on the block. A few months later, a local thug came in, demanded all their money and pointed a gun at them.

Now 21 years old, Muniz recalls at least a dozen other muggings and burglaries throughout his childhood, part of the rampant crime that earned Camden the ranking of "most dangerous city" according to FBI statistics in 2004 and 2005.

Ironically, it's this very decrepitude that draws in immigrants. Rent here is cheap, and the local authorities tend to ignore immigration violations.

Adam Solow, an immigration lawyer who spends his weekends working out of an office in a Camden church for a sliding-scale fee, says that it's often easier for undocumented immigrants to live in Camden than in leafy suburbs.

"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," he says. "In Camden they have a lot more problems than busting undocumented people."

Indeed, Capt. Harry Leon, who runs the police district that includes the Federal Street Mexican community, says that while his area is one of the most crime-infested in the city, immigrants are not usually to blame.

"They engage in drinking in public, but as far as the violent crime, they're more victims than anything," Leon says.

In fact, things have gotten to the point where some immigrants, documented and not, are working with the police. Though Camden is no longer considered the most dangerous city in the country, Mexican families still share the sidewalk with drug dealers and prostitutes, shops are robbed frequently, and employees are routinely mugged on their way home (many of the new immigrants don't have bank accounts, and carry cash, which makes them easy targets).

Leaders of the Mexican community went to the police for help, and the cops have responded by checking in on Federal Street stores several times a week.

At Changarro Jr., many regulars are undocumented immigrants who come to e-mail with distant relatives. But when Officer Robert Chew stops by, he doesn't seem concerned — this is an improvement.

"This used to be the bar," Chew tells store manager Lorena Grimaldo. "This is the place where we had five people shot one night and two dead. ... It's kind of weird that I'm in here again."

Leon says that robberies in the neighborhood are down 40 percent from the same three-month period last year.

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Still, the relationship between the community and the police is an uneasy one. Undocumented immigrants are scared of crime, but they're also afraid of deportation.

Carolina is an undocumented immigrant who works in a grocery store.

"Sometimes I'm scared that someone will just walk in and rob us," she says. "It does make me feel better when the police come through to ask if we're OK."

"But then," she continues, "especially lately, you hear a lot of stuff about immigration, and that's what makes us the most scared."

It's a delicate situation. Last summer, three college students were killed by an illegal immigrant in Newark. A few days later, immigration authorities arrived in Camden.

"It was crazy, they came here in like three vans, catching all these people. They were like, 'Let me see your papers,' and they didn't have nothing, so of course they took 'em," says Muniz.

Nearby Riverside used to have a flourishing Brazilian community, until it passed an ordinance that called for fines against anyone who hired or rented to an undocumented person. Many of the Brazilians fled, leaving behind boarded-up restaurants (a year later, the township rescinded the ordinance).

Camden, by contrast, has allowed its immigrant community to thrive. Leon says local officials recognize that immigrants are integral to the economy, and that a better economy means a better town.

"We believe that if the business area is viable, then more people are going to come to the city," Leon says.

They already are. Nearly 100 new immigrants arrive almost every week, most from Puebla, but recently from Texas and Arizona, as well. They're seeking a better life in — of all places — Camden, N.J. And along Federal, new businesses keep opening to serve the growing community.

"Every other day there's a new store popping up," says Muniz. "We're like, 'What? Where'd that come from? It was just an abandoned building, now it's a Mexican store.'"

(editorial@citypaper.net)