ASPEN — “Juanita” came to Aspen from El Salvador six years ago and found work as a housekeeper for $8 an hour.

She works at the same job today for $11 an hour, supporting her three children, her mother and occasionally her brothers back in El Salvador. She has the proper visa to live and work legally in the United States, but is still afraid to have her real name printed in the newspaper.

As a legal resident, Juanita is eligible for benefits from agencies including the Aspen/Pitkin County Housing Authority. Still, she lives in fear of immigration authorities, who periodically show up at her Aspen apartment complex looking for illegal immigrants — like her boyfriend, she says.

Because people such as Juanita live and work legally in the Aspen area, immigration officials know their address. Immigrants, both legal and illegal, often cluster together, and Juanita says authorities seek out the legal immigrants to check documents, expecting to find illegals nearby. If they find her, they might find her boyfriend, and that means he could be deported, she says.

“Mariana’s” situation is somewhat murkier. Also from El Salvador, Mariana doesn’t have a work visa, but she doesn’t work. She’s a stay-at-home mom.

Mariana’s partner, Raul, has a visa to live and work in the U.S., and he supports Mariana and their two children doing just that. Nonetheless, when the lease on their apartment expires in April, Mariana won’t be allowed to stay in their rental unit — and she wouldn’t even if the couple were married.

They must now decide whether to split up their family, sending Mariana and the children back to El Salvador, or look for more expensive, unsubsidized housing. Mariana doesn’t want to her real name in the paper either because, she says, she also lives in fear of immigration authorities knocking on her door.

Juanita and Mariana are feeling the effects of new Colorado laws that require immigrants to prove “lawful presence” in the country before receiving public benefits such as subsidized housing.

Those pushing the tougher immigration laws send a message that the issue is simple: If you don’t have a legal right to be here, don’t be here.

But Juanita’s and Mariana’s situations exemplify difficult choices for many immigrants: Divide the family, stay in the U.S. illegally under an umbrella of fear, or move back home. But there’s a reason these women left El Salvador. When asked why she emigrated, Juanita gives a succinct answer: War, earthquakes and poverty.

Taking the risks

The national debate over immigration hits home hard for Salvadoran immigrants. Although Mexican immigrants are often the focus of discussions, El Salvadorans may have more at stake. According to a 2005 report by the United States Agency for International Development, “an estimated 2 million Salvadorans live in the United States, many of them illegally.”

Although El Salvador’s civil war ended more than a dozen years ago, gang violence in that country’s urban areas has increased. The U.S. State Department considers El Salvador a “critical crime-threat country,” citing a 25 percent increase in the homicide rate from 2004 to 2005. El Salvador has one of the highest homicide rates in the world.

USAID also reports a gap between the haves and have-nots in El Salvador — the poorest 20 percent of El Salvador’s citizens receive roughly 3 percent of the nations’ wealth.

And while only 6 percent of El Salvador’s citizens are unemployed, according to the CIA, many who have jobs are underemployed — one reason Juanita gave for seeking work in the United States.

Although the country’s economy has continued to grow by about 2 percent over the past several years, the USAID report states that rural areas still suffer in poverty: Almost half of the rural population still lives below the poverty line; nearly 17 percent are illiterate; rural residents receive an average of less than four years of schooling; and almost two-thirds don’t have running water at home.

According to the U.S. State Department, Salvadoran immigrants sent home $2.8 billion in remittances in 2005, equivalent to roughly 17 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

For Salvadorans like Juanita and Mariana, these are the very statistics that drive them to risk the trip to the United States — and to live in the shadows once they’re here.

Three years ago, Mariana and Raul went to great lengths to get to the United States. They had to go through Mexico where, they say, locals don’t like Salvadorans. And they paid $5,000 each to get from Mexico into the United States; today, it costs closer to $8,000 per person, they believe.

People who pay are essentially guaranteed entrance into the U.S. without trouble, but not everyone has that kind of money. Those without the cash who travel via Mexico are more likely to have problems, Mariana and Raul say, particularly immigrants from Chile and Brazil. A lot of people are robbed or even killed making the journey — and that’s before they even cross the border to the U.S.

Degrees of difficulty

In his last legislative act before departing as Colorado’s governor, Bill Owens called lawmakers into a special session to draft a series of laws aimed at tightening the state’s immigration regulations.

Among them was a “lawful presence” act, requiring immigrants to prove legal status in the country before receiving public benefits, such as rent assistance and other social services.

Juanita and Mariana say that since the state passed that law, their apartment manager has been telling tenants that if they can’t prove legal status for everyone in the home, those without proper documentation will have to leave. It is the same at all apartment complexes managed by the local housing office.

The women estimate 15 families at their complex either have sent part of the family home or returned to the countries they fled. Others have sought out unsubsidized housing. But that can be more expensive, and it often means cramming lots of people under one roof.

This year, the Colorado Legislature is entertaining several more laws directed at immigrants, including one that would make it a crime to be in the state if a person is in the United States illegally. Depending on the number of violations, the illegal immigrant could be charged with anything from a misdemeanor to a felony.

For Juanita, the new laws would seem a moot point because she is already lawfully present. But she feels the effects as she watches other immigrant families — and possibly her boyfriend — split up or leave the country.

Juanita says she feels personally targeted as well, just for being an immigrant. Juanita says it isn’t right: She has the right documents, she pays taxes, and she works as a housekeeper at a local hotel, a job she says many Americans aren’t willing to do.

She balks at the notion that immigrants like her are a threat.

Mariana doesn’t fit the stereotype of an illegal taking a job that could go to a U.S. citizen because she doesn’t work. She lives in government-subsidized housing, she says, but her partner would be eligible to live there without her — although he might be in a one-bedroom instead of a two-bedroom unit.

They don’t know yet what they’ll do when their lease expires. Mariana says it doesn’t make sense to send everyone except Raul back to El Salvador just to keep the housing. Perhaps they’ll look elsewhere in the area.

These are not the choices Juanita or Mariana looks forward to making. But, like many immigrant families, difficult choices in America, they say, are often better than difficulties they face in El Salvador.