determined to call america his home. once again, gary tuchman with an up close report. reporter: pedro makes $12 an hour digging this irrigation ditch outside a garage in santa fe. he moved to new mexico this summer because he s an illegal immigrant and was fearful of arizona s immigration law. translator: i understand that there s a from ustration, that people think there s too much competition in the workplace. i understand why some people would want us to go back. reporter: pedro doesn t want to go back to mexico. he has been in the u.s. for almost half his life. how many years have you been out of mexico? 20 years, 21 years. reporter: do you have any family in mexico? i have no more family. reporter: much has been said about the benefits illegal immigrants enjoy in the u.s., the fact is many of them say life here is much harder than you might imagine. where is your room? my room is over here.
reporter: he lives with a mexican family whom he recently met. this is where he sleeps. that is my bed. i don t have any clothes. only clothes i have reporter: this room contains all his worldly possessions. sold some other things when he left arizona for money. how hard is it to have so little? sleeping bag, four shirts. you have two pairs of shoes. that s all you own in the world right now. how difficult is it for you? it s really, really difficult. i think nobody wants to have this kind of life. reporter: as hard as life is and as long as he has been living in the shadows here, he still has big dreams, to some day get his contractor s license, get a formal education and to find a wife. i have a lot of hope to start again. reporter: you have a lot of hope that things will get better for you? yes. reporter: to be clear, he would like to be a u.s. citizen, but like so many illegal immigrants doesn t want to go back to mexico, especially with no family there. he fear
process. often, their entire families are in the u.s. meanwhile, hector left his wife and four children behind in arizona until he finds steady work. if he doesn t, he has come to a conclusion, a conclusion he never imagined. a couple of more weeks and no work, maybe i go to mexico. reporter: to mexico? mexico. reporter: back home? my state, yeah. reporter: for people like hector, fleeing arizona may ultimately lead to a return to mexico, which is precisely what many want from the new immigration law. gary tuchman, cnn, santa fe, new mexico. still ahead, the latest turn in the debate over the immigration. should the 14th amendment be revised? a new and heated battle. plus, his name is pedro, an illegal immigrant who has been in the u.s. for more than two decades. he agreed to talk to us about his life in the shadows, next. [ male announcer ] it s a universal gesture. a way of telling the world you did it! . without saying a word.
he s a good guy. you ve been in this country 21 years. yes. reporter: do you feel more like a mexican or an american? american. reporter: despite new pressures on the law in arizona, pedro says he s digging in, more committed than ever to staying in the u.s. paying a heavy price to be in america and the immigration nightmare they say they endured. you know, when i grow up, i m going to own my own restaurant. i want to be a volunteer firefighter. when i grow up, i want to write a novel. i want to go on a road trip. when i grow up, i m going to go there. i m going to work with kids. i want to fix up old houses.
many immigrants from arizona are heading to new mexico but paul morrison says the state needs to draw a line. do you feel illegal immigrants who can t get legal status should go back to mexico? probably, yes, on balance. although, i would rather they got a legal way in. reporter: most of them said they can t get it. what do you advise them to do? i don t know. i don t have an answer. reporter: we ve heard the same story from many illegal immigrants. becoming legal is not easy. pedro says he paid an immigration lawyer to help him. you gave this lawyer $5,000 to see if he could make you a citizen. uh-huh. reporter: he told you? no, no chance. reporter: no chance? right. reporter: what happened to the money you gave him? he gave me half of it back. reporter: he kept $2,500? yes. reporter: other illegal immigrants we ve talked with says they haven t taken steps to become legal citizens because they don t want to be sent back to mexico to wait out the