NORTH COUNTY -- Twenty-two-year-old Amos Irriqui says he is much like any young man trying to make his way in life, except in one fundamental way: He is an illegal immigrant.

Irriqui, a broad-shouldered, dark-skinned construction worker, was brought to North County by his mother when he was 4 years old. He attended local schools, where he learned to speak flawless English. Growing up in Vista, his native Tijuana became a distant memory. Now, he considers himself an American.

"I want to follow the American dream," he said. "I want to be somebody. I don't want to be a shadow."

After he graduated from high school and entered the work force, Irriqui became one of the more than 5 million illegal immigrants working in the United States, about 3.7 percent of the nation's 143 million workers.

The illegal workers are an integral part of local and national industries, such as agriculture, manufacturing, construction and hotel and restaurant services, experts and employers said.

"I would say that if it wasn't for immigrants, there would be no agriculture (in California)," said Michael Mellano, whose family owns Mellano and Co., one of the largest wholesale flower businesses in San Diego County. It employs some 220 people at its Carlsbad operation. "They do virtually everything, except management."

Employers such as Mellano say they have to weigh a difficult balance between finding enough willing workers to make their businesses profitable and figuring out which documents presented by potential employees are valid.

Bringing this illegal work force out of the shadows is the linchpin of President Bush's proposed overhaul of immigration policy, which he unveiled in a speech earlier this year. The president's outline calls for temporarily legalizing millions of illegal workers, and implementing a program to bring foreign workers to jobs that Bush said Americans apparently aren't taking.

Dirty work

In most North County communities, there are corners where workers, largely immigrants, congregate looking for day labor in landscaping, agriculture, construction and domestic help. But there is an arguably larger, less conspicuous group of workers in retail stores, workshops, office buildings and warehouses around the county.

The region quickly absorbs newcomers willing to work cheaply with few or no benefits. Some of them do the poorly paid, dirty, back-breaking and dangerous jobs.

Many immigration experts argue that immigration authorities have contributed to the nation's growing dependency on foreign laborers by largely neglecting to enforce laws that prohibit hiring illegals.

"The message abroad has been that (the country) wasn't serious about immigration enforcement at the place of employment," said John Keeley, communications director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that favors stricter immigration policies.

The nation's first attempt to control its borders by denying illegal immigrants work was implemented nearly 20 years ago, under the Immigration Control and Reform Act of 1986. The law was a two-pronged approach to combat illegal immigration by granting amnesty to 3.8 million illegal immigrants and imposing sanctions on employers of unauthorized workers.

Keeley said pressure from pro-immigrant groups in the 1990s to stop workplace raids led authorities to shift their efforts and resources to stop illegal immigration at the nation's borders.

Jobs magnet

More liberal immigration scholars, such as professor Wayne Cornelius at UC San Diego, say there was a loophole built into the 1986 immigration law that did not require employers to verify whether documents were fraudulent.

Many illegal immigrants say it is not difficult to find employers willing to accept false documents.

"It was a little difficult finding out who makes the cards, but after I got one, I got a job," said "Karina," an illegal immigrant working in Escondido who did not want her real name used. She said the false documents she used to get the job cost her about $130.

Karina, 25, arrived from central Mexico eight months ago hoping to raise money to finish her college degree in Mexico and learn English well enough to get a job when she returns home.

"Many jobs in Mexico require English and a bachelor's degree, even the most menial, such as receptionists," she said.

Even as a part-time retail employee with no U.S. high school diploma and little English-speaking skills, she said she is able to earn twice what she would be able to make as a college graduate in Mexico, she said.

Facing few prospects at home and hearing success stories about working abroad, immigrants from Latin America take a life-risking leap of faith to try to make it illegally across the U.S. and Mexico border.

Leaving her parents and two younger brothers behind, Karina paid $1,400 to be smuggled across the border east of Tijuana. She sneaked through one of the most heavily fortified areas of the U.S.-Mexico border with relative ease.

A growing work force

Each year the illegal immigrant population grows by about 350,000, according to a study by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. The service was split into two agencies under the Department of Homeland Security last year. The report estimated there were 7 million illegal immigrants living in the country in 2000.

Mexico is the source of most of this illegal population, accounting for about two-thirds, or 4.8 million, of all illegal immigrants, according to the service's report. But there are 75 countries of origin identified in the report. Salvadorians make up the second-largest illegal immigrant community, about 189,000 people.

The Chinese community, with 115,000 illegal immigrants, is the largest non-Latino population listed in the report.

Most illegal immigrants work.

Although farmworkers are often the most visible segment of the illegal immigrant population, it is not the largest, according to a 2002 Pew Hispanic Center report on the group. The center is a nonpartisan research organization based in Los Angeles.

The report culled information from various other studies to shed light on the population as talks were held on the subject between presidents Bush and Mexico's Vicente Fox two years ago.

According to the report, the wholesale and retail trades, including restaurants, employed the most illegal immigrants in the country, about 1.4 million people. The service industry, including domestic help, is the second-largest employer of illegal immigrants with about 1.3 million people. Construction employed 620,000 illegal immigrants, according to the Pew report.

Agriculture, however, has long been considered a different segment of illegal immigrant workers for several reasons, including its largely seasonal labor requirements and unique labor laws that apply to this segment of the economy, immigration experts say.

Moreover, agriculture is the industry that depends most heavily on illegal immigrant workers. Based on Department of Labor surveys, the Pew report indicates that about 58 percent, or 1.2 million, of the country's crop workers are illegal immigrants.

Region's secret workers

In one of the most comprehensive reports on San Diego County's illegal immigrant population released in 1993, researchers said that about 3.9 percent of the county's 1.3 million workers was made up of unauthorized laborers.

The Craven Report, as it was commonly known, conducted a survey of the county's illegal immigrant population. In the survey, 29 percent of respondents said they worked in landscaping, 24 percent said they worked in construction, 16 percent said they worked in agriculture and 30 percent worked in other industries, such as factories, food preparation and auto service.

However, relatively little is known about the size and breadth of this shadowy and highly mobile population in the region. By its very nature, it is a secretive community afraid to speak up or be identified for fear of being detected.

"I feel out of place because I can't go out for fear of immigration," Karina said. "I feel a stranger because I don't have transportation. I don't have a license to drive a car."

Others in the store where she works are also working illegally. Some bought false documents like herself and others borrow legal documents from lawful family members.

Like many immigration experts, these immigrants are also skeptical about President Bush's plan, which offers only a three-year, renewable permit to stay in the country. It does not, however, offer a clear path to permanent residency.

"I don't trust it, it's a set-up," said Irriqui, the construction worker.

Conflicted

Irriqui said he is conflicted about who he is. He wears his shoulder-length, bristly hair in a pony tail. And his oversized dark jeans and T-shirt give him the appearance of a rebellious American teen. But he rolls up his left sleeve to reveal a tattoo, which says Hecho en Mexico, or Made in Mexico.

"When I was in middle school, I wanted to be in the military. I was zoned into it. I had my career set. I had positive aspirations. But then my mom told me I couldn't join, that I was illegal," Irriqui said. "She told me, 'You can't be in the military, you're worthless to this country.'"

He is estranged from his father, who lives in Mexico, and said he lives in constant fear of being deported.

Despite its size and economic implications, the illegal immigrant work force, Keeley said, should not be allowed to gain legal status by default, as President Bush has proposed.

"I don't think you need it," Keeley said. "The National Research Council has the best portrait that we have of this population in total, both legal and illegal immigrants. It said immigration is a net gain of $1 billion to $10 billion. Even if you take the best-case scenario of $10 billion, it's hard to make an economic argument for immigration."

Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-5426 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.