Mexican town watches immigration reform, thinking of relatives JEREZ DE GARCIA SALINAS, MEXICO - So many people have left this quaint colonial town for their neighbor to the north that they have a saying: "If you don't know the United States, you're not from Jerez." On a day when the terms of that relationship could be changing - with President Obama announcing his new rules on immigration - the residents of Jerez, some who have left and returned, others with family abroad, welcomed any reform that could bring them closer to their relatives and make it easier for those living in the United States. Immigrants don't have a lot of rights. They need licenses, medical services," said Erik Ivan Zuñiga Garcia, a 31-year-old who spent six years in Atlanta. To be allowed to come and go would really help, and help our families move forward. Zuñiga was stewing big vats of beef and pork for taquitos in the town square on Thursday, as Jerez, part of Zacatecas state in northern Mexico, prepared for its annual parade in honor of the Mexican Revolution. He had left home as a 15-year-old and earned as much doing construction and carpentry in one day as he now makes in a week as a security guard at a school. "I went out of necessity," he said. He learned firsthand the precariousness of an undocumented life when he was picked up for driving without a license and spent 15 days in jail. "The hardest thing was knowing that one day you could go to the store and run into immigration [officials]," said Gabriel Marquez Garcia, 41, a friend of Zuñiga's who lived in Chicago and Tampa over the years before returning home. Immigration reform is necessary. Many single mothers are working illegally there, and their kids are here. When parents die here, their kids can't visit them. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of residents from Zacatecas, a rural state famous as an old silver mining region, departed for the United States, and the area grew dependent on remittances from abroad. Gonzalo Hernandez, a 58-year-old schoolteacher, said that his father worked for years on Texas farms and that he's now got four nephews, two undocumented, in the United States. As with most of Mexico, Jerez has faced drug-war violence, and in recent years, people were too worried to be in the central plaza at night, Hernandez said. "I tell my students to study so they can find a good job here, but they say, "No, it's better to go to the U.S.," " he said. Immigrants and their families say they want security to work without fear of deportation. "People want immigration reform so they can step out of the shadows," Ismael Mota, 50, a Zacatecan who has spent more than half his life in the United States, said in a phone interview from the Chicago suburbs, where he lives. The biggest benefit, without a doubt, is this tranquility, to be able to leave the country, visit family. "Undocumented people don't buy homes, or good cars, or travel, because the risks are too high," said Mota, who works for a marble company in Illinois. Immigration experts in Mexico expect that states that have a longer history of sending migrant labor north - places such as Zacatecas, Michoacan, Jalisco and Guanajuato - and that have more people living as residents in the United States have the most to gain, as the reforms could offer protections for relatives of residents. More recent migrants from other states, who tend to arrive illegally, "are going to remain marginalized no matter what Obama's initiative is," said Miguel Moctezuma Longoria, a professor at the University of Zacatecas who studies immigration. Moctezuma expected that Obama's measures would not spark a "mass exodus" of migration to the United States, at least among Mexicans. In recent years, with the less-than-robust U.S. economy, an equilibrium has been established between people leaving and returning to Mexico. The bulk of new migrants now comes from the more destitute and violent countries of Central America, such as Honduras and El Salvador. Over the summer, as rumors spread of an amnesty for women and children, thousands of Central Americans flooded the Texas border seeking entry. In response to that crisis, the Obama administration ramped up deportations to discourage people from making the journey. "The Obama administration, with all the deportations that they've done, our anger, as organized communities, is extensive," said Felipe Delgado, who volunteers with an organization of Zacatecans in Los Angeles. Those back home see this announcement with satisfaction, with happiness, and we hope that it gives an opportunity to become closer to our families that we haven't seen for many years. Gabriela Martinez contributed to this report.