Thread: Mass. Cops Target Home Depot Day Laborers

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRe...ticleid=139301

Cops target day laborers at Depot: Say retailer increasingly a trouble spot
By Casey Ross
Monday, May 15, 2006 - Updated: 01:29 AM EST

Home Depot stores in Massachusetts are becoming magnets for illegal immigrant laborers whose daily attempts to score under-the-table work are prompting demands that the mega-retailer halt illicit activity in its parking lots.

Day labor depot
Life a struggle for Honduras immigrant
A problem nationwide

“These sites are abetting illegal immigration,” said Susan Wysocki of the American Federation for Immigration Reform. “Localities need to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.”

In Boston, police say they have begun cracking down on crowds of laborers who gather daily at the Home Depot in the South Bay Center. Department spokesman Michael McCarthy said South Boston Police Capt. Paul Russell, prompted by discussions with Home Depot, has instructed officers to disperse the groups and run warrant checks on the laborers they find soliciting work.

“The directive from Capt. Russell is to move them along,” McCarthy said. “It’s a problem for us when the merchants start bringing it to our attention. The captain is reacting to that.”

On Tuesday morning, however, a Herald reporter watched about 18 immigrant laborers gather in the parking lot to troll for work from passing customers and contractors. Several of the men were loaded into vans and taken to unknown destinations for uncertain pay.

Advocates for immigrant laborers say the presence of the day laborers - a growing issue at Home Depot stores nationwide - demands a measured response amid the roiling debate over immigration reform.

The unregulated hiring sites, which have drawn protests at store locations in California and elsewhere, have become feeding grounds for unscrupulous employers who hire immigrant workers on the cheap so they can undercut law-abiding competitors.

“This is not just a Home Depot issue,” said company spokesman Yancey Casey, who added that the store officially prohibits solicitation of any kind on its property. “The existence of day laborers is a larger societal issue. We are just at the forefront of it because of the nature of our business.”

A Herald review found the Home Depot problem is just beginning to creep onto the radar of law enforcement in communities where small crowds of day laborers - many of them admittedly illegal - gather at some stores’ parking lots to look for jobs.

In Salem, police say they have been called to break up crowds of laborers on two or three occasions in recent months. One morning this week, a group of about seven laborers had dwindled to two by 9:30, leaving a Mexican man and a worker from Guatemala standing together in a back corner of the parking lot.

“No work today,” said the Mexican man, who spoke broken English but enough to communicate that he does carpentry, roofing and flooring. “I do everything - all construction,” he said. “Work for a day, get pay for a day.”

Mario Mejia of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, said he regularly finds illegal laborers on job sites across the state working under hazardous conditions, sometimes going several weeks without pay.

“It all starts at a street corner or a Home Depot,” he added. “The (immigrant workers) start out there looking for work and they end up with a company that doesn’t treat them well. It’s a very rough road.”

“This is not just a Home Depot issue,” said company spokesman Yancey Casey, who added that the store officially prohibits solicitation of any kind on its property. “The existence of day laborers is a larger societal issue. We are just at the forefront of it because of the nature of our business.”

Then why aren't the illegals hanging out in the Lowe's parking lot? Home Depot is enabling the hiring of illegal aliens and that is why I and others are boycotting Home Depot.

Not only does Home Depot enable illegal aliens by letting them hang around looking for work but they also hire them.