http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/op ... 384691.php

Monday, December 18, 2006
Day-laboring over the wrong issue
Lake Forest's reasonable trespass ordinance is about property rights, not immigration
The debate over illegal immigration has become so contentious that sometimes common-sense solutions to aspects of the problem can become unnecessarily divisive. Witness the reaction to a law passed by the Lake Forest City Council, allowing private security guards to file trespassing complaints on behalf of private-property owners.

The genesis of the problem: Day laborers hang out in and near strip-mall parking lots – private property – soliciting construction, gardening and other work. The owners of a strip mall off El Toro Road told the Los Angeles Times that owners were concerned about safety and traffic problems caused by the large numbers of workers who flag down cars – and by public urination, trash and other legitimate concerns.

Before Dec. 8, only the property owners themselves could report trespassing to police. The new law allows security guards representing the owners to make such complaints. The measure also allows the guards to patrol the strip mall and a half-mile around it.

This strikes us as reasonable. Property owners have a right to keep loiterers off their property. We doubt that any homeowner would be happy if, say, day laborers waited for work in their front yard.

Some of the laborers, however, have complained, as has an activist group that represents day laborers. Even the anti-illegal-immigration group, the Minutemen, has jumped into the fray, speaking at City Council meetings about the ordinance and the need for tougher enforcement against day laborers, for immigration reasons.

In our view, this is a basic property rights issue. Whatever one thinks about illegal immigration, there should be nothing wrong with allowing private property owners to patrol private property and to keep off people who solicit work and make a mess.

Where – or whether – the day laborers should congregate in Lake Forest is a separate concern, maybe for the City Council or Chamber of Commerce to take up. But, perhaps if the country had firmer property rights protections, illegal immigration would be less of a problem.