Thread: In Brewster, a Backlash Against Day Laborers

http://www.nytimes.com

February 5, 2006
Westchester
In Brewster, a Backlash Against Day Laborers
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
BREWSTER

EVERY morning at the glimmer of dawn, scores of immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America gather along Main Street here, lining up to await their deliverance. It arrives in the form of local contractors and homeowners who drive up looking for an extra hand or two, offering the men construction work at $8 to $10 an hour, and on a good day more.

It is a ritual that has gone on quietly in Brewster for about a decade now, generally ignored by those residents and business owners who do not want the day laborers around.

But recently something changed: Many of those opposed to the influx of undocumented workers say they can no longer turn a blind eye. And their fight against the workers' presence has created a small firestorm.

Last month the police, under pressure from residents, arrested eight laborers playing soccer on a field near the Garden Street Elementary School and charged them with trespassing.

Their offense: using the field while school was in session. All of them were illegal immigrants from Guatemala, and one who could not make bail, Juan Jimeniz, was turned over to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He is set to undergo deportation hearings any day now.

According to his lawyer, Francis O'Reilly, Mr. Jimeniz and the seven others are law-abiding men who were unable to find work that day and simply wanted to take advantage of the warm weather. In any case, he added, Brewster authorities violated Mr. Jimeniz's civil rights by asking about his status and then contacting immigration officials.

"I'm shocked that someone who is accused of playing soccer in a schoolyard would be marked for deportation and taken into federal custody so quickly," Mr. O'Reilly said. "This man has no criminal record. He is a 33-year-old father of five who has never been in trouble before."

Yet in the weeks since the incident, many in this tiny, quaint village have applauded the arrests, which capped months of complaints about overcrowded homes, public drunkenness and other problems ascribed to the presence of illegal immigrants.

One group held a "Stop the Invasion" protest against illegal immigration in Rockland County only two days before the eight in Brewster were arrested. Another group, across the border in Danbury, Conn., held a similar protest that drew more than 100 people.

The pressure on Brewster officials became severe in October after a laborer was found drunk and unconscious behind the Garden Street School one afternoon. The incident prompted a series of meetings at which residents vented their frustrations.

"The big issue that was brought up was how are we going to protect our kids?" said Rachel McLaughlin, a local activist who attended the meetings. "My daughter is a first grader at Garden Street, and I think it's dangerous to have large groups of people loitering in certain areas, especially if they are men."

In airing those sentiments, residents were echoing a refrain heard for years across the Northeast, wherever there are large day-laborer populations.

Yet judging from the angry letters in the local press, there are clearly those in the village who oppose the arrests. A number of writers called the incident blatantly racist, pointing out that other people jog and exercise on the field all the time without ever facing imprisonment.

Five Brewster teenagers even held a bake sale to help raise the $3,000 bail money for Mr. Jimeniz, though by that time he had already been turned over to immigration officials.

ACCUSATIONS of racism would certainly not be contradicted by Yolanda Castro-Arce, a lawyer of Puerto Rican background who built her home here seven years ago. Ms. Castro-Arce says she is the target of racial remarks every time she walks along Main Street.

Her 8-year-old son, Christopher, has faced similar problems at John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Brewster, she added, describing classmates' comments like "You're brown and you're dumb."

One day when she arrived at the school to take Christopher to a doctor's appointment, Ms. Castro-Arce said, she listened in shock as a receptionist referred to him over the loudspeaker as "the dark Christopher," to distinguish him from a white classmate with the same name. Ms. Castro-Arce said she complained right away to the principal, Robin Young, who told her she would tell the receptionist "not to say things like that."

Ms. Young's office said last week that she was unavailable for comment.

As for the recent residents' meetings, Ms. Castro-Arce said she and her husband were upset by comments at one last month. Although it was organized ostensibly to discuss safety issues, she said, it ended with several audience members remarking that day laborers "lived like animals" and were turning Brewster "into a toilet."

Patricia Perez, community affairs coordinator for Putnam County, works with its Spanish-speaking population. "While I understand people's concerns about their children," she said, "I find that the situation was an overreaction. I think that at this point people are confused and divided over the fact that the faces in this community have been changing for a long time."

For the day laborers themselves, the issue has been anything but welcome. Emilio Romero, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who was standing on Main Street waiting for work one morning last month, said many of his fellow laborers were worried about what might happen next. Mr. Romero arrived in Brewster in 2004, he said, adding that on most days he makes about $100 doing construction or landscaping work, half of which he sends home to his wife and six children.

"Guatemala is beautiful," Mr. Romero said, speaking in Spanish. "But there was a shortage of food and a shortage of money. I couldn't buy my family new clothing or new shoes. I came to America to provide for my family."

Down the street from Mr. Romero stood another Guatemalan, Francisco, who declined to give his last name but said that he, too, was worried, and that he found the arrests hard to understand.

"We aren't harming anyone," he said. "Most people here think that we are criminals, but I don't feel like a criminal. The only crime we committed was coming here to look for work."

To help minimize friction between residents and the laborers, the village has plans this spring to open a center near its train station where workers can congregate.

Describing the planned center as more of a bus shelter with a bathroom, Ms. Perez said it was a temporary solution — a site leased from the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, which owns and oversees much of the land in the Hudson Valley watershed. She also said the village had the longer-term goal of building a center, to be modeled on similar facilities in Mount Kisco, where immigrants can take English and have access to other services.

THE idea for the center has garnered support from people like Jane Neri, who owns a pet rescue center that doubles as a thrift shop along Main Street in the heart of the village. Ms. Neri estimates that sales at her shop have plunged 70 percent in the last two years, ever since police patrols were scaled back and laborers began clustering in her doorway. She said that on most days at least 25 men linger in her doorway, which has an awning and gets plenty of sunlight.

"A lot of my truly good customers have told me point blank that they won't come back," she said. "It's not that the men are violent, it's just that the sheer number of them hanging in the doorway intimidates people. They're afraid."

But a center for immigrants costs money, which the village says it will not have for several years, according to Ms. Perez.

And even if it did have the means for a shelter, there is a good chance other hurdles would arise. At the village meetings, some residents have said they do not want their tax dollars supporting the center — or, for that matter, "paying for undocumented workers to be in jail." Many have said they would prefer instead that village and county officials push the federal government to do more.

At the last meeting, in early January, Ms. McLaughlin, whose daughter attends the Garden Street School, circulated a petition calling for action at the federal level, which the mayor of Brewster, John Degnan, and more than 150 people signed.

"I think you either need to make these people citizens and give them the American dream, or you need to start enforcing the laws that are already on the books," Ms. McLaughlin said. "It's not a race issue, it's a legal issue."

Yet where one resident sees legalities, another may see racism. Ms. Castro-Arce and her husband, also a lawyer, decided the incident at the ball field last month was the final straw: they put their house on the market and are now looking for a home in Westchester.

"I tell my husband all the time that coming here was a big mistake," she said. "I talk to other people about what we've encountered here all the time, and they can't believe it."

Kathleen M. McGrory contributed reporting for this article.

In any case, he added, Brewster authorities violated Mr. Jimeniz's civil rights by asking about his status and then contacting immigration officials.

I am truly speechless!