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  1. #1
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    CA: Impact of migrant camps is uncertain

    Poway is a nice town, know it well.
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    http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib ... grant.html

    Impact of migrant camps is uncertain

    4 illegal villages razed in 6 months

    By Lisa Petrillo
    STAFF WRITER

    February 8, 2007

    Poway officials have been waging a long-running battle against migrant workers and day laborers who camp in undeveloped areas of the city while they work in area fields, at construction sites and in residential landscaping.

    Four migrant encampments have been removed in Poway over the past six months, but the men are getting harder to roust as they move higher into the hills.

    The City Council approved a progress report about encampments without comment Tuesday.

    How much the city spends to shut down the illegal villages of plywood and tarp-covered shacks is hard to estimate, said city planner Patti Brindle.

    “We do lots of abatements, weed abatement, litter abatement,” Brindle said. “It's all in the course of our job.”

    The cost to clear out the last three encampments was less than $3,000, by Brindle's estimate.

    What's hard to gauge is the impact of the encampments on crime, said Sgt. Chuck Battle of the Sheriff's Department, which provides law enforcement services for Poway.

    Poway has the lowest crime rate in the county, Battle said, while at the same time North County has the region's largest number of undocumented workers.

    Migrants have become a political football in the debate over federal immigration policies. Advocates argue that the workers are generally poor and without legal working papers so they live in encampments to save rent money and avoid being caught and deported.

    Opponents, such as the Minuteman Project, say the migrant workers are lawbreakers, having entered the country illegally, and should be prosecuted.

    Over the years, San Diego County's migrant camps have been the target of vigilantes who take it upon themselves to clear them out, occasionally resorting to violence. In July 2000, seven Rancho Peñasquitos teenagers were arrested and charged with beating five migrants in their 60s at an encampment in Carmel Valley.

    What has made the biggest impact on Poway's illegal encampments has not just been the city tearing them down, said Brindle, but the area's booming economy.

    “We've seen the encampment population decline as the city builds out,” she said. “There's less open land to camp out in and less opportunities for them to find work.”

    Poway's most recent encampments were found mostly on city property, near Hilleary Park, near Valle Verde Park, behind the Lively Center on Poway Road and on a slope on the south side of Camino Del Norte west of Pomerado Road.

    City workers cleared three encampments, officials said, while private contractors removed the fourth. City officials have contacted the owner of a property where an additional encampment is located, on a hill behind businesses on Pomerado Road near Poway Road. Contractors are expected to remove it.

    If private landowners do not clear out encampments, Brindle said city crews do the work and bill the landowner, adding a $60 fee.

    A new challenge for the city is reaching camps that have moved higher into the rugged hills hugging the city, officials said. They have identified encampments so remote that city crews have to check on them by helicopter. Officials said they are working on shutting them down as well.
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  2. #2
    Senior Member Beckyal's Avatar
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    Impact of encampments

    If they don't clean the encampments out, there will be lawsuits and demands of proper housing shortly. The ACLU will shortly file a lawsuit saying how dare the city not provide housing for these poor illegals. Give an inch and the illegals want three miles. Close the borders and fix the problem.

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