They do have homes, they just aren't in this country.

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http://www.10news.com/news/11042954/detail.html
Over 1,000 Local Illegal Immigrants Without Homes

POSTED: 9:52 am PST February 17, 2007
UPDATED: 10:18 am PST February 17, 2007

SAN DIEGO -- Most of the roughly 180 migrants rousted from McGongile Canyon three months ago have not returned, but that does not mean they've left the area, which hosts at least 1,600 agricultural and day laborers without homes.


Gerald Katz, who lives near McGonigle Canyon, told the San Diego Union- Tribune he still sees a few men climbing out of the canyon in the morning.

"It's fewer," Katz said. "But we still see them coming and going."

Some of the migrants have moved east, toward Rancho Penasquitos, and into more remote areas of the canyon.


"Eventually they come back," said John Thelen, head of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless. "It's like with any homeless sweep. They will move the urban homeless to another location for a while, then they will go back to where they were. And then they will do another sweep."


At least 1,600 homeless agricultural and day laborers call San Diego County home, according to the most recent count by the homeless task force, which considers that a conservative estimate. On Jan. 29, vandals attacked several encampments near state Route 56 in Rancho Penasquitos, slashing the men's belongings while most were out working.


Last week, police searched the home of a 34-year-old Chula Vista woman who had belonged to a local Minuteman activist group, looking for evidence. San Diego police are investigating the incident as a hate crime, The Union-Tribune reported. Police Capt. Boyd Long said he believed rural homelessness will eliminate itself as development pushes out farms. Fewer than 200 people were evicted in the most recent McGonigle cleanup, he said, far fewer than 750 or so in similar raid in 1994.


Tom Maddox, a member of the Carlsbad Farmworker Housing Coordinating Committee, a city-formed group created to address the problem, said: "My hunch is they have found other remote areas to stay and are keeping a low profile."


The regional task force's most recent countywide estimate of homeless agricultural workers and day laborers is lower than the 2,300 estimate it had used for years. Thelen said that, while some of the reduction might be due to individuals leaving or finding housing, much of it stems from new counting methods. In the past, local jurisdictions provided estimates; now volunteers go out and count. According to the San Diego County Farm Bureau, farms are moving inland where crops such as avocados and citrus require a year-round work force.