Thread: Day Laborers Sue Mamaroneck Police

Did you see this one? It sounds like we have a good source for some police chiefs to restock the rest of our once great nation.

http://wcbstv.com/watercooler/local_...162145921.html


I found it on chronwatch.

http://www.chronwatch-america.com/fo...0517fd48d26a58


Day Laborers Sue Mamaroneck Police
Workers No Longer To Be Asked About Immigration Status
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(CBS/AP) WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. Day laborers who successfully sued a Westchester village have won a tentative agreement that prohibits police officers from routinely asking their immigration status or otherwise discriminating against them, their lawyers said Monday.

In addition, the village must pay more than half a million dollars of the workers' legal fees, they said.

The agreement must be ratified by the Village of Mamaroneck Board of Trustees, which was to meet Monday night, and signed by federal Judge Colleen McMahon.

Village attorney Lino Sciaretta confirmed that an agreement had been reached but said he could not comment on it before the village voted.

Because it would be a federal court-approved settlement, the agreement could influence the treatment of day laborers elsewhere around the country, where they have become an increasingly visible symbol of the immigration issue.

McMahon ruled in November that the village, which is 23 miles north of New York City, discriminated against Hispanic day laborers when it closed a hiring site, forcing the workers onto the streets, and then stepped up street patrols.

"Since August 2004, and continuing into this past summer, the defendants have engaged in a campaign designed to drive out the Latino day laborers who gather on the streets of Mamaroneck to seek work," the judge said. "The fact that the day laborers were Latinos, and not whites, was, at least in part, a motivating factor in defendants' actions."

While finding the village liable, McMahon did not immediately impose a penalty, instead ordering the two sides to come up with recommendations in 10 days.

That was seven months ago, and the two sides have been meeting on-and-off since then, repeatedly winning extensions from the judge. The current deadline is June 20.

The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which represented the six Hispanic immigrant plaintiffs, said the agreement includes "specific prohibitions on police misconduct and discriminatory behavior towards day laborers, including a prohibition against routine police inquiry into the immigration status of day laborers."

It said a monitor, to be appointed by the judge, would ensure that the village complies. And it said the plaintiffs' lawyers would receive $550,000 from the village.

The laborers' lawyer, Alan Levine, said the workers "have sought from the village nothing more than to be left alone and be allowed to seek work. As a result of this agreement and Judge McMahon's forceful decision last November, they will be assured of that opportunity in the future. It is sad that it took a lengthy and costly lawsuit to establish such a fundamental right in Mamaroneck."

A call to Mayor Philip Trifiletti, a defendant in the lawsuit, was not immediately returned. Another defendant, police Commissioner Edward Flynn, was on vacation, his office said.

Not part of the agreement, but possibly a key element in reaching it, was the announcement last week by the Hispanic Resource Center that a new hiring site for day laborers is to open Tuesday in Mamaroneck on private property.

The village had set up a hiring site on the edge of a park in 2004, but closed it in February 2006, unhappy at the swelling numbers of laborers. Mamaroneck said its resources were being strained and it wanted other municipalities to take some of the load.

The number of workers went down and those who stayed took to the streets; the village put them and the contractors who came to hire them under increased scrutiny, launching what the judge found to be a campaign of harassment and ticketing.

Six Hispanic immigrant workers -- all identified as John Doe for fear of retaliation by immigration authorities -- took the village to court last September. They requested an injunction against what they called selective law enforcement and ethnic discrimination.

They said the village's crackdown violated the laborers' right to equal protection.

Testifying in Spanish, the laborers claimed that police intimidation forced them to move from the sidewalks though they were doing nothing wrong.

A man from Guatemala told the judge that one officer "stares at us, from behind dark sunglasses, with one hand on his gun" until the workers move along.

The village argued that it was only enforcing existing laws when it beefed up the police presence in the area around the park and set up traffic checkpoints that inconvenienced the contractors who came looking for temporary workers.

Under pressure from a federal law suit of the type that has been filed by the ACLU against many small communities across the country, the City of Mamaroneck, NY, agreed that it will not enforce federal laws concerning citizens of Mexico and other nations who are in the town illegally. Instead, it has agreed to provide special benefits to these citizens of other nations beyond those available to mere citizens of Mamaroneck. (See "Day-laborer hiring site greeted by cheers, jeers in Mamaroneck")

A federal judge is expected to approve this settlement. It will probably remain in place until a number of citizens of Mamaroneck are killed in criminal activities by these citizens of other nations, or local citizens are killed in drunk driving accidents by these citizens. Until then, it is unlikely that the City leaders of Mamaroneck will be either indicted or removed from office for contributing to criminal activity in their town.

http://www.theacru.org/blog/2007/06/cit ... mmigrants/