http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/nyreg ... mpton.html

November 22, 2005
Crackdown Deters Day Labor Employers
By PETER C. BELLER
EAST HAMPTON, N.Y., Nov. 21 - The railroad station here looked different on Monday. The crowd of 20 or so Hispanic day laborers was gone, having abandoned the sidewalk in front of the station where the workers had long congregated on weekdays to wait for a job to drive up.

They were the targets of a crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants begun by the East Hampton Village police on Nov. 14. Lacking the power to enforce immigration laws, the police instead began reporting the license numbers of cars and trucks that picked up day laborers to state and federal agencies for investigation.

A similar police crackdown 12 days ago in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven store about 45 miles away in Farmingville, N.Y., which included several arrests for trespassing, was not as successful. Day laborers simply moved to the sidewalk.

Gathering spots for day laborers are found across Long Island and have long been a sore point among residents. This latest police tactic - in effect, scaring away would-be employers - appears to be having the desired effect here.

In East Hampton, a 21-year-old Ecuadorean laborer said in an interview on Monday that he had been working up to seven days a week until the crackdown but was hired for only one day last week while waiting for work at the train station.

Sitting on a bench with two friends in front of Bucket's Deli on Newtown Lane, the worker, who said he was here illegally, said that an anxious employer, who had picked him and some friends up at the station, asked them to get out of the car after the police began to follow the vehicles.

The worker said that many of the day laborers who once gathered at the station were congregating elsewhere on Long Island to find work.

That is the result Chief Gerard Larsen Jr. of the East Hampton Village police had hoped for when he began his campaign to end the daily gathering at the station, on Railroad Avenue. "I think that they've stopped coming out because they know they're not going to get work," Chief Larsen said last week.

Unlike Farmingville, where there has been longstanding tension over the presence of illegal immigrants, the Hamptons have generally been tolerant of day laborers, who perform whatever unskilled jobs the large service industry here requires.

But East Hampton Village decided to discourage day laborers from gathering after complaints from residents and after an undercover operation during the summer that, while failing to find any evidence of extortion against the laborers, did provide proof that immigration, tax and labor laws were being violated.

Chief Larsen said he decided to discourage contractors by announcing that his officers would forward the license plate numbers of cars and trucks seen picking up day laborers to the Internal Revenue Service, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the New York State Department of Labor.

"You cannot criticize the day laborers," Chief Larsen said. "They're trying to make a living. By going after the employers it seems right."

Contractors in search of day laborers stopped pulling up to the train station two days after the police began conspicuously recording license plate numbers. The day laborers stopped showing up soon afterward.

A spokeswoman for the State Labor Department said that it would not investigate based solely on a license plate. Mark Thorn, an immigration spokesman in New York, said his agency's priority is illegal aliens who commit other crimes.

Except for several letters in the local newspaper criticizing the new police policy, reaction has been overwhelmingly favorable, said Larry Cantwell, the village administrator.

"People in the community thought it was long overdue," said Mr. Cantwell, noting that as many as 100 laborers a day waited for work in the summer. "We're not going to solve the national issue of immigration. We're simply trying to deal with this at one location where we feel it's gotten out of control."

While there had never been any arrests at the station, town officials say there had been a steady stream of complaints from residents about men urinating and whistling at women, and about the public flaunting of tax and immigration laws. Some contractors, unhappy with competitors who hired the laborers, have been thanking him, Chief Larsen said.

Things have not gone as smoothly in Farmingville, where employees at the 7-Eleven at Horse Block Road and North Ocean Avenue called the police early this month because day laborers were spending hours in the parking lot waiting for contractors.

About a dozen workers were gathered on the sidewalk in front of the Farmingville store at 8 a.m. on Monday while others stood in twos or threes scattered up and down Horse Block Road. On the corner two white residents carried signs urging the deportation of illegal immigrants.

Although a store manager would not answer questions on Monday, Margaret Chabris, a spokeswoman for 7-Eleven Inc. in Dallas, said that Greg Kaloustian, the local owner, inherited the laborer gatherings when he bought the franchise in May.

After 7-Eleven representatives met with Latino advocates and police and county officials, signs were posted at the store in English and Spanish warning people not to loiter for more than 30 minutes. A security guard was also hired to police the parking lot, at a busy rush-hour intersection, Ms. Chabris said.

One laborer, a 28-year-old from Mexico City, said would-be employers had become wary of looking for workers near the store. His friend, 22, also from Mexico City, agreed.

Then a U-Haul truck pulled up and several other men waiting for work scrambled toward it and then climbed inside.