http://www.signonsandiego.com

Day-laborer protesters, backers keep wary eye

By J. Harry Jones
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
July 23, 2006

VISTA – At the northeast corner of Escondido and South Santa Fe avenues yesterday morning, there were people observing people observing people.

Even a full-size, papier-mâché dummy wearing camouflage pants and black boots, designed to mock the members of the Minuteman Project, watched with a fake video camera in hand.

All over North County yesterday, the same scene was playing out at day-labor gathering sites where Latino workers waited to be hired.

The Minutemen and various subsets such as the Vista Citizens Brigade and the Encinitas Citizens Brigade stood side by side with the immigrant workers lining the street and waved signs such as “Deport Illegals,” “No Amnesty” and “By Order of the Minutemen and Women. Day Labor Site Closed Today. Illegal to Hire Illegals.”

Some of the laborers also held signs, provided by various pro-immigrant organizations, that read “Many of Us Are Here Legally” and “If You Don't Do Your Work, Who Will? Not the Minutemen.”

At a different gathering site off Encinitas Boulevard just west of Interstate 5, one activist had a banana peel flung at her from a passing car while holding a large sign reading “The Minutemen. Today's Koo Koo Klan.”

The Minutemen targeted about a half-dozen sites yesterday, not just in Vista and Encinitas, but also in Carlsbad, Oceanside and Ramona.

And where they were, so were activists monitoring the Minutemen.

“We're here to observe and videotape,” said Joanne Yoon of the San Diego Legal Observer Coalition, who was in Vista and was responsible for the papier-mâché dummy. “We're making sure the laborers' civil rights aren't violated.”

Vista is a hot point in the day-labor debate. On Friday, a city ordinance is scheduled to go into effect – pending a legal challenge – that would require homeowners, landscapers and anyone else who wants to hire laborers off the street to register with the city. The ordinance also requires employers to carry that license in their vehicles, along with a day-labor “term sheet” describing the work, the pay rate and how to contact the employer.

In Vista yesterday morning, two Vista code compliance officers observed the scene and were prepared to hand out notices about the new law to any employers who came by. But possibly due to the large gathering of protesters, few did, while dozens of workers stood around idly.

“It's for their own protection,” code compliance officer Marco Carreon said, referring to the workers.

Also in the parking lot in Vista were several sheriff's deputies, there in case the confrontations escalated. There were no reports of violence at any of the sites, officials said. The worst that happened was the occasional exchange of insults.

Many expect Friday, when the Vista ordinance should take effect, to be more volatile.

The activist carrying the “Koo Koo Klan” sign who had the banana peel thrown at her was Claudia Smith of the California Rural Assistance Foundation. Smith said she doesn't believe the Minutemen's claims that the issue is about documented or undocumented workers.

“It's about profound discomfort about the changing demographics,” Smith said. “These demographics are largely irreversible. They are going to have to deal with it. If you want to harass Mexicans, where else are you going to go but where they gather?”

Standing 20 feet away, Saul Lisauskas of the Encinitas Citizens Brigade couldn't have disagreed more strongly.

“The issue here is we have to stop the nut case of providing work for the whole Third World,” Lisauskas said. “Today, Vista is doing something about it. Here in Encinitas, we're going to keep hammering away.”



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J. Harry Jones: (760) 737-7579; jharry.jones@uniontrib.com