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Day workers
Washington's failure on immigration reform puts burden on municipalities

Nov 24 2006


Fairly or unfairly, gatherings of day workers have become a symbol of the failure of Washington to secure the nation's borders and adopt immigration reform.

It's widely assumed that these day workers, mostly Hispanic, are all illegal immigrants. That's not true, although many of them are.

For municipalities, these day-worker gatherings are difficult to manage. Across the nation, police report safety problems as day workers run into streets toward contractors' vehicles.

Other municipal officials worry about the image presented by these gatherings. They are not exactly something you'd put on a Chamber of Commerce brochure -- and the gatherings tend to intimidate other residents who want to drive through or shop in areas where the workers gather.

As a result, municipalities have been trying to discourage the gatherings -- and ending up in court because of those tactics.

The latest ruling came Monday in a case involving the village of Mamaroneck in Westchester County.

Federal District Judge Colleen McMahon ruled the village discriminated against Hispanic day workers when it stepped up police patrols and aggressively fined contractors who approached the day workers on public streets.

During a week-long trial, testimony showed police ignored other obvious infractions, such as parents blocking traffic to pick up students at school, while showing zero-tolerance toward anything involving the day workers.

This is not the first time laws that prohibit discrimination and allow gatherings in public places have helped day workers.

Just last week, officials in Freehold, N.J., ended a three-year court battle by agreeing to allow day workers to seek work in public places without being fined.

And in May, a federal judge prohibited the police in Redondo Beach, Calif., from arresting day workers for violating an ordinance against soliciting work in public places.

Danbury has had its own problems with the day worker gathering in Kennedy Park. It is not the right place for such a gathering.

As Judge McMahon found, there is no law that requires a community to provide a hiring hall for day workers. But because workers and contractors have a right to gather, many communities become involved in deciding where they will gather -- to answer concerns about safety and appropriateness.

That is what must happen in Danbury. Mayor Mark Boughton has been discussing the issue with immigrant groups, but it is really the immigrant groups and their advocates that should step up and solve this problem.

Municipalities should not have to shoulder the problems caused by Washington's failure to secure the borders, enforce current immigration laws and adopt reforms that bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows.

But that is what municipalities will have to do until President Bush and members of Congress get serious about this issue.


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