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Heat's on day laborers in Mamaroneck
By CANDICE FERRETTE
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: March 16, 2006)

MAMARONECK

During this week last year, Maudalyn Lopez was working in yards and atop roofs, closing each week with about $400 in his pocket.

That won't be the case this week.

"We would've expected to work every day this week," Lopez, a 34-year-old day laborer, said in Spanish. "But no contractors are picking us up because the police won't let them stop on the street. One police officer told me this is not the place to stand anymore."

Lopez, who was among a dozen men on Mamaroneck Avenue waiting for work yesterday morning, worried about making ends meet as the official "high season" for their work fast approaches with spring.

Furthermore, Hispanic advocates say signs, fliers and a heightened police presence have deterred potential employers and may be violating the workers' First Amendment rights.

But Mayor Philip Trifiletti said police were doing nothing more than enforcing village code while plans are in the works for a new hiring site to replace the one that closed Feb. 1 in Columbus Park.

As contractors and homeowners gear up for warm weather projects, the sight of unemployed men, their advocates and police patrols are a reminder of the debate over how to manage the growing population of mostly illegal immigrant day laborers in the Lower Hudson Valley.

In Brewster, charges were reduced this week against day laborers who were arrested after being found playing soccer on public school grounds, yet residents there say the larger immigration issue continues to divide the community.

On Monday, four of the eight men arrested pleaded guilty in court to violations instead of their original misdemeanor charges. They were sentenced to time served and released on the condition that they promise to stay off Brewster school grounds for a year.

While police haven't sanctioned day laborers in the village of Mamaroneck, a lawyer for a high-profile advocacy organization was out yesterday morning to gather information for a possible lawsuit if the village and the laborers do not come to an agreement.

Kaanji L. Irby, an attorney with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc., which successfully represented day laborers in a housing battle in Farmingville, Long Island, interviewed the laborers and assessed "the police presence" to determine if the laborers' constitutional rights were being violated.

"When they stand out here on the streets, they are saying, 'I'm looking for a job, I want to be hired,' " Irby said. "We'd be looking into whether the police being here are restricting these individuals' right to get that point across to the contractors. ... The First Amendment applies to all people on American soil — whether you're a citizen or not."

There were more than five police officers making traffic stops on Mamaroneck Avenue between 7:30 and 9:30 a.m., mostly as part of an organized checkpoint near Sheldrake Place. Two officers were stationed at Van Randst Place, handing out fliers in Spanish that detailed the Board of Trustees' 3-2 vote to close the village's official hiring site for day laborers at Columbus Park.

"All they are doing is maintaining control and enforcing the laws of the village," Trifiletti said. "Wherever there's a gathering of people, you need to have a police presence."

After several closed-door meetings with the Mamaroneck supervisor, the mayor of Larchmont and members of the local clergy, a potential hiring site has been identified at a part of Saxon Woods Park that is within Mamaroneck town borders, Trifiletti said yesterday.

The park, which is owned by Westchester County, would work as a site because it is away from residential neighborhoods and accessible by bus, he said.

"We can't designate a place, but we're saying that it's a much better place for them to go," Trifiletti said.

But Janet Rolon, a day labor hiring coordinator employed by the Hispanic Resource Center of Larchmont and Mamaroneck, said the laborers need to gather at a location that's in walking distance from the village.

She said laborers who live in the village probably wouldn't take a train or bus to a hiring site.

"That's why they are here, even if there's no place for them to stand. They depend on this money and spend that money in this village," Rolon said.