Thread: Immigrant Workers Attract Attention From Activists

http://www.fresnobee.com/state_wire/sto ... 1789c.html

Immigrant workers attract attention from activists

By MIRIAM JORDAN, The Wall Street Journal
(Updated Monday, July 18, 2005, 6:25 AM

They stand on street corners and in parking lots, waiting for builders or homeowners to drive by with an offer of a day's work cutting grass or nailing wallboard.

The number of immigrant day laborers is rising fast on the heels of the construction boom. Immigrants who lack permanent employment, relying instead on jobs that may change from one day to the next, are a fixture of the U.S. economy, numbering as many as one million nationwide, according to advocacy groups. A substantial number of these workers - no one knows how many - are in the U.S. illegally.

It falls chiefly to individual communities to manage this labor pool and related issues of public safety and quality of life. Some municipalities have responded by opening hiring halls for day laborers; others have banned curbside soliciting. Now, the issue is becoming a magnet for activist groups on both sides of the broader political debate over immigration.

Last month in Victorville, Calif., an anti-immigrant group called SaveOurState.org picketed a Home Depot Inc. store where day laborers congregate, while members of human-rights groups counterprotested across the street. "The debate about immigration is happening at this level - in our neighborhoods," says Pablo Alvarado, national coordinator of the National Day Labor Organizing Network, an immigrant-rights group based in Los Angeles. Similar demonstrations have recently taken place in other cities in California and elsewhere.

Up to 25,000 day laborers gather every day at more than 100 points across Los Angeles County, according to the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty at the University of California, Los Angeles. In the New York metropolitan area, the second-largest market for these job seekers, up to 15,000 people gather at about 60 points. An estimated 80 day-labor centers operate in the U.S., and three-quarters of them have opened in the past five to seven years, according to a study set for release in September by Abel Valenzuela Jr., professor of Chicano studies and urban planning at UCLA, and Nik Theodore, director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Many of the centers are operated jointly by local governments and community groups. The centers are "a burgeoning policy response to the day-labor issue across the country," says Prof. Valenzuela.

Proponents of day-laborer centers say they offer a practical solution to community problems such as traffic jams and public urination associated with the laborer pickup points, and also help protect workers from being exploited. "What we are trying to fix is casual labor standing on the street to seek work. We can't fix the immigration laws of this country," says Ellen Kaminsky, a supporter of a day-labor center in Herndon, Va., proposed by a coalition of religious groups, nonprofits and businesses.

Critics say the centers provide services to illegal immigrants who are taking jobs away from Americans, and also help employers who cheat the government of tax revenue by paying workers off the books. "We should not be helping those who entered this country without following the rules," says Ann Hull, a town council member from Herndon who opposes the day center.

Some efforts to accommodate day laborers have overcome resistance. In Baltimore, the city council has adopted a resolution in support the idea of a day-labor center, although funding hasn't been hammered out. Council President Sheila Dixon says a bill establishing guidelines for hiring day laborers is expected to be introduced in August.

A church in Duluth, Ga., lends space where day workers can go to solicit work; the Duluth Police Department issues laminated identification cards to the workers, legal and illegal alike. Many don't object to giving their names to law-enforcement authorities. "It's all organized and safe," says Col. Brian Carney, deputy chief of police, who says he has been fielding calls from other towns interested in the program.

But in Arizona, state legislators in May voted to ban cities from funding day-labor centers, on the grounds that they enable employers to hire illegal immigrants. And in Costa Mesa, Calif., the city council voted this year to close a day-laborer center that opened in 1988. The closing has been postponed twice: Local churches and community groups have asked for time to come up with an alternative to the current facility. Closing is currently set for Dec. 31.

In Herndon, a town of 22,000 in Virginia's wealthy Fairfax County, the coalition Project Hope and Harmony wants to open a hiring center on the current site of a police station. Today as many as 150 immigrant day-laborers gather at a 7-Eleven parking lot. Herndon's mayor and six of its seven town council members support the project, and the county has offered to contribute public funds to it.

A public hearing last week drew 250 people, who spilled out of the Herndon municipal center's chambers into the lobby and side rooms, where they watched the proceedings on TV screens. A handful of protesters marched outside.

Among the Herndon center's opponents is the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington, D.C.-based group that last year promoted Arizona's Proposition 200, which seeks to restrict undocumented immigrants from obtaining a range of public services. Mike Hethmon, a staff attorney for the group, says it has contacted Herndon residents opposing the center and put town officials on notice that the plan could violate laws against aiding illegal immigrants. "One of my goals is to bring ... the first court challenge against the operation of these sites," Mr. Hethmon says. "We go in, find people who feel hurt and assist them."

Some centers have won major corporate backers. In March, the city of Houston, responding to a community group request, agreed to disburse $90,000 in federal grant money for a day-labor center east of downtown. Bank of America Corp. contributed an additional $50,000 to help fund services for the immigrant workers; some local banks donated furniture. Employee volunteers from Exxon Mobil Corp. painted and cleaned the building. "It's better for the neighborhood that workers are inside. It's better for the workers," says Broderick Bagert, an organizer for the group, the Metropolitan Organization of the Industrial Areas Foundation.

Since opening two months ago, the East End Worker Center has registered some 120 men who used to congregate on a street corner about a block away. Now, contractors looking for workers drive up. They don't have to register; some don't get out of their trucks. To deter unscrupulous employers, a coordinator at the center notes their license-plate numbers. There are plans to begin offering free English and personal-finance classes, as well as legal advice, at the center.

Alberto Calderon, an undocumented immigrant from Colombia who has been in the U.S. for eight years, was among the job seekers on a recent morning. In a good week, he earns up to $300, mainly in painting and carpentry jobs. Before the center opened, Mr. Calderon would wait for work under a tree if it was raining or hot. Now, he has access to chairs, water, coffee - and a bathroom. Says Mr. Calderon, "We are comfortable and very grateful for this place."

The citizens of these towns are in for such a rude awakening. By the time they realize that their traitorous town leaders have betrayed them by opening the the flood gates to illegal invaders...it may be too late.

Alberto Calderon, an undocumented immigrant from Colombia who has been in the U.S. for eight years, was among the job seekers on a recent morning. In a good week, he earns up to $300, mainly in painting and carpentry jobs.

Jobs that USED to pay double that amount (or more) to AMERICAN workers!