South Florida laborers feeling nervous over proposed immigration bill

A proposed bill that will ban illegal immigrants from soliciting jobs in public places leaves some laborers feeling uneasy.

The Miami Herald
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
January 23, 2011

Every morning, laborers from various Latin American countries gather in the parking lot of the Bird Road shopping center near Southwest 112th Avenue and wait for contractors to hire them for a day.

Similar scenes take place every day in hundreds of places in Florida. Yet all of that will disappear if a bill to be debated in the Legislature in March finally passes.

The bill will forbid laborers without any immigration status to gather in public places to be hired. It would also allow the police to investigate the immigration status of anyone detained.

Last Friday, five laborers interviewed in the parking lot of the Bird Road shopping center spoke about the impact the measure could have.

FEELING MARGINAL

"Politicians do all this to take away our rights,'' said Honduran Angel Casillas, one of dozens of laborers waiting to be hired in the parking lot of the shopping center in front of a McDonald's.

"We are foreigners here and we really don't have rights, and if the bill passes we'll have fewer rights yet. We won't be able to work, eat or send money to our families in our countries.''

Casillas' sentiments reverberated among other laborers. One of them, Carlos Alberto Zavala, also from Honduras, said the solution is to grant them legal status.

"The simplest thing is to avoid this problem by giving legal status to those who are here illegally,'' Zavala said. "The solution is to legalize everybody and open up the jobs.''

If the bill, introduced by state Rep. William Snyder, passes, laborers without any immigration status will not be allowed to offer their services. Snyder, a Republican from Stuart, is a former Miami-Dade police officer.

"It would be illegal for a person who is not an authorized foreigner and is in the United States illegally to gather in public places to apply for work, be employed or work as an independent contractor in this state,'' according to the bill.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

Besides fearing the possibility of a state illegal immigration law like the one implemented in Arizona, laborers also expressed concerns over recent statements and economic reports suggesting that illegal immigrants are one of the factors causing the nation's current crisis.

A study published Thursday by Reuters said that more than 1 million immigrants, most of them illegal, were able to find work in the last two years of the economic crisis.

During the period, the unemployment rate reached nearly 10 percent nationally.

The study, done by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, is based on information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

UNDESIRED WORK

Some laborers said that if it weren't for immigrants, especially the illegal ones, many jobs in the United States would remain undone.

"We do the work others don't want to do,'' said Angel Calles, of Guatemala.

But other laborers agreed that illegal workers contribute to U.S. unemployment among U.S. citizens and legal residents.

Armando Valdés, a legal Cuban immigrant who waited for work with illegal laborers, said that these laborers charge less for their work and are thus more likely to be hired which is very unfair to us who are here legally.

"A job worth $15 they will do it for $7 or $8,'' Valdés said. "They charge less. A welder charges $15 and they do it for $8.''

Zavala, however, said that the nation's economy sunk because the federal government has restricted immigration. ``This country has gone down because it has not opened up immigration,'' Zavala said.

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